diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:55:32 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:55:32 -0700 |
| commit | fbbf78473f93cfa8c40e956ef2276e8770bf1637 (patch) | |
| tree | 7d7130856831d7afb0d281abf15ff34ac083eb36 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-8.txt | 10091 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 220996 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 1532643 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/31291-h.htm | 12863 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img1.jpg | bin | 0 -> 28986 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img2.jpg | bin | 0 -> 147607 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img221.jpg | bin | 0 -> 13541 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img222.jpg | bin | 0 -> 15738 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img223a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16459 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img223b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14872 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img224.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14472 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img266.jpg | bin | 0 -> 36861 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img274.jpg | bin | 0 -> 52944 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img287a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1355 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img287b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 5289 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img288.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2056 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img289a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2789 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img289b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1990 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img289c.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1532 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img289d.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2153 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img291a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1778 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img291b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2147 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img292a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 3391 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img292b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1964 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img292c.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2485 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img295.jpg | bin | 0 -> 7624 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img296.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1802 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img299.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1849 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img3.jpg | bin | 0 -> 117591 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img300.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1699 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img302.jpg | bin | 0 -> 29948 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img304.jpg | bin | 0 -> 28323 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img306.jpg | bin | 0 -> 25740 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img308.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31143 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img310.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12931 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img313.jpg | bin | 0 -> 24433 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img315a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14505 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img315b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1606 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img318.jpg | bin | 0 -> 23791 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img320.jpg | bin | 0 -> 23843 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img322.jpg | bin | 0 -> 26589 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img324.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31547 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img326.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31232 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img338.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2373 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img340.jpg | bin | 0 -> 37628 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img344.jpg | bin | 0 -> 37528 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img348.jpg | bin | 0 -> 35122 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img352.jpg | bin | 0 -> 39295 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img356.jpg | bin | 0 -> 48741 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img361.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31037 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img363.jpg | bin | 0 -> 37555 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img364.jpg | bin | 0 -> 36264 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img381.jpg | bin | 0 -> 37373 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img382.jpg | bin | 0 -> 66146 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img383.jpg | bin | 0 -> 60789 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img4.jpg | bin | 0 -> 8032 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291-h/images/img5.jpg | bin | 0 -> 4027 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291.txt | 10091 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 31291.zip | bin | 0 -> 220879 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
62 files changed, 33061 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31291-8.txt b/31291-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc06187 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10091 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - +Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson + + +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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) + Juvenilia and Other Papers; The Pentland Rising; Sketches; College Papers; Notes and Essays Chiefly of the Road; Criticisms; An Appeal to the Clergy of the Church Of Scotland; The Charity Bazaar; The Light-Keeper; On a New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses; On the Thermal Influence of Forests; Essays of Travel; War Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-Book + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 16, 2010 [eBook #31291] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS +STEVENSON - SWANSTON EDITION VOL. XXII (OF 25)*** + + +E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 31291-h.htm or 31291-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31291/31291-h/31291-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31291/31291-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + Letters following a carat (^) were originally printed in + superscript. + + A list of corrections is at the end of this e-book + + + + + + THE WORKS OF + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + SWANSTON EDITION + VOLUME XXII + + _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five + Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies + have been printed, of which only Two Thousand + Copies are for sale._ + + _This is No._ .......... + +[Illustration: R. L. S. SPEARING FISH IN THE BOW OF THE SCHOONER +"EQUATOR"] + + THE WORKS OF + ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON + + VOLUME TWENTY-TWO + + + LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND + WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL + AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM + HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN + AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII + + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + + +CONTENTS + + JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS + + THE PENTLAND RISING + + PAGE + I. THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT 3 + II. THE BEGINNING 6 + III. THE MARCH OF THE REBELS 8 + IV. RULLION GREEN 13 + V. A RECORD OF BLOOD 17 + + + SKETCHES + + I. THE SATIRIST 25 + II. NUITS BLANCHES 27 + III. THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES 30 + IV. NURSES 34 + V. A CHARACTER 37 + + + COLLEGE PAPERS + + I. EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824 41 + II. THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY 45 + III. DEBATING SOCIETIES 53 + IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS 58 + V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE 63 + + + NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD + + I. A RETROSPECT 71 + II. COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK 80 + III. ROADS 90 + IV. NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN 97 + V. ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES 103 + VI. AN AUTUMN EFFECT 112 + VII. A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY 132 + VIII. FOREST NOTES 142 + + + CRITICISMS + + I. LORD LYTTON'S "FABLES IN SONG" 171 + II. SALVINI'S MACBETH 180 + III. BAGSTER'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" 186 + + + AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 199 + + THE CHARITY BAZAAR 213 + + THE LIGHT-KEEPER 217 + + ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES 220 + + ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS 225 + + + ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + I. DAVOS IN WINTER 241 + II. HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS 244 + III. ALPINE DIVERSIONS 248 + IV. THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS 252 + + + STEVENSON AT PLAY + + INTRODUCTION BY LLOYD OSBOURNE 259 + + WAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM STEVENSON'S NOTE-BOOK 263 + + + THE DAVOS PRESS + + MORAL EMBLEMS, ETC.: FACSIMILES + + ADVERTISEMENT OF BLACK CANYON + + BLACK CANYON, OR WILD ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST + + NOT I, AND OTHER POEMS + + MORAL EMBLEMS + + ADVERTISEMENT OF MORAL EMBLEMS: EDITION DE LUXE + + ADVERTISEMENT OF MORAL EMBLEMS: SECOND COLLECTION + + MORAL EMBLEMS: SECOND COLLECTION + + A MARTIAL ELEGY FOR SOME LEAD SOLDIERS + + ADVERTISEMENT OF THE GRAVER AND THE PEN + + THE GRAVER AND THE PEN + + + MORAL TALES + + ROBIN AND BEN; OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY + + THE BUILDER'S DOOM + + + + +JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS + + + + + THE PENTLAND RISING + + A PAGE OF HISTORY + 1666 + + +A cloud of witnesses ly here, Who for Christ's interest did appear. + +_Inscription on Battle-field at Rullion Green._ + + + EDINBURGH + + ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 PRINCES STREET + 1866 + +_Facsimile of original Title-page_ + + + + +THE PENTLAND RISING + +I + +THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT + + "Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost see, + This tomb doth show for what some men did die." + + _Monument, Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh_, 1661-1668.[1] + + +Two hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, the memory +whereof has been in great measure lost or obscured by the deep tragedies +which followed it. It is, as it were, the evening of the night of +persecution--a sort of twilight, dark indeed to us, but light as the +noonday when compared with the midnight gloom which followed. This fact, +of its being the very threshold of persecution, lends it, however, an +additional interest. + +The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were "out of measure +increased," says Bishop Burnet, "by the new incumbents who were put in +the places of the ejected preachers, and were generally very mean and +despicable in all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard; +they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were openly vicious. +They ... were indeed the dreg and refuse of the northern parts. Those of +them who arose above contempt or scandal were men of such violent +tempers that they were as much hated as the others were despised."[2] It +was little to be wondered at, from this account, that the country-folk +refused to go to the parish church, and chose rather to listen to outed +ministers in the fields. But this was not to be allowed, and their +persecutors at last fell on the method of calling a roll of the +parishioners' names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of twenty +shillings Scots to the name of each absenter. In this way very large +debts were incurred by persons altogether unable to pay. Besides this, +landlords were fined for their tenants' absences, tenants for their +landlords', masters for their servants', servants for their masters', +even though they themselves were perfectly regular in their attendance. +And as the curates were allowed to fine with the sanction of any common +soldier, it may be imagined that often the pretexts were neither very +sufficient nor well proven. + +When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, and household +utensils were seized upon, or a number of soldiers, proportionate to his +wealth, were quartered on the offender. The coarse and drunken privates +filled the houses with woe; snatched the bread from the children to feed +their dogs; shocked the principles, scorned the scruples, and blasphemed +the religion of their humble hosts; and when they had reduced them to +destitution, sold the furniture, and burned down the roof-tree which was +consecrated to the peasants by the name of Home. For all this attention +each of these soldiers received from his unwilling landlord a certain +sum of money per day--three shillings sterling, according to _Naphtali._ +And frequently they were forced to pay quartering money for more men +than were in reality "cessed on them." At that time it was no strange +thing to behold a strong man begging for money to pay his fines, and +many others who were deep in arrears, or who had attracted attention in +some other way, were forced to flee from their homes, and take refuge +from arrest and imprisonment among the wild mosses of the uplands.[3] + +One example in particular we may cite: + +John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was, unfortunately for +himself, a Nonconformist. First he was fined in four hundred pounds +Scots, and then through cessing he lost nineteen hundred and +ninety-three pounds Scots. He was next obliged to leave his house and +flee from place to place, during which wanderings he lost his horse. His +wife and children were turned out of doors, and then his tenants were +fined till they too were almost ruined. As a final stroke, they drove +away all his cattle to Glasgow and sold them.[4] Surely it was time that +something were done to alleviate so much sorrow, to overthrow such +tyranny. + +About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person calling himself +Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the people to revolt. He displayed +some documents purporting to be from the northern Covenanters, and +stating that they were prepared to join in any enterprise commenced by +their southern brethren. The leader of the persecutors was Sir James +Turner, an officer afterwards degraded for his share in the matter. "He +was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk, and that was very +often," said Bishop Burnet. "He was a learned man, but had always been +in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders. He told me he had +no regard to any law, but acted, as he was commanded, in a military +way."[5] + +This was the state of matters, when an outrage was committed which gave +spirit and determination to the oppressed countrymen, lit the flame of +insubordination, and for the time at least recoiled on those who +perpetrated it with redoubled force. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] "Theater of Mortality," p. 10; Edin. 1713. + + [2] "History of My Own Times," beginning 1660, by Bishop Gilbert + Burnet, p. 158. + + [3] Wodrow's "Church History," Book II. chap. i. sect. 1. + + [4] Crookshank's "Church History," 1751, second ed. p. 202. + + [5] Burnet, p. 348. + + + + +II + +THE BEGINNING + + I love no warres, If it must be + I love no jarres, Warre we must see + Nor strife's fire. (So fates conspire), + May discord cease, May we not feel + Let's live in peace: The force of steel: + This I desire. This I desire. + + T. JACKSON, 1651.[6] + + +Upon Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George Deanes and three +other soldiers set upon an old man in the clachan of Dairy and demanded +the payment of his fines. On the old man's refusing to pay, they forced +a large party of his neighbours to go with them and thresh his corn. The +field was a certain distance out of the clachan, and four persons, +disguised as countrymen, who had been out on the moors all night, met +this mournful drove of slaves, compelled by the four soldiers to work +for the ruin of their friend. However, chilled to the bone by their +night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded to the +village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the +room where they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were about +to roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too much for +them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene of this gross +outrage, and at first merely requested that the captive should be +released. On the refusal of the two soldiers who were in the front room, +high words were given and taken on both sides, and the other two rushed +forth from an adjoining chamber and made at the countrymen with drawn +swords. One of the latter, John M'Lellan of Barscob, drew a pistol and +shot the corporal in the body. The pieces of tobacco-pipe with which it +was loaded, to the number of ten at least, entered him, and he was so +much disturbed that he never appears to have recovered, for we find long +afterwards a petition to the Privy Council requesting a pension for him. +The other soldiers then laid down their arms, the old man was rescued, +and the rebellion was commenced.[7] + +And now we must turn to Sir James Turner's memoirs of himself; for, +strange to say, this extraordinary man was remarkably fond of literary +composition, and wrote, besides the amusing account of his own +adventures just mentioned, a large number of essays and short +biographies, and a work on war, entitled "Pallas Armata." The following +are some of the shorter pieces: "Magick," "Friendship," "Imprisonment," +"Anger," "Revenge," "Duells," "Cruelty," "A Defence of some of the +Ceremonies of the English Liturgie--to wit--Bowing at the Name of Jesus, +The frequent repetition of the Lord's Prayer and Good Lord deliver us, +Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets, Cannonicall Coats," etc. From +what we know of his character we should expect "Anger" and "Cruelty" to +be very full and instructive. But what earthly right he had to meddle +with ecclesiastical subjects it is hard to see. + +Upon the 12th of the month he had received some information concerning +Gray's proceedings, but as it was excessively indefinite in its +character, he paid no attention to it. On the evening of the 14th, +Corporal Deanes was brought into Dumfries, who affirmed stoutly that he +had been shot while refusing to sign the Covenant--a story rendered +singularly unlikely by the after conduct of the rebels. Sir James +instantly despatched orders to the cessed soldiers either to come to +Dumfries or meet him on the way to Dairy, and commanded the thirteen or +fourteen men in the town with him to come at nine next morning to his +lodging for supplies. + +On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at Dumfries with 50 horse +and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, and Gray, who commanded, with a +considerable troop, entered the town, and surrounded Sir James Turner's +lodging. Though it was between eight and nine o'clock, that worthy, +being unwell, was still in bed, but rose at once and went to the window. + +Neilson and some others cried, "You may have fair quarter." + +"I need no quarter," replied Sir James; "nor can I be a prisoner, seeing +there is no war declared." On being told, however, that he must either +be a prisoner or die, he came down, and went into the street in his +night-shirt. Here Gray showed himself very desirous of killing him, but +he was overruled by Corsack. However, he was taken away a prisoner, +Captain Gray mounting him on his own horse, though, as Turner naïvely +remarks, "there was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a +farre better one of mine." A large coffer containing his clothes and +money, together with all his papers, were taken away by the rebels. They +robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his +horse, drank the King's health at the market cross, and then left +Dumfries.[8] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [6] Fuller's "Historie of the Holy Warre," fourth ed. 1651. + + [7] Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 17. + + [8] Sir J. Turner's "Memoirs," pp. 148-50. + + + + +III + +THE MARCH OF THE REBELS + + "Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads, + At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads; + Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want, + Because with them we signed the Covenant." + + _Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton._[9] + + +On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the Council at +Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this "horrid rebellion." In +the absence of Rothes, Sharpe presided--much to the wrath of some +members; and as he imagined his own safety endangered, his measures were +most energetic. Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the guards round +the city were doubled, officers and soldiers were forced to take the +oath of allegiance, and all lodgers were commanded to give in their +names. Sharpe, surrounded with all these guards and precautions, +trembled--trembled as he trembled when the avengers of blood drew him +from his chariot on Magus Muir,--for he knew how he had sold his trust, +how he had betrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must their +chiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst thunderbolts be +forged. But even in his fear the apostate Presbyterian was unrelenting, +unpityingly harsh; he published in his manifesto no promise of pardon, +no inducement to submission. He said, "If you submit not you must die," +but never added, "If you submit you may live!"[10] + +Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At Carsphairn they were +deserted by Captain Gray, who, doubtless in a fit of oblivion, neglected +to leave behind him the coffer containing Sir James's money. Who he was +is a mystery, unsolved by any historian; his papers were evidently +forgeries--that, and his final flight, appear to indicate that he was an +agent of the Royalists, for either the King or the Duke of York was +heard to say, "That, if he might have his wish, he would have them all +turn rebels and go to arms."[11] + +Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn and marched onwards. + +Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn, frequently at the +best of which their halting-place could boast. Here many visits were +paid to him by the ministers and officers of the insurgent force. In his +description of these interviews he displays a vein of satiric severity, +admitting any kindness that was done to him with some qualifying +souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury, mistake, or +folly, which it was his chance to suffer or to hear. He appears, +notwithstanding all this, to have been on pretty good terms with his +cruel "phanaticks," as the following extract sufficiently proves: + +"Most of the foot were lodged about the church or churchyard, and order +given to ring bells next morning for a sermon to be preached by Mr. +Welch. Maxwell of Morith, and Major M'Cullough invited me to heare 'that +phanatick sermon' (for soe they merrilie called it). They said that +preaching might prove an effectual meane to turne me, which they +heartilie wished. I answered to them that I was under guards, and that +if they intended to heare that sermon, it was probable I might likewise, +for it was not like my guards wold goe to church and leave me alone at +my lodgeings. Bot to what they said of my conversion, I said it wold be +hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I founde them in a merrie humour, I +said, if I did not come to heare Mr. Welch preach, then they might fine +me in fortie shillings Scots, which was double the suome of what I had +exacted from the phanatics."[12] + +This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the month. The +following is recounted by this personage with malicious glee, and +certainly, if authentic, it is a sad proof of how chaff is mixed with +wheat, and how ignorant, almost impious, persons were engaged in this +movement; nevertheless we give it, for we wish to present with +impartiality all the alleged facts to the reader: + +"Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank gaue me a visite; I +called for some ale purposelie to heare one of them blesse it. It fell +Mr. Robinsone to seeke the blessing, who said one of the most bombastick +graces that ever I heard in my life. He summoned God Almightie very +imperiouslie to be their secondarie (for that was his language). 'And +if,' said he, 'thou wilt not be our Secondarie, we will not fight for +thee at all, for it is not our cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt +not fight for our cause and thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to +fight for it. They say,' said he, 'that Dukes, Earles, and Lords are +coming with the King's General against us, bot they shall be nothing bot +a threshing to us.' This grace did more fullie satisfie me of the folly +and injustice of their cause, then the ale did quench my thirst."[13] + +Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside alehouse, or in +some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, who had now taken the +command, would review the horse and foot, during which time Turner was +sent either into the alehouse or round the shoulder of the hill, to +prevent him from seeing the disorders which were likely to arise. He +was, at last, on the 25th day of the month, between Douglas and Lanark, +permitted to behold their evolutions. "I found their horse did consist +of four hundreth and fortie, and the foot of five hundreth and +upwards.... The horsemen were armed for most part with suord and +pistoll, some onlie with suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith +(scythe), forke, and suord; and some with suords great and long." He +admired much the proficiency of their cavalry, and marvelled how they +had attained to it in so short a time.[14] + +At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of this great +wapinshaw, they were charged--awful picture of depravity!--with the +theft of a silver spoon and a nightgown. Could it be expected that while +the whole country swarmed with robbers of every description, such a rare +opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues--that among a thousand +men, even though fighting for religion, there should not be one Achan in +the camp? At Lanark a declaration was drawn up and signed by the chief +rebels. In it occurs the following: + +"The just sense whereof"--the sufferings of the country--"made us +choose, rather to betake ourselves to the fields for self-defence, than +to stay at home, burdened daily with the calamities of others, and +tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery."[15] + +The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony the epitaph +at the head of this chapter seems to refer. + +A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark to +Bathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the wearied army +stopped. But at twelve o'clock the cry, which served them for a trumpet, +of "Horse! horse!" and "Mount the prisoner!" resounded through the +night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from their well-earned rest +to toil onwards in their march. The wind howled fiercely over the +moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. Chilled to the bone, +worn out with long fatigue, sinking to the knees in mire, onward they +marched to destruction. One by one the weary peasants fell off from +their ranks to sleep, and die in the rain-soaked moor, or to seek some +house by the wayside wherein to hide till daybreak. One by one at first, +then in gradually increasing numbers, at every shelter that was seen, +whole troops left the waning squadrons, and rushed to hide themselves +from the ferocity of the tempest. To right and left nought could be +descried but the broad expanse of the moor, and the figures of their +fellow-rebels seen dimly through the murky night, plodding onwards +through the sinking moss. Those who kept together--a miserable +few--often halted to rest themselves, and to allow their lagging +comrades to overtake them. Then onward they went again, still hoping for +assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; onward again, through the wind, +and the rain, and the darkness--onward to their defeat at Pentland, and +their scaffold at Edinburgh. It was calculated that they lost one half +of their army on that disastrous night-march. + +Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four miles from +Edinburgh, where they halted for the last time.[16] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [9] "A Cloud of Witnesses," p. 376. + + [10] Wodrow, pp. 19, 20. + + [11] "A Hind Let Loose," p. 123. + + [12] Turner, p. 163. + + [13] Turner, p. 198. + + [14] _Ibid._ p. 167. + + [15] Wodrow, p. 29. + + [16] Turner, Wodrow, and "Church History" by James Kirkton, an outed + minister of the period. + + + + +IV + +RULLION GREEN + + "From Covenanters with uplifted hands, + From Remonstrators with associate bands, + Good Lord, deliver us!" + + _Royalist Rhyme_, KIRKTON, p. 127. + + +Late on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four days before +Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, merchants in Haddington, +beheld four men, clad like West-country Whigamores, standing round some +object on the ground. It was at the two-mile cross, and within that +distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they discovered +that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained +winding-sheet.[17] Many thought that this apparition was a portent of +the deaths connected with the Pentland Rising. + +On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they left +Colinton and marched to Rullion Green. There they arrived about sunset. +The position was a strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of +the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between them lies a narrow band of +flat marshy ground. On the highest of the two mounds--that nearest the +Pentlands, and on the left hand of the main body--was the greater part +of the cavalry, under Major Learmont; on the other Barscob and the +Galloway gentlemen; and in the centre Colonel Wallace and the weak, +half-armed infantry. Their position was further strengthened by the +depth of the valley below, and the deep chasm-like course of the Rullion +Burn. + +The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden lights and blue +shadows on their snow-clad summits, slanted obliquely into the rich +plain before them, bathing with rosy splendour the leafless, +snow-sprinkled trees, and fading gradually into shadow in the distance. +To the south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and +bracken; the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot +of its gorge; the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into +blue indistinctness in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire +hills. In sooth, that scene was fair, and many a yearning glance was +cast over that peaceful evening scene from the spot where the rebels +awaited their defeat; and when the fight was over, many a noble fellow +lifted his head from the blood-stained heather to strive with darkening +eyeballs to behold that landscape, over which, as over his life and his +cause, the shadows of night and of gloom were falling and thickening. + +It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring cry was +raised: "The enemy! Here come the enemy!" + +Unwilling to believe their own doom--for our insurgents still hoped for +success in some negotiations for peace which had been carried on at +Colinton--they called out, "They are some of our own." + +"They are too blacke" (_i.e._ numerous), "fie! fie! for ground to draw +up on," cried Wallace, fully realising the want of space for his men, +and proving that it was not till after this time that his forces were +finally arranged.[18] + +First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist horse sent +obliquely across the hill to attack the left wing of the rebels. An +equal number of Learmont's men met them, and, after a struggle, drove +them back. The course of the Rullion Burn prevented almost all pursuit, +and Wallace, on perceiving it, despatched a body of foot to occupy both +the burn and some ruined sheep walls on the farther side. + +Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at the foot of the +hill, on the top of which were his foes. He then despatched a mingled +body of infantry and cavalry to attack Wallace's outpost, but they also +were driven back. A third charge produced a still more disastrous +effect, for Dalzell had to check the pursuit of his men by a +reinforcement. + +These repeated checks bred a panic in the Lieutenant-General's ranks, +for several of his men flung down their arms. Urged by such fatal +symptoms, and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed +in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of the insurgent +army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches of the firelocks, +shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lent to the approaching army +a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant breathing flame into +the darkness. + +Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried aloud, "The God of +Jacob! The God of Jacob!" and prayed with uplifted hands for +victory.[19] + +But still the Royalist troops closed in. + +Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined to capture +him with his own hands. Accordingly he charged forward, presenting his +pistols. Paton fired, but the balls hopped off Dalzell's buff coat and +fell into his boot. With the superstition peculiar to his age, the +Nonconformist concluded that his adversary was rendered bullet-proof by +enchantment, and, pulling some small silver coins from his pocket, +charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell, seeing this, and supposing, it is +likely, that Paton was putting in larger balls, hid behind his servant, +who was killed.[20] + +Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of Wallace was enveloped +in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor--tightening, closing, +crushing every semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils. +The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and +though, as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a general +flight was the result. + +But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach or wail the +death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for the peace, the +liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in +the field of death for long, and when at last they were buried by +charity, the peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their graves, and +cast them once more upon the open heath for the sorry value of their +winding-sheets! + + + _Inscription on stone at Rullion Green_ + + HERE AND NEAR TO THIS PLACE LYES THE REVEREND M^R JOHN CROOKSHANK AND + M^R ANDREW M^CCORMICK MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL AND ABOUT FIFTY OTHER + TRUE COVENANTED PRESBYTERIANS WHO WERE KILLED IN THIS PLACE IN THEIR + OWN INOCENT SELF DEFENCE AND DEFFENCE OF THE COVENANTED WORK OF + REFORMATION BY THOMAS DALZEEL OF BINS UPON THE 28 OF NOVEMBER 1666. + REV. 12. 11. ERECTED SEPT. 28 1738. + + + _Back of stone_: + + A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here, + Who for Christ's Interest did appear, + For to restore true Liberty, + O'erturned then by tyranny. + And by proud Prelats who did Rage + Against the Lord's own heritage. + They sacrificed were for the laws + Of Christ their king, his noble cause. + These heroes fought with great renown + By falling got the Martyr's crown.[21] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [17] Kirkton, p. 244. + + [18] Kirkton. + + [19] Turner. + + [20] Kirkton. + + [21] Kirkton. + + + + +V + +A RECORD OF BLOOD + + "They cut his hands ere he was dead, + And after that struck off his head. + His blood under the altar cries + For vengeance on Christ's enemies." + + _Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of Clermont._[22] + + +Master Andrew Murray, an outed minister, residing in the Potterrow, on +the morning after the defeat, heard the sounds of cheering and the march +of many feet beneath his window. He gazed out. With colours flying, and +with music sounding, Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. But his +banners were dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners were marched within +his ranks. The old man knew it all. That martial and triumphant strain +was the death-knell of his friends and of their cause, the rust-hued +spots upon the flags were the tokens of their courage and their death, +and the prisoners were the miserable remnant spared from death in battle +to die upon the scaffold. Poor old man! he had outlived all joy. Had he +lived longer he would have seen increasing torment and increasing woe; +he would have seen the clouds, then but gathering in mist, cast a more +than midnight darkness over his native hills, and have fallen a victim +to those bloody persecutions which, later, sent their red memorials to +the sea by many a burn. By a merciful Providence all this was spared to +him--he fell beneath the first blow; and ere four days had passed since +Rullion Green, the aged minister of God was gathered to his fathers.[23] + +When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to Sir Alexander +Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard his house. Disliking their +occupation, the soldiers gave him an ugly time of it. All the night +through they kept up a continuous series of "alarms and incursions," +"cries of 'Stand!' 'Give fire!'" etc., which forced the prelate to flee +to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was +denied him at home.[24] Now, however, when all danger to himself was +past, Sharpe came out in his true colours, and scant was the justice +likely to be shown to the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate +was by. The prisoners were lodged in Haddo's Hole, a part of St. Giles' +Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it +spoken, they were amply supplied with food.[25] + +Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of quarter which had +been given on the field of battle should protect the lives of the +miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, the greatest lawyer, gave no +opinion--certainly a suggestive circumstance,--but Lord Lee declared +that this would not interfere with their legal trial; "so to bloody +executions they went."[26] To the number of thirty they were condemned +and executed; while two of them, Hugh M'Kail, a young minister, and +Neilson of Corsack, were tortured with the boots. + +The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodies were +dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country; "the +heads of Major M'Culloch and the two Gordons," it was resolved, says +Kirkton, "should be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two +Hamiltons and Strong's head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain +Arnot's sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh. The armes of all the ten, +because they hade with uplifted hands renewed the Covenant at Lanark, +were sent to the people of that town to expiate that crime, by placing +these arms on the top of the prison."[27] Among these was John Neilson, +the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner's life at Dumfries; in return +for which service Sir James attempted, though without success, to get +the poor man reprieved. One of the condemned died of his wounds between +the day of condemnation and the day of execution. "None of them," says +Kirkton, "would save their life by taking the declaration and renouncing +the Covenant, though it was offered to them.... But never men died in +Scotland so much lamented by the people, not only spectators, but those +in the country. When Knockbreck and his brother were turned over, they +clasped each other in their armes, and so endured the pangs of death. +When Humphrey Colquhoun died, he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, but +like a heavenly minister, relating his comfortable Christian +experiences, and called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm, +and read John iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration of all. But +most of all, when Mr. M'Kail died, there was such a lamentation as was +never known in Scotland before; not one dry cheek upon all the street, +or in all the numberless windows in the mercate place." [28] + +The following passage from this speech speaks for itself and its author: + +"Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor think on the +world's consolations. Farewell to all my friends, whose company hath +been refreshful to me in my pilgrimage. I have done with the light of +the sun and the moon; welcome eternal light, eternal life, everlasting +love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that sits +upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the Lord, O my soul, +that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the blood of His Son, and healed +all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye His angels that excel in strength, +ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!" +[29] + +After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth in the +following words of touching eloquence: + +"And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my +intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father +and mother, friends and relations! Farewell the world and all delights! +Farewell meat and drink! Farewell sun, moon, and stars!--Welcome God and +Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant! +Welcome blessed Spirit of grace and God of all consolation! Welcome +glory! Welcome eternal life! Welcome Death!"[30] + +At Glasgow too, where some were executed, they caused the soldiers to +beat the drums and blow the trumpets on their closing ears. Hideous +refinement of revenge! Even the last words which drop from the lips of a +dying man--words surely the most sincere and the most unbiassed which +mortal mouth can utter--even these were looked upon as poisoned and as +poisonous. "Drown their last accents," was the cry, "lest they should +lead the crowd to take their part, or at the least to mourn their +doom!"[31] But, after all, perhaps it was more merciful than one would +think--unintentionally so, of course; perhaps the storm of harsh and +fiercely jubilant noises, the clanging of trumpets, the rattling of +drums, and the hootings and jeerings of an unfeeling mob, which were the +last they heard on earth, might, when the mortal fight was over, when +the river of death was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of +the angels, tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they had reached. + +Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some even of the +peasantry, though these were confined to the shire of Mid-Lothian, +pursued, captured, plundered, and murdered the miserable fugitives who +fell in their way. One strange story have we of these times of blood and +persecution: Kirkton the historian and popular tradition tell us alike +of a flame which often would arise from the grave, in a moss near +Carnwath, of some of those poor rebels: of how it crept along the +ground; of how it covered the house of their murderer; and of how it +scared him with its lurid glare. + +Hear Daniel Defoe:[32] + +"If the poor people were by these insupportable violences made +desperate, and driven to all the extremities of a wild despair, who can +justly reflect on them when they read in the Word of God 'That +oppression makes a wise man mad'? And therefore were there no other +original of the insurrection known by the name of the Rising of +Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions of those +times might have justified to all the world, nature having dictated to +all people a right of defence when illegally and arbitrarily attacked in +a manner not justifiable either by laws of nature, the laws of God, or +the laws of the country." + +Bear this remonstrance of Defoe's in mind, and though it is the fashion +of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to contemn, the noble +band of Covenanters,--though the bitter laugh at their old-world +religious views, the curl of the lip at their merits, and the chilling +silence on their bravery and their determination, are but too rife +through all society,--be charitable to what was evil and honest to what +was good about the Pentland insurgents, who fought for life and liberty, +for country and religion, on the 28th of November 1666, now just two +hundred years ago. + + EDINBURGH, 28_th November_ 1866. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [22] "Cloud of Witnesses," p. 389; Edin. 1765. + + [23] Kirkton, p. 247. + + [24] Kirkton, p. 254. + + [25] _Ibid._ p. 247. + + [26] _Ibid._ pp. 247, 248. + + [27] _Ibid._ p. 248. + + [28] Kirkton, p. 249. + + [29] "Naphtali," p. 205; Glasgow, 1721. + + [30] Wodrow, p. 59. + + [31] Kirkton, p. 246. + + [32] Defoe's "History of the Church of Scotland." + + + + +SKETCHES + + + + +SKETCHES + +I + +THE SATIRIST + + +My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. He was by +habit and repute a satirist. If he did occasionally condemn anything or +anybody who richly deserved it, and whose demerits had hitherto escaped, +it was simply because he condemned everything and everybody. While I was +with him he disposed of St. Paul with an epigram, shook my reverence for +Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of the Almighty Himself, +on the score of one or two out of the ten commandments. Nothing escaped +his blighting censure. At every sentence he overthrew an idol, or +lowered my estimation of a friend. I saw everything with new eyes, and +could only marvel at my former blindness. How was it possible that I had +not before observed A's false hair, B's selfishness, or C's boorish +manners? I and my companion, methought, walked the streets like a couple +of gods among a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemed to bear +openly upon his brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I half expected +that these miserable beings, like the people of Lystra, would recognise +their betters and force us to the altar; in which case, warned by the +fate of Paul and Barnabas, I do not know that my modesty would have +prevailed upon me to decline. But there was no need for such churlish +virtue. More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no divinity in +our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more in the way of observing +than healing their infirmities, we were content to pass them by in +scorn. + +I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even from interest, +but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from the case. To +understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose yourself walking down the +street with a man who continues to sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of +vitriol. You would be much diverted with the grimaces and contortions of +his victims; and at the same time you would fear to leave his arm until +his bottle was empty, knowing that, when once among the crowd, you would +run a good chance yourself of baptism with his biting liquor. Now my +companion's vitriol was inexhaustible. + +It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge that I was being +anointed already out of the vials of his wrath, that made me fall to +criticising the critic, whenever we had parted. + +After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough into his +neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring to go +farther and discover what is really true. He is content to find that +things are not what they seem, and broadly generalises from it that they +do not exist at all. He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they +are; and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue +altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no man is wholly good; +but he has not even suspected that there is another equally true, to +wit, that no man is wholly bad. Like the inmate of a coloured star, he +has eyes for one colour alone. He has a keen scent after evil, but his +nostrils are plugged against all good, as people plugged their nostrils +before going about the streets of the plague-struck city. + +Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of +good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat +in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but +my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, +wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want +light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not wish to see +the good, because he is happier without it. I recollect that when I +walked with him, I was in a state of divine exaltation, such as Adam and +Eve must have enjoyed when the savour of the fruit was still unfaded +between their lips; and I recognise that this must be the man's habitual +state. He has the forbidden fruit in his waistcoat pocket, and can make +himself a god as often and as long as he likes. He has raised himself +upon a glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the summit of +ambition; and he envies neither King nor Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest, +content in an elevation as high as theirs, and much more easily +attained. Yes, certes, much more easily attained. He has not risen by +climbing himself, but by pushing others down. He has grown great in his +own estimation, not by blowing himself out, and risking the fate of +Æsop's frog, but simply by the habitual use of a diminishing glass on +everybody else. And I think altogether that his is a better, a safer, +and a surer recipe than most others. + +After all, however, looking back on what I have written, I detect a +spirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I have been comparing +myself with our satirist, and all through, I have had the best of the +comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mental as physical; and I +do not think my readers, who have all been under his lash, will blame me +very much for giving the headsman a mouthful of his own sawdust. + + + + +II + +NUITS BLANCHES + + +If any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless night, it +should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly child that woke from +his few hours' slumber with the sweat of a nightmare on his brow, to lie +awake and listen and long for the first signs of life among the silent +streets. These nights of pain and weariness are graven on my mind; and +so when the same thing happened to me again, everything that I heard or +saw was rather a recollection than a discovery. + +Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, I listened +eagerly for anything to break the sepulchral quiet. But nothing came, +save, perhaps, an emphatic crack from the old cabinet that was made by +Deacon Brodie, or the dry rustle of the coals on the extinguished fire. +It was a calm; or I know that I should have heard in the roar and +clatter of the storm, as I have not heard it for so many years, the wild +career of a horseman, always scouring up from the distance and passing +swiftly below the window; yet always returning again from the place +whence first he came, as though, baffled by some higher power, he had +retraced his steps to gain impetus for another and another attempt. + +As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the rumbling of a +carriage a very great way off, that drew near, and passed within a few +streets of the house, and died away as gradually as it had arisen. This, +too, was as a reminiscence. + +I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black belt of the +garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here and there a +lighted window. How often before had my nurse lifted me out of bed and +pointed them out to me, while we wondered together if, there also, there +were children that could not sleep, and if these lighted oblongs were +signs of those that waited like us for the morning. + +I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the great deep well of +the staircase. For what cause I know not, just as it used to be in the +old days that the feverish child might be the better served, a peep of +gas illuminated a narrow circle far below me. But where I was, all was +darkness and silence, save the dry monotonous ticking of the clock that +came ceaselessly up to my ear. + +The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of reproduction on +the pictures of my memory, was the arrival of that time for which, all +night through, I waited and longed of old. It was my custom, as the +hours dragged on, to repeat the question, "When will the carts come in?" +and repeat it again and again until at last those sounds arose in the +street that I have heard once more this morning. The road before our +house is a great thoroughfare for early carts. I know not, and I never +have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they go. But I +know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they stream +continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking of wheels and the +same clink of horses' feet. It was not for nothing that they made the +burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really the first +throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to +hear them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp a +hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. They have the +freshness of the daylight life about them. You can hear the carters +cracking their whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one +another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter +comes up to you through the darkness. There is now an end of mystery and +fear. Like the knocking at the door in _Macbeth_,[33] or the cry of the +watchman in the _Tour de Nesle_, they show that the horrible cæsura is +over and the nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking and +the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir itself among the +streets. + +In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by the officious +knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve years older than I had +dreamed myself all night. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [33] See a short essay of De Quincey's. + + + + +III + +THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES + + +It is all very well to talk of death as "a pleasant potion of +immortality"; but the most of us, I suspect, are of "queasy stomachs," +and find it none of the sweetest.[34] The graveyard may be cloak-room to +Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive vestibule +in itself, however fair may be the life to which it leads. And though +Enoch and Elias went into the temple through a gate which certainly may +be called Beautiful, the rest of us have to find our way to it through +Ezekiel's low-bowed door and the vault full of creeping things and all +manner of abominable beasts. Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of +mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an +alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It was +in obedience to this wise regulation that the other morning found me +lighting my pipe at the entrance to Old Greyfriars', thoroughly sick of +the town, the country, and myself. + +Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying a spade in +hands still crusted with the soil of graves. Their very aspect was +delightful to me; and I crept nearer to them, thinking to pick up some +snatch of sexton gossip, some "talk fit for a charnel,"[35] something, +in fine, worthy of that fastidious logician, that adept in coroner's +law, who has come down to us as the patron of Yaughan's liquor, and the +very prince of gravediggers. Scots people in general are so much wrapped +up in their profession that I had a good chance of overhearing such +conversation: the talk of fishmongers running usually on stockfish and +haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I could repeat stories and speeches +that positively smell of the graveyard. But on this occasion I was +doomed to disappointment. My two friends were far into the region of +generalities. Their profession was forgotten in their electorship. +Politics had engulfed the narrower economy of gravedigging. "Na, na," +said the one, "ye're a' wrang." "The English and Irish Churches," +answered the other, in a tone as if he had made the remark before, and +it had been called in question--"The English and Irish Churches have +_impoverished_ the country." + +"Such are the results of education," thought I as I passed beside them +and came fairly among the tombs. Here, at least, there were no +commonplace politics, no diluted this-morning's leader, to distract or +offend me. The old shabby church showed, as usual, its quaint extent of +roofage and the relievo skeleton on one gable, still blackened with the +fire of thirty years ago. A chill dank mist lay over all. The Old +Greyfriars' churchyard was in perfection that morning, and one could go +round and reckon up the associations with no fear of vulgar +interruption. On this stone the Covenant was signed. In that vault, as +the story goes, John Knox took hiding in some Reformation broil. From +that window Burke the murderer looked out many a time across the tombs, +and perhaps o' nights let himself down over the sill to rob some +new-made grave. Certainly he would have a selection here. The very walks +have been carried over forgotten resting-places; and the whole ground is +uneven, because (as I was once quaintly told) "when the wood rots it +stands to reason the soil should fall in," which, from the law of +gravitation, is certainly beyond denial. But it is round the boundary +that there are the finest tombs. The whole irregular space is, as it +were, fringed with quaint old monuments, rich in death's-heads and +scythes and hour-glasses, and doubly rich in pious epitaphs and Latin +mottoes--rich in them to such an extent that their proper space has run +over, and they have crawled end-long up the shafts of columns and +ensconced themselves in all sorts of odd corners among the sculpture. +These tombs raise their backs against the rabble of squalid +dwelling-houses, and every here and there a clothes-pole projects +between two monuments its fluttering trophy of white and yellow and red. +With a grim irony they recall the banners in the Invalides, banners as +appropriate perhaps over the sepulchres of tailors and weavers as these +others above the dust of armies. Why they put things out to dry on that +particular morning it was hard to imagine. The grass was grey with drops +of rain, the headstones black with moisture. Yet, in despite of weather +and common-sense, there they hung between the tombs; and beyond them I +could see through open windows into miserable rooms where whole families +were born and fed, and slept and died. At one a girl sat singing merrily +with her back to the graveyard; and from another came the shrill tones +of a scolding woman. Every here and there was a town garden full of +sickly flowers, or a pile of crockery inside upon the window-seat. But +you do not grasp the full connection between these houses of the dead +and the living, the unnatural marriage of stately sepulchres and squalid +houses, till, lower down, where the road has sunk far below the surface +of the cemetery, and the very roofs are scarcely on a level with its +wall, you observe that a proprietor has taken advantage of a tall +monument and trained a chimney-stack against its back. It startles you +to see the red, modern pots peering over the shoulder of the tomb. + +A man was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away the drift of bones +that permeates the thin brown soil; but my first disappointment had +taught me to expect little from Greyfriars' sextons, and I passed him by +in silence. A slater on the slope of a neighbouring roof eyed me +curiously. A lean black cat, looking as if it had battened on strange +meats, slipped past me. A little boy at a window put his finger to his +nose in so offensive a manner that I was put upon my dignity, and turned +grandly off to read old epitaphs and peer through the gratings into the +shadow of vaults. + +Just then I saw two women coming down a path, one of them old, and the +other younger, with a child in her arms. Both had faces eaten with +famine and hardened with sin, and both had reached that stage of +degradation, much lower in a woman than a man, when all care for dress +is lost. As they came down they neared a grave, where some pious friend +or relative had laid a wreath of immortelles, and put a bell glass over +it, as is the custom. The effect of that ring of dull yellow among so +many blackened and dusty sculptures was more pleasant than it is in +modern cemeteries, where every second mound can boast a similar coronal; +and here, where it was the exception and not the rule, I could even +fancy the drops of moisture that dimmed the covering were the tears of +those who laid it where it was. As the two women came up to it, one of +them kneeled down on the wet grass and looked long and silently through +the clouded shade, while the second stood above her, gently oscillating +to and fro to lull the muling baby. I was struck a great way off with +something religious in the attitude of these two unkempt and haggard +women; and I drew near faster, but still cautiously, to hear what they +were saying. Surely on them the spirit of death and decay had descended; +I had no education to dread here: should I not have a chance of seeing +nature? Alas! a pawnbroker could not have been more practical and +commonplace, for this was what the kneeling woman said to the woman +upright--this and nothing more: "Eh, what extravagance!" + +O nineteenth century, wonderful art thou indeed--wonderful, but +wearisome in thy stale and deadly uniformity. Thy men are more like +numerals than men. They must bear their idiosyncrasies or their +professions written on a placard about their neck, like the scenery in +Shakespeare's theatre. The precepts of economy have pierced into the +lowest ranks of life; and there is now a decorum in vice, a +respectability among the disreputable, a pure spirit of Philistinism +among the waifs and strays of thy Bohemia. For lo! thy very gravediggers +talk politics; and thy castaways kneel upon new graves, to discuss the +cost of the monument and grumble at the improvidence of love. + +Such was the elegant apostrophe that I made as I went out of the gates +again, happily satisfied in myself, and feeling that I alone of all whom +I had seen was able to profit by the silent poem of these green mounds +and blackened headstones. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [34] "Religio Medici," Part ii. + + [35] "Duchess of Malfi." + + + + +IV + +NURSES + + +I knew one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she waited for +death. It was pleasant enough, high up above the lane, and looking forth +upon a hill-side, covered all day with sheets and yellow blankets, and +with long lines of underclothing fluttering between the battered posts. +There were any number of cheap prints, and a drawing by one of "her +children," and there were flowers in the window, and a sickly canary +withered into consumption in an ornamental cage. The bed, with its +checked coverlid, was in a closet. A great Bible lay on the table; and +her drawers were full of "scones," which it was her pleasure to give to +young visitors such as I was then. + +You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary, and the +cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and that died, were +all indications of the want that ate into her heart. I think I know a +little of what that old woman felt; and I am as sure as if I had seen +her, that she sat many an hour in silent tears, with the big Bible open +before her clouded eyes. + +If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain that had +linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be wrenched suddenly +through, and sometimes, which is infinitely worse, to be torn gradually +off through years of growing neglect, or perhaps growing dislike! She +had, like the mother, overcome that natural repugnance--repugnance which +no man can conquer--towards the infirm and helpless mass of putty of the +earlier stage. She had spent her best and happiest years in tending, +watching, and learning to love like a mother this child, with which she +has no connection and to which she has no tie. Perhaps she refused some +sweetheart (such things have been), or put him off and off, until he +lost heart and turned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this +creature that had wound itself about her heart. And the end of it +all,--her month's warning, and a present perhaps, and the rest of the +life to vain regret. Or, worse still, to see the child gradually +forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect on the +plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat her as a +servant whom he had treated a few years before as a mother. She sees the +Bible or the Psalm-book, which with gladness and love unutterable in her +heart she had bought for him years ago out of her slender savings, +neglected for some newer gift of his father, lying in dust in the +lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and the act applauded for its +unfeeling charity. Little wonder if she becomes hurt and angry, and +attempts to tyrannise and to grasp her old power back again. We are not +all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us human beings +with feelings and tempers of our own. + +And so in the end, behold her in the room that I described. Very likely +and very naturally, in some fling of feverish misery or recoil of +thwarted love, she has quarrelled with her old employers and the +children are forbidden to see her or to speak to her; or at best she +gets her rent paid and a little to herself, and now and then her late +charges are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) to pay her a short +visit. How bright these visits seem as she looks forward to them on her +lonely bed! How unsatisfactory their realisation, when the forgetful +child, half wondering, checks with every word and action the outpouring +of her maternal love! How bitter and restless the memories that they +leave behind! And for the rest, what else has she?--to watch them with +eager eyes as they go to school, to sit in church where she can see them +every Sunday, to be passed some day unnoticed in the street, or +deliberately cut because the great man or the great woman are with +friends before whom they are ashamed to recognise the old woman that +loved them. + +When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear to her! +Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to herself in the dark, with +the fire burnt out for want of fuel, and the candle still unlit upon the +table. + +And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers--mothers in +everything but the travail and the thanks. It is for this that they have +remained virtuous in youth, living the dull life of a household servant. +It is for this that they refused the old sweetheart, and have no +fireside or offspring of their own. + +I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no more +nurses, and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; for what can +be more hardening and demoralising than to call forth the tenderest +feelings of a woman's heart and cherish them yourself as long as you +need them, as long as your children require a nurse to love them, and +then to blight and thwart and destroy them, whenever your own use for +them is at an end? This may be Utopian; but it is always a little thing +if one mother or two mothers can be brought to feel more tenderly to +those who share their toil and have no part in their reward. + + + + +V + +A CHARACTER + + +The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and squat. So +far there is nothing in him to notice, but when you see his eyes, you +can read in these hard and shallow orbs a depravity beyond measure +depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the pure, disinterested love of +Hell for its own sake. The other night, in the street, I was watching an +omnibus passing with lit-up windows, when I heard some one coughing at +my side as though he would cough his soul out; and turning round, I saw +him stopping under a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him and +his whole face convulsed. It seemed as if he could not live long; and so +the sight set my mind upon a train of thought, as I finished my cigar up +and down the lighted streets. + +He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his thirst for +evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in wickedness. He is dumb; +but he will not let that hinder his foul trade, or perhaps I should say, +his yet fouler amusement, and he has pressed a slate into the service of +corruption. Look at him, and he will sign to you with his bloated head, +and when you go to him in answer to the sign, thinking perhaps that the +poor dumb man has lost his way, you will see what he writes upon his +slate. He haunts the doors of schools, and shows such inscriptions as +these to the innocent children that come out. He hangs about +picture-galleries, and makes the noblest pictures the text for some +silent homily of vice. His industry is a lesson to ourselves. Is it not +wonderful how he can triumph over his infirmities and do such an amount +of harm without a tongue? Wonderful industry--strange, fruitless, +pleasureless toil? Must not the very devil feel a soft emotion to see +his disinterested and laborious service? Ah, but the devil knows better +than this: he knows that this man is penetrated with the love of evil +and that all his pleasure is shut up in wickedness: he recognises him, +perhaps, as a fit type for mankind of his satanic self, and watches over +his effigy as we might watch over a favourite likeness. As the business +man comes to love the toil, which he only looked upon at first as a +ladder towards other desires and less unnatural gratifications, so the +dumb man has felt the charm of his trade and fallen captivated before +the eyes of sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is +hideous and loathsome; for even vice has her Hörsel and her devotees, +who love her for her own sake. + + + + +COLLEGE PAPERS + + + + +COLLEGE PAPERS + +I + +EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824 + + +On the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of the _Lapsus +Linguæ; or, the College Tatler_; and on the 7th the first number +appeared. On Friday the 2nd of April "_Mr. Tatler_ became speechless." +Its history was not all one success; for the editor (who applies to +himself the words of Iago, "I am nothing if I am not critical") +over-stepped the bounds of caution, and found himself seriously +embroiled with the powers that were. There appeared in No. XVI. a most +bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie, in which he was compared to +Falstaff, charged with puffing himself, and very prettily censured for +publishing only the first volume of a class-book, and making all +purchasers pay for both. Sir John Leslie took up the matter angrily, +visited Carfrae the publisher, and threatened him with an action, till +he was forced to turn the hapless _Lapsus_ out of doors. The maltreated +periodical found shelter in the shop of Huie, Infirmary Street; and NO. +XVII. was duly issued from the new office. NO. XVII. beheld _Mr. +Tatler's_ humiliation, in which, with fulsome apology and not very +credible assurances of respect and admiration, he disclaims the article +in question, and advertises a new issue of NO. XVI. with all +objectionable matter omitted. This, with pleasing euphemism, he terms in +a later advertisement, "a new and improved edition." This was the only +remarkable adventure of _Mr. Tatler's_ brief existence; unless we +consider as such a silly Chaldee manuscript in imitation of +_Blackwood_, and a letter of reproof from a divinity student on the +impiety of the same dull effusion. He laments the near approach of his +end in pathetic terms. "How shall we summon up sufficient courage," says +he, "to look for the last time on our beloved little devil and his +inestimable proof-sheet? How shall we be able to pass No. 14 Infirmary +Street and feel that all its attractions are over? How shall we bid +farewell for ever to that excellent man, with the long greatcoat, wooden +leg and wooden board, who acts as our representative at the gate of +_Alma Mater?_" But alas! he had no choice: _Mr. Tatler_, whose career, +he says himself, had been successful, passed peacefully away, and has +ever since dumbly implored "the bringing home of bell and burial." + +_Alter et idem_. A very different affair was the _Lapsus Linguæ_ from +the _Edinburgh University Magazine_. The two prospectuses alone, laid +side by side, would indicate the march of luxury and the repeal of the +paper duty. The penny bi-weekly broadside of session 1823-4 was almost +wholly dedicated to Momus. Epigrams, pointless letters, amorous verses, +and University grievances are the continual burthen of the song. But +_Mr. Tatler_ was not without a vein of hearty humour; and his pages +afford what is much better: to wit, a good picture of student life as it +then was. The students of those polite days insisted on retaining their +hats in the class-room. There was a cab-stance in front of the College; +and "Carriage Entrance" was posted above the main arch, on what the +writer pleases to call "coarse, unclassic boards." The benches of the +"Speculative" then, as now, were red; but all other Societies (the +"Dialectic" is the only survivor) met downstairs, in some rooms of which +it is pointedly said that "nothing else could conveniently be made of +them." However horrible these dungeons may have been, it is certain that +they were paid for, and that far too heavily for the taste of session +1823-4, which found enough calls upon its purse for porter and toasted +cheese at Ambrose's, or cranberry tarts and ginger-wine at Doull's. +Duelling was still a possibility; so much so that when two medicals fell +to fisticuffs in Adam Square, it was seriously hinted that single combat +would be the result. Last and most wonderful of all, Gall and Spurzheim +were in every one's mouth; and the Law student, after having exhausted +Byron's poetry and Scott's novels, informed the ladies of his belief in +phrenology. In the present day he would dilate on "Red as a rose is +she," and then mention that he attends Old Greyfriars', as a tacit claim +to intellectual superiority. I do not know that the advance is much. + +But _Mr. Tatler's_ best performances were three short papers in which he +hit off pretty smartly the idiosyncrasies of the "_Divinity_," the +"_Medical_," and the "_Law_" of session 1823-4. The fact that there was +no notice of the "_Arts_" seems to suggest that they stood in the same +intermediate position as they do now--the epitome of student-kind. _Mr. +Tatler's_ satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, and has not grown +superannuated in _all_ its limbs. His descriptions may limp at some +points, but there are certain broad traits that apply equally well to +session 1870-71. He shows us the _Divinity_ of the period--tall, pale, +and slender--his collar greasy, and his coat bare about the seams--"his +white neckcloth serving four days, and regularly turned the +third,"--"the rim of his hat deficient in wool,"--and "a weighty volume +of theology under his arm." He was the man to buy cheap "a snuff-box, or +a dozen of pencils, or a six-bladed knife, or a quarter of a hundred +quills," at any of the public sale-rooms. He was noted for cheap +purchases, and for exceeding the legal tender in halfpence. He haunted +"the darkest and remotest corner of the Theatre Gallery." He was to be +seen issuing from "aerial lodging-houses." Withal, says mine author, +"there were many good points about him: he paid his landlady's bill, +read his Bible, went twice to church on Sunday, seldom swore, was not +often tipsy, and bought the _Lapsus Linguæ_." + +The _Medical_, again, "wore a white greatcoat, and consequently talked +loud"--(there is something very delicious in that _consequently_). He +wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top +of Arthur's Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating +society as he was loud in the streets. He was reckless and imprudent: +yesterday he insisted on your sharing a bottle of claret with him (and +claret was claret then, before the cheap-and-nasty treaty), and +to-morrow he asks you for the loan of a penny to buy the last number of +the _Lapsus_. + +The student of _Law_, again, was a learned man. "He had turned over the +leaves of Justinian's 'Institutes,' and knew that they were written in +Latin. He was well acquainted with the title-page of 'Blackstone's +Commentaries,' and _argal_ (as the gravedigger in _Hamlet_ says) he was +not a person to be laughed at." He attended the Parliament House in the +character of a critic, and could give you stale sneers at all the +celebrated speakers. He was the terror of essayists at the Speculative +or the Forensic. In social qualities he seems to have stood unrivalled. +Even in the police-office we find him shining with undiminished lustre. +"If a _Charlie_ should find him rather noisy at an untimely hour, and +venture to take him into custody, he appears next morning like a Daniel +come to judgment. He opens his mouth to speak, and the divine precepts +of unchanging justice and Scots law flow from his tongue. The magistrate +listens in amazement, and fines him only a couple of guineas." + +Such then were our predecessors and their College Magazine. Barclay, +Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson were to them what the Café, the +Rainbow, and Rutherford's are to us. An hour's reading in these old +pages absolutely confuses us, there is so much that is similar and so +much that is different; the follies and amusements are so like our own, +and the manner of frolicking and enjoying are so changed, that one +pauses and looks about him in philosophic judgment. The muddy quadrangle +is thick with living students; but in our eyes it swarms also with the +phantasmal white greatcoats and tilted hats of 1824. Two races meet: +races alike and diverse. Two performances are played before our eyes; +but the change seems merely of impersonators, of scenery, of costume. +Plot and passion are the same. It is the fall of the spun shilling +whether seventy-one or twenty-four has the best of it. + +In a future number we hope to give a glance at the individualities of +the present, and see whether the cast shall be head or tail--whether we +or the readers of the _Lapsus_ stand higher in the balance. + + + + +II + +THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY + + +We have now reached the difficult portion of our task. _Mr. Tatler_, for +all that we care, may have been as virulent as he liked about the +students of a former day; but for the iron to touch our sacred selves, +for a brother of the Guild to betray its most privy infirmities, let +such a Judas look to himself as he passes on his way to the Scots Law or +the Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp at the corner of the dark +quadrangle. We confess that this idea alarms us. We enter a protest. We +bind ourselves over verbally to keep the peace. We hope, moreover, that +having thus made you secret to our misgivings, you will excuse us if we +be dull, and set that down to caution which you might before have +charged to the account of stupidity. + +The natural tendency of civilisation is to obliterate those distinctions +which are the best salt of life. All the fine old professional flavour +in language has evaporated. Your very gravedigger has forgotten his +avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over +Ophelia's grave, instead of more appropriately discussing the duration +of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition +of life, in which everything pointed and characteristic is being rubbed +down, till the whole world begins to slip between our fingers in smooth +undistinguishable sands, from this, we say, it follows that we must not +attempt to join _Mr. Tatler_ in his simple division of students into +_Law_, _Divinity_, and _Medical_. Nowadays the Faculties may shake hands +over their follies; and, like Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight (in _Love +for Love_) they may stand in the doors of opposite class-rooms, crying: +"Sister, Sister--Sister everyway!" A few restrictions, indeed, remain to +influence the followers of individual branches of study. The _Divinity_, +for example, must be an avowed believer; and as this, in the present +day, is unhappily considered by many as a confession of weakness, he is +fain to choose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox +bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even a +credit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw philosopher, +although it is a decided slur to believe in Him on His own authority. +Others again (and this we think the worst method), finding German +grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own little heresy as a proof of +independence; and deny one of the cardinal doctrines that they may hold +the others without being laughed at. + +Besides, however, such influences as these, there is little more +distinction between the faculties than the traditionary ideal, handed +down through a long sequence of students, and getting rounder and more +featureless at each successive session. The plague of uniformity has +descended on the College. Students (and indeed all sorts and conditions +of men) now require their faculty and character hung round their neck on +a placard, like the scenes in Shakespeare's theatre. And in the midst of +all this weary sameness, not the least common feature is the gravity of +every face. No more does the merry medical run eagerly in the clear +winter morning up the rugged sides of Arthur's Seat, and hear the church +bells begin and thicken and die away below him among the gathered smoke +of the city. He will not break Sunday to so little purpose. He no longer +finds pleasure in the mere output of his surplus energy. He husbands his +strength, and lays out walks, and reading, and amusement with deep +consideration, so that he may get as much work and pleasure out of his +body as he can, and waste none of his energy on mere impulse, or such +flat enjoyment as an excursion in the country. + +See the quadrangle in the interregnum of classes, in those two or three +minutes when it is full of passing students, and we think you will admit +that, if we have not made it "an habitation of dragons," we have at +least transformed it into "a court for owls." Solemnity broods heavily +over the enclosure; and wherever you seek it, you will find a dearth of +merriment, an absence of real youthful enjoyment. You might as well try + + "To move wild laughter in the throat of death" + +as to excite any healthy stir among the bulk of this staid company. + +The studious congregate about the doors of the different classes, +debating the matter of the lecture, or comparing note-books. A reserved +rivalry sunders them. Here are some deep in Greek particles: there, +others are already inhabitants of that land + + "Where entity and quiddity, + Like ghosts of defunct bodies fly-- + Where Truth in person does appear + Like words congealed in northern air." + +But none of them seem to find any relish for their studies--no pedantic +love of this subject or that lights up their eyes--science and learning +are only means for a livelihood, which they have considerately embraced +and which they solemnly pursue. "Labour's pale priests," their lips seem +incapable of laughter, except in the way of polite recognition of +professorial wit. The stains of ink are chronic on their meagre fingers. +They walk like Saul among the asses. + +The dandies are not less subdued. In 1824 there was a noisy dapper +dandyism abroad. Vulgar, as we should now think, but yet genial--a +matter of white greatcoats and loud voices--strangely different from the +stately frippery that is rife at present. These men are out of their +element in the quadrangle. Even the small remains of boisterous humour, +which still clings to any collection of young men, jars painfully on +their morbid sensibilities; and they beat a hasty retreat to resume +their perfunctory march along Princes Street. Flirtation is to them a +great social duty, a painful obligation, which they perform on every +occasion in the same chill official manner, and with the same +commonplace advances, the same dogged observance of traditional +behaviour. The shape of their raiment is a burden almost greater than +they can bear, and they halt in their walk to preserve the due +adjustment of their trouser-knees, till one would fancy he had mixed in +a procession of Jacobs. We speak, of course, for ourselves; but we would +as soon associate with a herd of sprightly apes as with these gloomy +modern beaux. Alas, that our Mirabels, our Valentines, even our +Brummels, should have left their mantles upon nothing more amusing! + +Nor are the fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even in dissipation, +is the order of the day; and they go to the devil with a perverse +seriousness, a systematic rationalism of wickedness that would have +surprised the simpler sinners of old. Some of these men whom we see +gravely conversing on the steps have but a slender acquaintance with +each other. Their intercourse consists principally of mutual bulletins +of depravity; and, week after week, as they meet they reckon up their +items of transgression, and give an abstract of their downward progress +for approval and encouragement. These folk form a freemasonry of their +own. An oath is the shibboleth of their sinister fellowship. Once they +hear a man swear, it is wonderful how their tongues loosen and their +bashful spirits take enlargement under the consciousness of brotherhood. +There is no folly, no pardoning warmth of temper about them; they are as +steady-going and systematic in their own way as the studious in theirs. + +Not that we are without merry men. No. We shall not be ungrateful to +those, whose grimaces, whose ironical laughter, whose active feet in the +"College Anthem" have beguiled so many weary hours and added a pleasant +variety to the strain of close attention. But even these are too +evidently professional in their antics. They go about cogitating puns +and inventing tricks. It is their vocation, Hal. They are the gratuitous +jesters of the class-room; and, like the clown when he leaves the stage, +their merriment too often sinks as the bell rings the hour of liberty, +and they pass forth by the Post-Office, grave and sedate, and meditating +fresh gambols for the morrow. + +This is the impression left on the mind of any observing student by too +many of his fellows. They seem all frigid old men; and one pauses to +think how such an unnatural state of matters is produced. We feel +inclined to blame for it the unfortunate absence of _University feeling_ +which is so marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students. +Academical interests are so few and far between--students, as students, +have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry--there is such an +entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college +friendships, that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so +poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he +was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his +memory for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let +there be an end of this shy, proud reserve on the one hand, and this +shuddering fine ladyism on the other; and we think we shall find both +ourselves and the College bettered. Let it be a sufficient reason for +intercourse that two men sit together on the same benches. Let the great +A be held excused for nodding to the shabby B in Princes Street, if he +can say, "That fellow is a student." Once this could be brought about, +we think you would find the whole heart of the University beat faster. +We think you would find a fusion among the students, a growth of common +feelings, an increasing sympathy between class and class, whose +influence (in such a heterogeneous company as ours) might be of +incalculable value in all branches of politics and social progress. It +would do more than this. If we could find some method of making the +University a real mother to her sons--something beyond a building of +class-rooms, a Senatus and a lottery of somewhat shabby prizes--we +should strike a death-blow at the constrained and unnatural attitude of +our Society. At present we are not a united body, but a loose gathering +of individuals, whose inherent attraction is allowed to condense them +into little knots and coteries. Our last snowball riot read us a plain +lesson on our condition. There was no party spirit--no unity of +interests. A few, who were mischievously inclined, marched off to the +College of Surgeons in a pretentious file; but even before they reached +their destination the feeble inspiration had died out in many, and their +numbers were sadly thinned. Some followed strange gods in the direction +of Drummond Street, and others slunk back to meek good-boyism at the +feet of the Professors. The same is visible in better things. As you +send a man to an English University that he may have his prejudices +rubbed off, you might send him to Edinburgh that he may have them +ingrained--rendered indelible--fostered by sympathy into living +principles of his spirit. And the reason of it is quite plain. From this +absence of University feeling it comes that a man's friendships are +always the direct and immediate results of these very prejudices. A +common weakness is the best master of ceremonies in our quadrangle: a +mutual vice is the readiest introduction. The studious associate with +the studious alone--the dandies with the dandies. There is nothing to +force them to rub shoulders with the others; and so they grow day by day +more wedded to their own original opinions and affections. They see +through the same spectacles continually. All broad sentiments, all real +catholic humanity expires; and the mind gets gradually stiffened into +one position--becomes so habituated to a contracted atmosphere, that it +shudders and withers under the least draught of the free air that +circulates in the general field of mankind. + +Specialism in Society then, is, we think, one cause of our present +state. Specialism in study is another. We doubt whether this has ever +been a good thing since the world began; but we are sure it is much +worse now than it was. Formerly, when a man became a specialist, it was +out of affection for his subject. With a somewhat grand devotion he left +all the world of Science to follow his true love; and he contrived to +find that strange pedantic interest which inspired the man who + + "Settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be-- + Properly based _Oun_-- + Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _D_ + Dead from the waist down." + +Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even the saving +clause of Enthusiasm. The election is now matter of necessity and not of +choice. Knowledge is now too broad a field for your Jack-of-all-Trades; +and, from beautifully utilitarian reasons, he makes his choice, draws +his pen through a dozen branches of study, and behold--John the +Specialist. That this is the way to be wealthy we shall not deny; but we +hold that it is _not_ the way to be healthy or wise. The whole mind +becomes narrowed and circumscribed to one "punctual spot" of knowledge. +A rank unhealthy soil breeds a harvest of prejudices. Feeling himself +above others in his one little branch--in the classification of +toadstools, or Carthaginian history--he waxes great in his own eyes and +looks down on others. Having all his sympathies educated in one way, +they die out in every other; and he is apt to remain a peevish, narrow, +and intolerant bigot. Dilettante is now a term of reproach; but there is +a certain form of dilettantism to which no one can object. It is this +that we want among our students. We wish them to abandon no subject +until they have seen and felt its merit--to act under a general interest +in all branches of knowledge, not a commercial eagerness to excel in +one. + +In both these directions our sympathies are constipated. We are apostles +of our own caste and our own subject of study, instead of being, as we +should, true men and _loving_ students. Of course both of these could be +corrected by the students themselves; but this is nothing to the +purpose: it is more important to ask whether the Senatus or the body of +alumni could do nothing towards the growth of better feeling and wider +sentiments. Perhaps in another paper we may say something upon this +head. + +One other word, however, before we have done. What shall we be when we +grow really old? Of yore, a man was thought to lay on restrictions and +acquire new deadweight of mournful experience with every year, till he +looked back on his youth as the very summer of impulse and freedom. We +please ourselves with thinking that it cannot be so with us. We would +fain hope that, as we have begun in one way, we may end in another; and +that when we _are_ in fact the octogenarians that we _seem_ at present, +there shall be no merrier men on earth. It is pleasant to picture us, +sunning ourselves in Princes Street of a morning, or chirping over our +evening cups, with all the merriment that we wanted in youth. + + + + +III + +DEBATING SOCIETIES + + +A debating society is at first somewhat of a disappointment. You do not +often find the youthful Demosthenes chewing his pebbles in the same room +with you; or, even if you do, you will probably think the performance +little to be admired. As a general rule, the members speak shamefully +ill. The subjects of debate are heavy; and so are the fines. The Ballot +Question--oldest of dialectic nightmares--is often found astride of a +somnolent sederunt. The Greeks and Romans, too, are reserved as sort of +_general-utility_ men, to do all the dirty work of illustration; and +they fill as many functions as the famous waterfall scene at the +"Princess's," which I found doing duty on one evening as a gorge in +Peru, a haunt of German robbers, and a peaceful vale in the Scottish +borders. There is a sad absence of striking argument or real lively +discussion. Indeed, you feel a growing contempt for your fellow-members; +and it is not until you rise yourself to hawk and hesitate and sit +shamefully down again, amid eleemosynary applause, that you begin to +find your level and value others rightly. Even then, even when failure +has damped your critical ardour, you will see many things to be laughed +at in the deportment of your rivals. + +Most laughable, perhaps, are your indefatigable strivers after +eloquence. They are of those who "pursue with eagerness the phantoms of +hope," and who, since they expect that "the deficiencies of last +sentence will be supplied by the next," have been recommended by Dr. +Samuel Johnson to "attend to the History of Rasselas, Prince of +Abyssinia." They are characterised by a hectic hopefulness. Nothing +damps them. They rise from the ruins of one abortive sentence, to launch +forth into another with unabated vigour. They have all the manner of an +orator. From the tone of their voice, you would expect a splendid +period--and lo! a string of broken-backed, disjointed clauses, eked out +with stammerings and throat-clearings. They possess the art (learned +from the pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a +single syllable--of striking a balance in a top-heavy period by +lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, they never +cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhausted all their +ideas, even after the would-be peroration has finally refused to +perorate, they remain upon their feet with their mouths open, waiting +for some further inspiration, like Chaucer's widow's son in the +dung-hole, after + + "His throat was kit unto the nekké bone," + +in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon his tongue, +and give him renewed and clearer utterance. + +These men may have something to say, if they could only say it--indeed +they generally have; but the next class are people who, having nothing +to say, are cursed with a facility and an unhappy command of words, that +makes them the prime nuisances of the society they affect. They try to +cover their absence of matter by an unwholesome vitality of delivery. +They look triumphantly round the room, as if courting applause, after a +torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same +dull round of argument, and returning again and again to the same remark +with the same sprightliness, the same irritating appearance of novelty. + +After this set, any one is tolerable; so we shall merely hint at a few +other varieties. There is your man who is pre-eminently conscientious, +whose face beams with sincerity as he opens on the negative, and who +votes on the affirmative at the end, looking round the room with an air +of chastened pride. There is also the irrelevant speaker, who rises, +emits a joke or two, and then sits down again, without ever attempting +to tackle the subject of debate. Again, we have men who ride +pick-a-back on their family reputation, or, if their family have none, +identify themselves with some well-known statesman, use his opinions, +and lend him their patronage on all occasions. This is a dangerous plan, +and serves oftener, I am afraid, to point a difference than to adorn a +speech. + +But alas! a striking failure may be reached without tempting Providence +by any of these ambitious tricks. Our own stature will be found high +enough for shame. The success of three simple sentences lures us into a +fatal parenthesis in the fourth, from whose shut brackets we may never +disentangle the thread of our discourse. A momentary flush tempts us +into a quotation; and we may be left helpless in the middle of one of +Pope's couplets, a white film gathering before our eyes, and our kind +friends charitably trying to cover our disgrace by a feeble round of +applause. _Amis lecteurs_, this is a painful topic. It is possible that +we too, we, the "potent, grave, and reverend" editor, may have suffered +these things, and drunk as deep as any of the cup of shameful failure. +Let us dwell no longer on so delicate a subject. + +In spite, however, of these disagreeables, I should recommend any +student to suffer them with Spartan courage, as the benefits he receives +should repay him an hundredfold for them all. The life of the debating +society is a handy antidote to the life of the class-room and +quadrangle. Nothing could be conceived more excellent as a weapon +against many of those _peccant humours_ that we have been railing +against in the jeremiad of our last "College Paper"--particularly in the +field of intellect. It is a sad sight to see our heather-scented +students, our boys of seventeen, coming up to College with determined +views--_roués_ in speculation--having gauged the vanity of philosophy or +learned to shun it as the middle-man of heresy--a company of determined, +deliberate opinionists, not to be moved by all the sleights of logic. +What have such men to do with study? If their minds are made up +irrevocably, why burn the "studious lamp" in search of further +confirmation? Every set opinion I hear a student deliver I feel a +certain lowering of my regard. He who studies, he who is yet employed in +groping for his premises, should keep his mind fluent and sensitive, +keen to mark flaws, and willing to surrender untenable positions. He +should keep himself teachable, or cease the expensive farce of being +taught. It is to further this docile spirit that we desire to press the +claims of debating societies. It is as a means of melting down this +museum of premature petrifactions into living and impressionable soul +that we insist on their utility. If we could once prevail on our +students to feel no shame in avowing an uncertain attitude towards any +subject, if we could teach them that it was unnecessary for every lad to +have his _opinionette_ on every topic, we should have gone a far way +towards bracing the intellectual tone of the coming race of thinkers; +and this it is which debating societies are so well fitted to perform. + +We there meet people of every shade of opinion, and make friends with +them. We are taught to rail against a man the whole session through, and +then hob-a-nob with him at the concluding entertainment. We find men of +talent far exceeding our own, whose conclusions are widely different +from ours; and we are thus taught to distrust ourselves. But the best +means of all towards catholicity is that wholesome rule which some folk +are most inclined to condemn,--I mean the law of _obliged speeches_. +Your senior member commands; and you must take the affirmative or the +negative, just as suits his best convenience. This tends to the most +perfect liberality. It is no good hearing the arguments of an opponent, +for in good verity you rarely follow them; and even if you do take the +trouble to listen, it is merely in a captious search for weaknesses. +This is proved, I fear, in every debate; when you hear each speaker +arguing out his own prepared _spécialité_ (he never intended speaking, +of course, until some remarks of, etc.), arguing out, I say, his own +_coached-up_ subject without the least attention to what has gone +before, as utterly at sea about the drift of his adversary's speech as +Panurge when he argued with Thaumaste, and merely linking his own +prelection to the last by a few flippant criticisms. Now, as the rule +stands, you are saddled with the side you disapprove, and so you are +forced, by regard for your own fame, to argue out, to feel with, to +elaborate completely, the case as it stands against yourself; and what a +fund of wisdom do you not turn up in this idle digging of the vineyard! +How many new difficulties take form before your eyes? how many +superannuated arguments cripple finally into limbo, under the glance of +your enforced eclecticism! + +Nor is this the only merit of Debating Societies. They tend also to +foster taste, and to promote friendship between University men. This +last, as we have had occasion before to say, is the great requirement of +our student life; and it will therefore be no waste of time if we devote +a paragraph to this subject in its connection with Debating Societies. +At present they partake too much of the nature of a _clique._ Friends +propose friends, and mutual friends second them, until the society +degenerates into a sort of family party. You may confirm old +acquaintances, but you can rarely make new ones. You find yourself in +the atmosphere of your own daily intercourse. Now, this is an +unfortunate circumstance, which it seems to me might readily be +rectified. Our Principal has shown himself so friendly towards all +College improvements that I cherish the hope of seeing shortly realised +a certain suggestion, which is not a new one with me, and which must +often have been proposed and canvassed heretofore--I mean, a real +_University Debating Society_, patronised by the Senatus, presided over +by the Professors, to which every one might gain ready admittance on +sight of his matriculation ticket, where it would be a favour and not a +necessity to speak, and where the obscure student might have another +object for attendance besides the mere desire to save his fines: to wit, +the chance of drawing on himself the favourable consideration of his +teachers. This would be merely following in the good tendency, which +has been so noticeable during all this session, to increase and multiply +student societies and clubs of every sort. Nor would it be a matter of +much difficulty. The united societies would form a nucleus: one of the +class-rooms at first, and perhaps afterwards the great hall above the +library, might be the place of meeting. There would be no want of +attendance or enthusiasm, I am sure; for it is a very different thing to +speak under the bushel of a private club on the one hand, and, on the +other, in a public place, where a happy period or a subtle argument may +do the speaker permanent service in after life. Such a club might end, +perhaps, by rivalling the "Union" at Cambridge or the "Union" at Oxford. + + + + +IV + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS[36] + + +It is wonderful to think what a turn has been given to our whole Society +by the fact that we live under the sign of Aquarius,--that our climate +is essentially wet. A mere arbitrary distinction, like the +walking-swords of yore, might have remained the symbol of foresight and +respectability, had not the raw mists and dropping showers of our island +pointed the inclination of Society to another exponent of those virtues. +A ribbon of the Legion of Honour or a string of medals may prove a +person's courage; a title may prove his birth; a professorial chair his +study and acquirement; but it is the habitual carriage of the umbrella +that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the +acknowledged index of social position. + +Robinson Crusoe presents us with a touching instance of the hankering +after them inherent in the civilised and educated mind. To the +superficial, the hot suns of Juan Fernandez may sufficiently account for +his quaint choice of a luxury; but surely one who had borne the hard +labour of a seaman under the tropics for all these years could have +supported an excursion after goats or a peaceful _constitutional_ arm in +arm with the nude Friday. No, it was not this: the memory of a vanished +respectability called for some outward manifestation, and the result +was--an umbrella. A pious castaway might have rigged up a belfry and +solaced his Sunday mornings with the mimicry of church-bells; but Crusoe +was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine +an example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under +adverse circumstances as we have ever met with. + +It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become the very +foremost badge of modern civilisation--the Urim and Thummim of +respectability. Its pregnant symbolism has taken its rise in the most +natural manner. Consider, for a moment, when umbrellas were first +introduced into this country, what manner of men would use them, and +what class would adhere to the useless but ornamental cane. The first, +without doubt, would be the hypochondriacal, out of solicitude for their +health, or the frugal, out of care for their raiment; the second, it is +equally plain, would include the fop, the fool, and the Bobadil. Any one +acquainted with the growth of Society, and knowing out of what small +seeds of cause are produced great revolutions, and wholly new conditions +of intercourse, sees from this simple thought how the carriage of an +umbrella came to indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily +welfare, and scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all +those homely and solid virtues implied in the term RESPECTABILITY. Not +that the umbrella's costliness has nothing to do with its great +influence. Its possession, besides symbolising (as we have already +indicated) the change from wild Esau to plain Jacob dwelling in tents, +implies a certain comfortable provision of fortune. It is not every one +that can expose twenty-six shillings' worth of property to so many +chances of loss and theft. So strongly do we feel on this point, indeed, +that we are almost inclined to consider all who possess really +well-conditioned umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They have a +qualification standing in their lobbies; they carry a sufficient stake +in the common-weal below their arm. One who bears with him an +umbrella--such a complicated structure of whalebone, of silk, and of +cane, that it becomes a very microcosm of modern industry--is +necessarily a man of peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an +offender's head on a very moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty +shilling silk is a possession too precious to be adventured in the shock +of war. + +These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the general) came to +their present high estate. But the true Umbrella-Philosopher meets with +far stranger applications as he goes about the streets. + +Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with the individual +who carries them: indeed, they are far more capable of betraying his +trust; for whereas a face is given to us so far ready made, and all our +power over it is in frowning, and laughing, and grimacing, during the +first three or four decades of life, each umbrella is selected from a +whole shopful, as being most consonant to the purchaser's disposition. +An undoubted power of diagnosis rests with the practised +Umbrella-Philosopher. O you who lisp, and amble, and change the fashion +of your countenances--you who conceal all these, how little do you think +that you left a proof of your weakness in our umbrella-stand--that even +now, as you shake out the folds to meet the thickening snow, we read in +its ivory handle the outward and visible sign of your snobbery, or from +the exposed gingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat, the +hidden hypocrisy of the "_dickey_"! But alas! even the umbrella is no +certain criterion. The falsity and the folly of the human race have +degraded that graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; and while some +umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly +characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he displays his +real nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen +directly opposite to the person's disposition. A mendacious umbrella is +a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself +below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his religious friends +armed with the decent and reputable gingham. May it not be said of the +bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets +"with a lie in their right hand"? + +The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated social scale +of umbrellas (which was a good thing), prevented the great bulk of their +subjects from having any at all, which was certainly a bad thing. We +should be sorry to believe that this Eastern legislator was a fool--the +idea of an aristocracy of umbrellas is too philosophic to have +originated in a nobody,--and we have accordingly taken exceeding pains +to find out the reason of this harsh restriction. We think we have +succeeded; but, while admiring the principle at which he aimed, and +while cordially recognising in the Siamese potentate the only man before +ourselves who had taken a real grasp of the umbrella, we must be allowed +to point out how unphilosophically the great man acted in this +particular. His object, plainly, was to prevent any unworthy persons +from bearing the sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We cannot excuse his +limiting these virtues to the circle of his court. We must only remember +that such was the feeling of the age in which he lived. Liberalism had +not yet raised the war-cry of the working classes. But here was his +mistake: it was a needless regulation. Except in a very few cases of +hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature +_umbrellarians_, have tried again and again to become so by art, and yet +have failed--have expended their patrimony in the purchase of umbrella +after umbrella, and yet have systematically lost them, and have finally, +with contrite spirits and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, +and relied on theft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives. This +is the most remarkable fact that we have had occasion to notice; and yet +we challenge the candid reader to call it in question. Now, as there +cannot be any _moral selection_ in a mere dead piece of furniture--as +the umbrella cannot be supposed to have an affinity for individual men +equal and reciprocal to that which men certainly feel toward individual +umbrellas,--we took the trouble of consulting a scientific friend as to +whether there was any possible physical explanation of the phenomenon. +He was unable to supply a plausible theory, or even hypothesis; but we +extract from his letter the following interesting passage relative to +the physical peculiarities of umbrellas: "Not the least important, and +by far the most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy which it +displays in affecting the atmospheric strata. There is no fact in +meteorology better established--indeed, it is almost the only one on +which meteorologists are agreed--than that the carriage of an umbrella +produces desiccation of the air; while if it be left at home, aqueous +vapour is largely produced, and is soon deposited in the form of rain. +No theory," my friend continues, "competent to explain this hygrometric +law has been given (as far as I am aware) by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, +Tait, Buchan, or any other writer; nor do I pretend to supply the +defect. I venture, however, to throw out the conjecture that it will be +ultimately found to belong to the same class of natural laws as that +agreeable to which a slice of toast always descends with the buttered +surface downwards." + +But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate much longer upon +this topic, but want of space constrains us to leave unfinished these +few desultory remarks--slender contributions towards a subject which has +fallen sadly backward, and which, we grieve to say, was better +understood by the king of Siam in 1686 than by all the philosophers of +to-day. If, however, we have awakened in any rational mind an interest +in the symbolism of umbrellas--in any generous heart a more complete +sympathy with the dumb companion of his daily walk,--or in any grasping +spirit a pure notion of respectability strong enough to make him expend +his six-and-twenty shillings--we shall have deserved well of the world, +to say nothing of the many industrious persons employed in the +manufacture of the article. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [36] "This paper was written in collaboration with James Walter + Ferrier, and if reprinted this is to be stated, though his principal + collaboration was to lie back in an easy-chair and laugh."--[R. L. S., + _Oct_. 25, 1894.] + + + + +V + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE + + "How many Cæsars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the names, have + been rendered worthy of them? And how many are there, who might have + done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits + been totally depressed and Nicodemus'd into nothing?"--"Tristram + Shandy," vol. i. chap. xix. + + +Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., Turkey merchant. To +the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first who fairly pointed out +the incalculable influence of nomenclature upon the whole life--who +seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic +appellation, soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, +like the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight +of name into the abysses of social failure. Solomon possibly had his eye +on some such theory when he said that "a good name is better than +precious ointment"; and perhaps we may trace a similar spirit in the +compilers of the English Catechism, and the affectionate interest with +which they linger round the catechumen's name at the very threshold of +their work. But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure me for +appending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son, the Turkey +merchant's name to his system, and pronouncing, without further +preface, a short epitome of the "Shandean Philosophy of Nomenclature." + +To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt from the +very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which I hailed +Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and +the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I found a +freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single one of my +numerous _prænomina_. Look at the delight with which two children find +they have the same name. They are friends from that moment forth; they +have a bond of union stronger than exchange of nuts and sweetmeats. This +feeling, I own, wears off in later life. Our names lose their freshness +and interest, become trite and indifferent. But this, dear reader, is +merely one of the sad effects of those "shades of the prison-house" +which come gradually betwixt us and nature with advancing years; it +affords no weapon against the philosophy of names. + +In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that name which +careless godfathers lightly applied to your unconscious infancy will +have been moulding your character, and influencing with irresistible +power the whole course of your earthly fortunes. But the last name, +overlooked by Mr. Shandy, is no whit less important as a condition of +success. Family names, we must recollect, are but inherited nicknames; +and if the _sobriquet_ were applicable to the ancestor, it is most +likely applicable to the descendant also. You would not expect to find +Mr. M'Phun acting as a mute, or Mr. M'Lumpha excelling as a professor of +dancing. Therefore, in what follows, we shall consider names, +independent of whether they are first or last. And to begin with, look +what a pull _Cromwell_ had over _Pym_--the one name full of a resonant +imperialism, the other, mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a degree. +Who would expect eloquence from _Pym_--who would read poems by +_Pym_--who would bow to the opinion of _Pym_? He might have been a +dentist, but he should never have aspired to be a statesman. I can only +wonder that he succeeded as he did. Pym and Habakkuk stand first upon +the roll of men who have triumphed, by sheer force of genius, over the +most unfavourable appellations. But even these have suffered; and, had +they been more fitly named, the one might have been Lord Protector, and +the other have shared the laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must +not forget that all our great poets have borne great names. Chaucer, +Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley--what a +constellation of lordly words! Not a single common-place name among +them--not a Brown, not a Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that +one would stop and look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if _Pepys_ had +tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a blot would +that word have made upon the list! The thing was impossible. In the +first place a certain natural consciousness that men would have held him +down to the level of his name, would have prevented him from rising +above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld him altogether from +attempting verse. Next, the book-sellers would refuse to publish, and +the world to read them, on the mere evidence of the fatal appellation. +And now, before I close this section, I must say one word as to +_punnable_ names, names that stand alone, that have a significance and +life apart from him that bears them. These are the bitterest of all. One +friend of mine goes bowed and humbled through life under the weight of +this misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a man's name is a joke, +when he cannot be mentioned without exciting merriment, and when even +the intimation of his death bids fair to carry laughter into many a +home. + +So much for people who are badly named. Now for people who are _too_ +well named, who go top-heavy from the font, who are baptized into a +false position, and find themselves beginning life eclipsed under the +fame of some of the great ones of the past. A man, for instance, called +William Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He is thrown into +too humbling an apposition with the author of _Hamlet._ His own name +coming after is such an anti-climax. "The plays of William Shakespeare"? +says the reader--"O no! The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill," and +he throws the book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John +Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us in this favoured town, +has never attempted to write an epic, but has chosen a new path, and has +excelled upon the tight-rope. A marked example of triumph over this is +the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. On the face of the matter, I +should have advised him to imitate the pleasing modesty of the +last-named gentleman, and confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. +Rossetti has triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his mighty +name-father; and the voice of fame supports him in his boldness. + +Dear readers, one might write a year upon this matter. A lifetime of +comparison and research could scarce suffice for its elucidation. So +here, if it please you, we shall let it rest. Slight as these notes have +been, I would that the great founder of the system had been alive to see +them. How he had warmed and brightened, how his persuasive eloquence +would have fallen on the ears of Toby; and what a letter of praise and +sympathy would not the editor have received before the month was out! +Alas, the thing was not to be. Walter Shandy died and was duly buried, +while yet his theory lay forgotten and neglected by his +fellow-countrymen. But, reader, the day will come, I hope, when a +paternal government will stamp out, as seeds of national weakness, all +depressing patronymics, and when godfathers and godmothers will soberly +and earnestly debate the interest of the nameless one, and not rush +blindfold to the christening. In these days there shall be written a +"Godfather's Assistant," in shape of a dictionary of names, with their +concomitant virtues and vices; and this book shall be scattered +broadcast through the land, and shall be on the table of every one +eligible for god-fathership, until such a thing as a vicious or untoward +appellation shall have ceased from off the face of the earth. + + + + +NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD + + + + +NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD + +I + +A RETROSPECT + +(_A Fragment: written at Dunoon, 1870_) + + +If there is anything that delights me in Hazlitt, beyond the charm of +style and the unconscious portrait of a vain and powerful spirit, which +his works present, it is the loving and tender way in which he returns +again to the memory of the past. These little recollections of bygone +happiness were too much a part of the man to be carelessly or poorly +told. The imaginary landscapes and visions of the most ecstatic dreamer +can never rival such recollections, told simply perhaps, but still told +(as they could not fail to be) with precision, delicacy, and evident +delight. They are too much loved by the author not to be palated by the +reader. But beyond the mere felicity of pencil, the nature of the piece +could never fail to move my heart. When I read his essay "On the Past +and Future," every word seemed to be something I had said myself. I +could have thought he had been eavesdropping at the doors of my heart, +so entire was the coincidence between his writing and my thought. It is +a sign perhaps of a somewhat vain disposition. The future is nothing; +but the past is myself, my own history, the seed of my present thoughts, +the mould of my present disposition. It is not in vain that I return to +the nothings of my childhood; for every one of them has left some stamp +upon me or put some fetter on my boasted free-will. In the past is my +present fate; and in the past also is my real life. It is not the past +only, but the past that has been many years in that tense. The doings +and actions of last year are as uninteresting and vague to me as the +blank gulf of the future, the _tabula rasa_ that may never be anything +else. I remember a confused hotch-potch of unconnected events, a "chaos +without form, and void"; but nothing salient or striking rises from the +dead level of "flat, stale, and unprofitable" generality. When we are +looking at a landscape we think ourselves pleased; but it is only when +it comes back upon us by the fire o' nights that we can disentangle the +main charm from the thick of particulars. It is just so with what is +lately past. It is too much loaded with detail to be distinct; and the +canvas is too large for the eye to encompass. But this is no more the +case when our recollections have been strained long enough through the +hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen of so much thought, +the charm and comfort of so many a vigil. All that is worthless has been +sieved and sifted out of them. Nothing remains but the brightest lights +and the darkest shadows. When we see a mountain country near at hand, +the spurs and haunches crowd up in eager rivalry, and the whole range +seems to have shrugged its shoulders to its ears, till we cannot tell +the higher from the lower: but when we are far off, these lesser +prominences are melted back into the bosom of the rest, or have set +behind the round horizon of the plain, and the highest peaks stand forth +in lone and sovereign dignity against the sky. It is just the same with +our recollections. We require to draw back and shade our eyes before the +picture dawns upon us in full breadth and outline. Late years are still +in limbo to us; but the more distant past is all that we possess in +life, the corn already harvested and stored for ever in the grange of +memory. The doings of to-day at some future time will gain the required +offing; I shall learn to love the things of my adolescence, as Hazlitt +loved them, and as I love already the recollections of my childhood. +They will gather interest with every year. They will ripen in forgotten +corners of my memory; and some day I shall waken and find them vested +with new glory and new pleasantness. + +It is for stirring the chords of memory, then, that I love Hazlitt's +essays, and for the same reason (I remember) he himself threw in his +allegiance to Rousseau, saying of him, what was so true of his own +writings: "He seems to gather up the past moments of his being like +drops of honey-dew to distil some precious liquor from them; his +alternate pleasures and pains are the bead-roll that he tells over and +piously worships; he makes a rosary of the flowers of hope and fancy +that strewed his earliest years." How true are these words when applied +to himself! and how much I thank him that it was so! All my childhood is +a golden age to me. I have no recollection of bad weather. Except one or +two storms where grandeur had impressed itself on my mind, the whole +time seems steeped in sunshine. "_Et ego in Arcadia vixi_" would be no +empty boast upon my grave. If I desire to live long, it is that I may +have the more to look back upon. Even to one, like the unhappy Duchess, + + "Acquainted with sad misery + As the tamed galley-slave is with his oar," + +and seeing over the night of troubles no "lily-wristed morn" of hope +appear, a retrospect of even chequered and doubtful happiness in the +past may sweeten the bitterness of present tears. And here I may be +excused if I quote a passage from an unpublished drama (the unpublished +is perennial, I fancy) which the author believed was not all devoid of +the flavour of our elder dramatists. However this may be, it expresses +better than I could some further thoughts on this same subject. The +heroine is taken by a minister to the grave, where already some have +been recently buried, and where her sister's lover is destined to +rejoin them on the following day.[37] + + * * * * * + +What led me to the consideration of this subject, and what has made me +take up my pen to-night, is the rather strange coincidence of two very +different accidents--a prophecy of my future and a return into my past. +No later than yesterday, seated in the coffee-room here, there came into +the tap of the hotel a poor mad Highland woman. The noise of her +strained, thin voice brought me out to see her. I could conceive that +she had been pretty once, but that was many years ago. She was now +withered and fallen-looking. Her hair was thin and straggling, her dress +poor and scanty. Her moods changed as rapidly as a weathercock before a +thunderstorm. One moment she said her "mutch" was the only thing that +gave her comfort, and the next she slackened the strings and let it back +upon her neck, in a passion at it for making her too hot. Her talk was a +wild, somewhat weird, farrago of utterly meaningless balderdash, mere +inarticulate gabble, snatches of old Jacobite ballads and exaggerated +phrases from the drama, to which she suited equally exaggerated action. +She "babbled of green fields" and Highland glens; she prophesied "the +drawing of the claymore," with a lofty disregard of cause or +common-sense; and she broke out suddenly, with uplifted hands and eyes, +into ecstatic "Heaven bless hims!" and "Heaven forgive hims!" She had +been a camp-follower in her younger days, and she was never tired of +expatiating on the gallantry, the fame, and the beauty of the 42nd +Highlanders. Her patriotism knew no bounds, and her prolixity was much +on the same scale. This Witch of Endor offered to tell my fortune, with +much dignity and proper oracular enunciation. But on my holding forth my +hand a somewhat ludicrous incident occurred. "Na, na," she said; "wait +till I have a draw of my pipe." Down she sat in the corner, puffing +vigorously and regaling the lady behind the counter with conversation +more remarkable for stinging satire than prophetic dignity. The person +in question had "mair weeg than hair on her head" (did not the chignon +plead guilty at these words?)--"wad be better if she had less +tongue"--and would come at last to the grave, a goal which, in a few +words, she invested with "warning circumstance" enough to make a Stoic +shudder. Suddenly, in the midst of this, she rose up and beckoned me to +approach. The oracles of my Highland sorceress had no claim to +consideration except in the matter of obscurity. In "question hard and +sentence intricate" she beat the priests of Delphi; in bold, unvarnished +falsity (as regards the past) even spirit-rapping was a child to her. +All that I could gather may be thus summed up shortly: that I was to +visit America, that I was to be very happy, and that I was to be much +upon the sea, predictions which, in consideration of an uneasy stomach, +I can scarcely think agreeable with one another. Two incidents alone +relieved the dead level of idiocy and incomprehensible gabble. The first +was the comical announcement that "when I drew fish to the Marquis of +Bute, I should take care of my sweetheart," from which I deduce the fact +that at some period of my life I shall drive a fishmonger's cart. The +second, in the middle of such nonsense, had a touch of the tragic. She +suddenly looked at me with an eager glance, and dropped my hand saying, +in what were tones of misery or a very good affectation of them, "Black +eyes!" A moment after she was at work again. It is as well to mention +that I have not black eyes.[38] + +This incident, strangely blended of the pathetic and the ludicrous, set +my mind at work upon the future; but I could find little interest in the +study. Even the predictions of my sibyl failed to allure me, nor could +life's prospect charm and detain my attention like its retrospect. + +Not far from Dunoon is Rosemore, a house in which I had spent a week or +so in my very distant childhood, how distant I have no idea; and one may +easily conceive how I looked forward to revisiting this place and so +renewing contact with my former self. I was under necessity to be early +up, and under necessity also, in the teeth of a bitter spring +north-easter, to clothe myself warmly on the morning of my long-promised +excursion. The day was as bright as it was cold. Vast irregular masses +of white and purple cumulus drifted rapidly over the sky. The great +hills, brown with the bloomless heather, were here and there buried in +blue shadows, and streaked here and there with sharp stripes of sun. The +new-fired larches were green in the glens; and "pale primroses" hid +themselves in mossy hollows and under hawthorn roots. All these things +were new to me; for I had noticed none of these beauties in my younger +days, neither the larch woods, nor the winding road edged in between +field and flood, nor the broad, ruffled bosom of the hill-surrounded +loch. It was, above all, the height of these hills that astonished me. I +remembered the existence of hills, certainly, but the picture in my +memory was low, featureless, and uninteresting. They seemed to have kept +pace with me in my growth, but to a gigantic scale; and the villas that +I remembered as half-way up the slope seemed to have been left behind +like myself, and now only ringed their mighty feet, white among the +newly kindled woods. As I felt myself on the road at last that I had +been dreaming for these many days before, a perfect intoxication of joy +took hold upon me; and I was so pleased at my own happiness that I could +let none past me till I had taken them into my confidence. I asked my +way from every one, and took good care to let them all know, before +they left me, what my object was, and how many years had elapsed since +my last visit. I wonder what the good folk thought of me and my +communications. + +At last, however, after much inquiry, I arrive at the place, make my +peace with the gardener, and enter. My disillusion dates from the +opening of the garden door. I repine, I find a reluctation of spirit +against believing that this is the place. What, is this kailyard that +inexhaustible paradise of a garden in which M---- and I found +"elbow-room," and expatiated together without sensible constraint? Is +that little turfed slope the huge and perilous green bank down which I +counted it a feat, and the gardener a sin, to run? Are these two squares +of stone, some two feet high, the pedestals on which I walked with such +a penetrating sense of dizzy elevation, and which I had expected to find +on a level with my eyes? Ay, the place is no more like what I expected +than this bleak April day is like the glorious September with which it +is incorporated in my memory. I look at the gardener, disappointment in +my face, and tell him that the place seems sorrily shrunken from the +high estate that it had held in my remembrance, and he returns, with +quiet laughter, by asking me how long it is since I was there. I tell +him, and he remembers me. Ah! I say, I was a great nuisance, I believe. +But no, my good gardener will plead guilty to having kept no record of +my evil-doings, and I find myself much softened toward the place and +willing to take a kinder view and pardon its shortcomings for the sake +of the gardener and his pretended recollection of myself. And it is just +at this stage (to complete my re-establishment) that I see a little +boy--the gardener's grandchild--just about the same age and the same +height that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first +feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I +had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but +next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the +throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join +conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the +gardener is opportunely gone for the key of the house. But the child is +a sort of homily to me. He is perfectly quiet and resigned, an +unconscious hermit. I ask him jocularly if he gets as much abused as I +used to do for running down the bank; but the child's perfect +seriousness of answer staggers me--"O no, grandpapa doesn't allow +it--why should he?" I feel caught: I stand abashed at the reproof; I +must not expose my childishness again to this youthful disciplinarian, +and so I ask him very stately what he is going to be--a good serious +practical question, out of delicacy for his parts. He answers that he is +going to be a missionary to China, and tells me how a missionary once +took him on his knee and told him about missionary work, and asked him +if he, too, would not like to become one, to which the child had simply +answered in the affirmative. The child is altogether so different from +what I have been, is so absolutely complementary to what I now am, that +I turn away not a little abashed from the conversation, for there is +always something painful in sudden contact with the good qualities that +we do not possess. Just then the grandfather returns; and I go with him +to the summer-house, where I used to learn my Catechism, to the wall on +which M----and I thought it no small exploit to walk upon, and all the +other places that I remembered. + +In fine, the matter being ended, I turn and go my way home to the hotel, +where, in the cold afternoon, I write these notes with the table and +chair drawn as near the fire as the rug and the French polish will +permit. + +One other thing I may as well make a note of, and that is how there +arises that strange contradiction of the hills being higher than I had +expected and everything near at hand being so ridiculously smaller. This +is a question I think easily answered: the very terms of the problem +suggest the solution. To everything near at hand I applied my own +stature, as a sort of natural unit of measurement, so that I had no +actual image of their dimensions but their ratio to myself; so, of +course, as one term of the proportion changed, the other changed +likewise, and as my own height increased my notion of things near at +hand became equally expanded. But the hills, mark you, were out of my +reach: I could not apply myself to them: I had an actual, instead of a +proportional eidolon of their magnitude; so that, of course (my eye +being larger and flatter nowadays, and so the image presented to me then +being in sober earnest smaller than the image presented to me now), I +found the hills nearly as much too great as I had found the other things +too small. + + * * * * * + +[_Added the next morning_.]--He who indulges habitually in the +intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for the very reason that he reaps +a greater pleasure than others, must resign himself to a keener pain, a +more intolerable and utter prostration. It is quite possible, and even +comparatively easy, so to enfold oneself in pleasant fancies that the +realities of life may seem but as the white snow-shower in the street, +that only gives a relish to the swept hearth and lively fire within. By +such means I have forgotten hunger, I have sometimes eased pain, and I +have invariably changed into the most pleasant hours of the day those +very vacant and idle seasons which would otherwise have hung most +heavily upon my hand. But all this is attained by the undue prominence +of purely imaginative joys, and consequently the weakening and almost +the destruction of reality. This is buying at too great a price. There +are seasons when the imagination becomes somehow tranced and surfeited, +as it is with me this morning; and then upon what can we fall back? The +very faculty that we have fostered and trusted has failed us in the hour +of trial; and we have so blunted and enfeebled our appetite for the +others that they are subjectively dead to us. It is just as though a +farmer should plant all his fields in potatoes, instead of varying them +with grain and pasture; and so, when the disease comes, lose all his +harvest, while his neighbours, perhaps, may balance the profit and the +loss. Do not suppose that I am exaggerating when I talk about all +pleasures seeming stale. To me, at least, the edge of almost everything +is put on by imagination; and even nature, in these days when the fancy +is drugged and useless, wants half the charm it has in better moments. I +can no longer see satyrs in the thicket, or picture a highwayman riding +down the lane. The fiat of indifference has gone forth: I am vacant, +unprofitable: a leaf on a river with no volition and no aim: a mental +drunkard the morning after an intellectual debauch. Yes, I have a more +subtle opium in my own mind than any apothecary's drug; but it has a +sting of its own, and leaves me as flat and helpless as does the other. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [37] The quotation here promised from one of the author's own early + dramatic efforts (a tragedy of Semiramis) is not supplied in the + MS.--[SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE.] + + [38] "The old pythoness was right," adds the author in a note appended + to his MS. in 1887; "I have been happy: I did go to America (am even + going again--unless----): and I have been twice and once upon the + deep." The seafaring part of the prophecy remained to be fulfilled + on a far more extended scale in his Pacific voyages of + 1888-90.--[SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE.] + + + + +II + +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK + +(_A Fragment_: 1871) + + +Very much as a painter half closes his eyes so that some salient unity +may disengage itself from among the crowd of details, and what he sees +may thus form itself into a whole; very much on the same principle, I +may say, I allow a considerable lapse of time to intervene between any +of my little journeyings and the attempt to chronicle them. I cannot +describe a thing that is before me at the moment, or that has been +before me only a very little while before; I must allow my recollections +to get thoroughly strained free from all chaff till nothing be except +the pure gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable by +a process of natural selection; and I piously believe that in this way +I ensure the Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for future use, or +if I am obliged to write letters during the course of my little +excursion, I so interfere with the process that I can never again find +out what is worthy of being preserved, or what should be given in full +length, what in torso, or what merely in profile. This process of +incubation may be unreasonably prolonged; and I am somewhat afraid that +I have made this mistake with the present journey. Like a bad +daguerreotype, great part of it has been entirely lost; I can tell you +nothing about the beginning and nothing about the end; but the doings of +some fifty or sixty hours about the middle remain quite distinct and +definite, like a little patch of sunshine on a long, shadowy plain, or +the one spot on an old picture that has been restored by the dexterous +hand of the cleaner. I remember a tale of an old Scots minister, called +upon suddenly to preach, who had hastily snatched an old sermon out of +his study and found himself in the pulpit before he noticed that the +rats had been making free with his manuscript and eaten the first two or +three pages away; he gravely explained to the congregation how he found +himself situated; "And now," said he, "let us just begin where the rats +have left off." I must follow the divine's example, and take up the +thread of my discourse where it first distinctly issues from the limbo +of forgetfulness. + + +COCKERMOUTH + +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and +did not raise my head until I was fairly in the street. When I did so, +it flashed upon me that I was in England; the evening sunlight lit up +English houses, English faces, an English conformation of street,--as it +were, an English atmosphere blew against my face. There is nothing +perhaps more puzzling (if one thing in sociology can ever really be more +unaccountable than another) than the great gulf that is set between +England and Scotland--a gulf so easy in appearance, in reality so +difficult to traverse. Here are two people almost identical in blood; +pent up together on one small island, so that their intercourse (one +would have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners who shared one +cell of the Bastille; the same in language and religion; and yet a few +years of quarrelsome isolation--a mere forenoon's tiff, as one may call +it, in comparison with the great historical cycles--has so separated +their thoughts and ways that not unions, not mutual dangers, nor +steamers, nor railways, nor all the king's horses and all the king's +men, seem able to obliterate the broad distinction. In the trituration +of another century or so the corners may disappear; but in the meantime, +in the year of grace 1871, I was as much in a new country as if I had +been walking out of the Hotel St. Antoine at Antwerp. + +I felt a little thrill of pleasure at my heart as I realised the change, +and strolled away up the street with my hands behind my back, noting in +a dull, sensual way how foreign, and yet how friendly, were the slopes +of the gables and the colour of the tiles, and even the demeanour and +voices of the gossips round about me. + +Wandering in this aimless humour, I turned up a lane and found myself +following the course of the bright little river. I passed first one and +then another, then a third, several couples out love-making in the +spring evening; and a consequent feeling of loneliness was beginning to +grow upon me, when I came to a dam across the river, and a mill--a +great, gaunt promontory of building,--half on dry ground and half arched +over the stream. The road here drew in its shoulders, and crept through +between the landward extremity of the mill and a little garden +enclosure, with a small house and a large signboard within its privet +hedge. I was pleased to fancy this an inn, and drew little etchings in +fancy of a sanded parlour, and three-cornered spittoons, and a society +of parochial gossips seated within over their churchwardens; but as I +drew near, the board displayed its superscription, and I could read the +name of Smethurst, and the designation of "Canadian Felt Hat +Manufacturers." There was no more hope of evening fellowship, and I +could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. The water was +dappled with slanting sunshine, and dusted all over with a little mist +of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, also, whose +love-making reminded me of what I had seen a little farther down. But +the road grew sad, and I grew weary; and as I was perpetually haunted +with the terror of a return of the tic that had been playing such ruin +in my head a week ago, I turned and went back to the inn, and supper, +and my bed. + +The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated to the smart waitress my +intention of continuing down the coast and through Whitehaven to +Furness, and, as I might have expected, I was instantly confronted by +that last and most worrying form of interference, that chooses to +introduce tradition and authority into the choice of a man's own +pleasures. I can excuse a person combating my religious or philosophical +heresies, because them I have deliberately accepted, and am ready to +justify by present argument. But I do not seek to justify my pleasures. +If I prefer tame scenery to grand, a little hot sunshine over lowland +parks and woodlands to the war of the elements round the summit of Mont +Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of mild tobacco, and the company of one or +two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, +and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, and do not seek to +establish them as principles. This is not the general rule, however, and +accordingly the waitress was shocked, as one might be at a heresy, to +hear the route that I had sketched out for myself. Everybody who came to +Cockermouth for pleasure, it appeared, went on to Keswick. It was in +vain that I put up a little plea for the liberty of the subject; it was +in vain that I said I should prefer to go to Whitehaven. I was told that +there was "nothing to see there"--that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; +and at last, as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave +way, as men always do in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to +leave for Keswick by a train in the early evening. + + +AN EVANGELIST + +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a place with "nothing to +see"; nevertheless I saw a good deal, and retain a pleasant, vague +picture of the town and all its surroundings. I might have dodged +happily enough all day about the main street and up to the castle and in +and out of byways, but the curious attraction that leads a person in a +strange place to follow, day after day, the same round, and to make set +habits for himself in a week or ten days, led me half unconsciously up +the same road that I had gone the evening before. When I came up to the +hat manufactory, Smethurst himself was standing in the garden gate. He +was brushing one Canadian felt hat, and several others had been put to +await their turn one above the other on his own head, so that he looked +something like the typical Jew old-clothesman. As I drew near, he came +sidling out of the doorway to accost me, with so curious an expression +on his face that I instinctively prepared myself to apologise for some +unwitting trespass. His first question rather confirmed me in this +belief, for it was whether or not he had seen me going up this way last +night; and after having answered in the affirmative, I waited in some +alarm for the rest of my indictment. But the good man's heart was full +of peace; and he stood there brushing his hats and prattling on about +fishing, and walking, and the pleasures of convalescence, in a bright +shallow stream that kept me pleased and interested, I could scarcely say +how. As he went on, he warmed to his subject, and laid his hats aside to +go along the water-side and show me where the large trout commonly lay, +underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much disappointed, for my +sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to +another tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in +the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if +not me, some friend of mine--merely, I believe, out of a desire that we +should feel more friendly and at our ease with one another. At last he +made a little speech to me, of which I wish I could recollect the very +words, for they were so simple and unaffected that they put all the best +writing and speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the +sense, and that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that he had +little things in his past life that it gave him especial pleasure to +recall; and that the faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now +died out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and +active. Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river +above the dam which he was going to lend me, in order that I might be +able to look back, in after years, upon having done so, and get great +pleasure from the recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who will +forego present enjoyments and suffer much present inconvenience for the +sake of manufacturing "a reminiscence" for himself; but there was +something singularly refined in this pleasure that the hatmaker found in +making reminiscences for others; surely no more simple or unselfish +luxury can be imagined. After he had unmoored his little embarkation, +and seen me safely shoved off into mid-stream, he ran away back to his +hats with the air of a man who had only just recollected that he had +anything to do. + +I did not stay very long on the raft. It ought to have been very nice +punting about there in the cool shade of the trees, or sitting moored to +an overhanging root; but perhaps the very notion that I was bound in +gratitude specially to enjoy my little cruise, and cherish its +recollection, turned the whole thing from a pleasure into a duty. Be +that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore +again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself and +his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than +anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. In +order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself for +having failed to enjoy this treat sufficiently, I determined to continue +up the river, and, at all prices, to find some other way back into the +town in time for dinner. As I went, I was thinking of Smethurst with +admiration; a look into that man's mind was like a retrospect over the +smiling champaign of his past life, and very different from the +Sinai-gorges up which one looks for a terrified moment into the dark +souls of many good, many wise, and many prudent men. I cannot be very +grateful to such men for their excellence, and wisdom, and prudence. I +find myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, full +of doubt, difficulties, defeats, disappointments, and dangers, quite a +hard enough life without their dark countenances at my elbow, so that +what I want is a happy-minded Smethurst placed here and there at ugly +corners of my life's wayside, preaching his gospel of quiet and +contentment. + + +ANOTHER + +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After I had +forced my way through a gentleman's grounds, I came out on the high +road, and sat down to rest myself on a heap of stones at the top of a +long hill, with Cockermouth lying snugly at the bottom. An Irish +beggar-woman, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came up to ask +for alms, and gradually fell to telling me the little tragedy of her +life. Her own sister, she told me, had seduced her husband from her +after many years of married life, and the pair had fled, leaving her +destitute, with the little girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful +and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the loss of her +husband's earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of his +affection; some day she would meet the fugitives, and the law would see +her duly righted, and in the meantime the smallest contribution was +gratefully received. While she was telling all this in the most +matter-of-fact way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall man, with +a high white hat and darkish clothes. He came up the hill at a rapid +pace, and joined our little group with a sort of half salutation. +Turning at once to the woman, he asked her in a business-like way +whether she had anything to do, whether she were a Catholic or a +Protestant, whether she could read, and so forth; and then, after a few +kind words and some sweeties to the child, he despatched the mother with +some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman's Bible. I was +a little amused at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and +had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he tackled me with great +solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, for I do not think it was +very wise; but the subject does not appear to me just now in a jesting +light, so I shall only say that he related to me his own conversion, +which had been effected (as is very often the case) through the agency +of a gig accident, and that, after having examined me and diagnosed my +case, he selected some suitable tracts from his repertory, gave them to +me, and, bidding me God-speed, went on his way. + + +LAST OF SMETHURST + +That evening I got into a third-class carriage on my way for Keswick, +and was followed almost immediately by a burly man in brown clothes. +This fellow-passenger was seemingly ill at ease, and kept continually +putting his head out of the window, and asking the bystanders if they +saw _him_ coming. At last, when the train was already in motion, there +was a commotion on the platform, and a way was left clear to our +carriage door. _He_ had arrived. In the hurry I could just see +Smethurst, red and panting, thrust a couple of clay pipes into my +companion's outstretched hand, and hear him crying his farewells after +us as we slipped out of the station at an ever accelerating pace. I said +something about its being a close run, and the broad man, already +engaged in filling one of the pipes, assented, and went on to tell me of +his own stupidity in forgetting a necessary, and of how his friend had +good-naturedly gone down town at the last moment to supply the omission. +I mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst already, and that he had been +very polite to me; and we fell into a discussion of the hatter's merits +that lasted some time and left us quite good friends at its conclusion. +The topic was productive of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked +about the season, and agreed at last that we should go to the same hotel +at Keswick and sup in company. As he had some business in the town which +would occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the +time and go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised +wonders. + +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a place +where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went +along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew in gusts +from the far end of the lake. The sky was covered with flying scud; and, +as this was ragged, there was quite a wild chase of shadow and +moon-glimpse over the surface of the shuddering water. I had to hold my +hat on, and was growing rather tired, and inclined to go back in +disgust, when a little incident occurred to break the tedium. A sudden +and violent squall of wind sundered the low underwood, and at the same +time there came one of those brief discharges of moonlight, which leaped +into the opening thus made, and showed me three girls in the prettiest +flutter and disorder. It was as though they had sprung out of the +ground. I accosted them very politely in my capacity of stranger, and +requested to be told the names of all manner of hills and woods and +places that I did not wish to know, and we stood together for a while +and had an amusing little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the +party, brought the colour into their faces, and gave them enough to do +to repress their drapery; and one of them, amid much giggling, had to +pirouette round and round upon her toes (as girls do) when some +specially strong gust had got the advantage over her. They were just +high enough up in the social order not to be afraid to speak to a +gentleman; and just low enough to feel a little tremor, a nervous +consciousness of wrong-doing--of stolen waters, that gave a considerable +zest to our most innocent interview. They were as much discomposed and +fluttered, indeed, as if I had been a wicked baron proposing to elope +with the whole trio; but they showed no inclination to go away, and I +had managed to get them off hills and waterfalls and on to more +promising subjects, when a young man was descried coming along the path +from the direction of Keswick. Now whether he was the young man of one +of my friends, or the brother of one of them, or indeed the brother of +all, I do not know; but they incontinently said that they must be going, +and went away up the path with friendly salutations. I need not say that +I found the lake and the moonlight rather dull after their departure and +speedily found my way back to potted herrings and whisky-and-water in +the commercial room with my late fellow-traveller. In the smoking-room +there was a tall dark man with a moustache, in an ulster coat, who had +got the best place and was monopolising most of the talk; and, as I came +in, a whisper came round to me from both sides, that this was the +manager of a London theatre. The presence of such a man was a great +event for Keswick, and I must own that the manager showed himself equal +to his position. He had a large fat pocket-book, from which he produced +poem after poem, written on the backs of letters or hotel-bills; and +nothing could be more humorous than his recitation of these elegant +extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with which he varied the +entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, something less countrified in my +appearance than in most of the company, he singled me out to +corroborate some statements as to the depravity and vice of the +aristocracy, and when he went on to describe some gilded saloon +experiences, I am proud to say that he honoured my sagacity with one +little covert wink before a second time appealing to me for +confirmation. The wink was not thrown away; I went in up to the elbows +with the manager, until I think that some of the glory of that great man +settled by reflection upon me, and that I was as noticeably the second +person in the smoking-room as he was the first. For a young man, this +was a position of some distinction, I think you will admit.... + + + + +III + +ROADS + +(1873) + + +No amateur will deny that he can find more pleasure in a single drawing, +over which he can sit a whole quiet forenoon, and so gradually study +himself into humour with the artist, than he can ever extract from the +dazzle and accumulation of incongruous impressions that send him, weary +and stupefied, out of some famous picture-gallery. But what is thus +admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural +beauties: no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or the graces +of cultivated lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or +degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that moderation, +and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are not healthful and +strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of +nature is not to be found in one of those countries where there is no +stage effect--nothing salient or sudden,--but a quiet spirit of orderly +and harmonious beauty pervades all the details, so that we can +patiently attend to each of the little touches that strike in us, all of +them together, the subdued note of the landscape. It is in scenery such +as this that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small +sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence of similar combinations +of colour and outline gradually forces upon us a sense of how the +harmony has been built up, and we become familiar with something of +nature's mannerism. This is the true pleasure of your "rural +voluptuary,"--not to remain awe-stricken before a Mount Chimborazo; not +to sit deafened over the big drum in the orchestra, but day by day to +teach himself some new beauty--to experience some new vague and tranquil +sensation that has before evaded him. It is not the people who "have +pined and hungered after nature many a year, in the great city pent," as +Coleridge said in the poem that made Charles Lamb so much ashamed of +himself; it is not those who make the greatest progress in this intimacy +with her, or who are most quick to see and have the greatest gusto to +enjoy. In this, as in everything else, it is minute knowledge and +long-continued loving industry that make the true dilettante. A man must +have thought much over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. It is +no youngling enthusiasm on hill-tops that can possess itself of the last +essence of beauty. Probably most people's heads are growing bare before +they can see all in a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; +and, even then, it will be only for one little moment of consummation +before the faculties are again on the decline, and they that look out of +the windows begin to be darkened and restrained in sight. Thus the study +of nature should be carried forward thoroughly and with system. Every +gratification should be rolled long under the tongue, and we should be +always eager to analyse and compare, in order that we may be able to +give some plausible reason for our admirations. True, it is difficult to +put even approximately into words the kind of feelings thus called into +play. There is a dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual +refining upon vague sensation. The analysis of such satisfactions lends +itself very readily to literary affectations; and we can all think of +instances where it has shown itself apt to exercise a morbid influence, +even upon an author's choice of language and the turn of his sentences. +And yet there is much that makes the attempt attractive; for any +expression, however imperfect, once given to a cherished feeling, seems +a sort of legitimation of the pleasure we take in it. A common sentiment +is one of those great goods that make life palatable and ever new. The +knowledge that another has felt as we have felt, and seen things, even +if they are little things, not much otherwise than we have seen them, +will continue to the end to be one of life's choicest pleasures. + +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit we have recommended +to some of the quieter kinds of English landscape. In those homely and +placid agricultural districts, familiarity will bring into relief many +things worthy of notice, and urge them pleasantly home to him by a sort +of loving repetition; such as the wonderful life-giving speed of +windmill sails above the stationary country; the occurrence and +recurrence of the same church tower at the end of one long vista after +another; and, conspicuous among these sources of quiet pleasure, the +character and variety of the road itself, along which he takes his way. +Not only near at hand, in the lithe contortions with which it adapts +itself to the interchanges of level and slope, but far away also, when +he sees a few hundred feet of it upheaved against a hill and shining in +the afternoon sun, he will find it an object so changeful and enlivening +that he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may leave the +river-side, or fall out of the way of villages, but the road he has +always with him; and, in the true humour of observation, will find in +that sufficient company. From its subtle windings and changes of level +there arises a keen and continuous interest, that keeps the attention +ever alert and cheerful. Every sensitive adjustment to the contour of +the ground, every little dip and swerve, seems instinct with life and +an exquisite sense of balance and beauty. The road rolls upon the easy +slopes of the country, like a long ship in the hollows of the sea. The +very margins of waste ground, as they trench a little farther on the +beaten way, or recede again to the shelter of the hedge, have something +of the same free delicacy of line--of the same swing and wilfulness. You +might think for a whole summer's day (and not have thought it any nearer +an end by evening) what concourse and succession of circumstances has +produced the least of these deflections; and it is, perhaps, just in +this that we should look for the secret of their interest. A footpath +across a meadow--in all its human waywardness and unaccountability, in +all the _grata protervitas_ of its varying direction--will always be +more to us than a railroad well engineered through a difficult +country.[39] No reasoned sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem +to have slipped for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule of +cause and effect; and so we revert at once to some of the pleasant old +heresies of personification, always poetically orthodox, and attribute a +sort of free will, an active and spontaneous life, to the white riband +of road that lengthens out, and bends, and cunningly adapts itself to +the inequalities of the land before our eyes. We remember, as we write, +some miles of fine wide highway laid out with conscious æsthetic +artifice through a broken and richly cultivated tract of country. It is +said that the engineer had Hogarth's line of beauty in his mind as he +laid them down. And the result is striking. One splendid satisfying +sweep passes with easy transition into another, and there is nothing to +trouble or dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the +road. And yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving +imperfection, none of these secondary curves and little trepidations of +direction that carry, in natural roads, our curiosity actively along +with them. One feels at once that this road has not grown like a natural +road, but has been laboriously made to pattern; and that, while a model +may be academically correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and +cold. The traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself +and the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into +heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes like a +trodden serpent: here we too must plod forward at a dull, laborious +pace; and so a sympathy is preserved between our frame of mind and the +expression of the relaxed, heavy curves of the roadway. Such a +phenomenon, indeed, our reason might perhaps resolve with a little +trouble. We might reflect that the present road had been developed out +of a track spontaneously followed by generations of primitive wayfarers; +and might see in its expression a testimony that those generations had +been affected at the same ground, one after another, in the same manner +as we are affected to-day. Or we might carry the reflection further, and +remind ourselves that where the air is invigorating and the ground firm +under the traveller's foot, his eye is quick to take advantage of small +undulations, and he will turn carelessly aside from the direct way +wherever there is anything beautiful to examine or some promise of a +wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may permanently bias and +deform the straight path over the meadow; whereas, where the soil is +heavy, one is preoccupied with the labour of mere progression, and goes +with a bowed head heavily and unobservantly forward. Reason, however, +will not carry us the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in +situations where it is very hard to imagine any possible explanation; +and indeed, if we drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open +vehicle, we shall experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We +feel the sharp settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner; +after a steep ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle +precipitately down the other side, and we find It difficult to avoid +attributing something headlong, a sort of _abandon_, to the road itself. + +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven a long day's walk in +even a commonplace or dreary country-side. Something that we have seen +from miles back, upon an eminence, is so long hid from us, as we wander +through folded valleys or among woods, that our expectation of seeing it +again is sharpened into a violent appetite, and as we draw nearer we +impatiently quicken our steps and turn every corner with a beating +heart. It is through these prolongations of expectancy, this succession +of one hope to another, that we live out long seasons of pleasure in a +few hours' walk. It is in following these capricious sinuosities that we +learn, only bit by bit and through one coquettish reticence after +another, much as we learn the heart of a friend, the whole loveliness of +the country. This disposition always preserves something new to be seen, +and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to many different points of +distant view before it allows us finally to approach the hoped-for +destination. + +In its connection with the traffic, and whole friendly intercourse with +the country, there is something very pleasant in that succession of +saunterers and brisk and business-like passers-by, that peoples our ways +and helps to build up what Walt Whitman calls "the cheerful voice of the +public road, the gay, fresh sentiment of the road." But out of the great +network of ways that binds all life together from the hill-farm to the +city, there is something individual to most, and, on the whole, nearly +as much choice on the score of company as on the score of beauty or easy +travel. On some we are never long without the sound of wheels, and folk +pass us by so thickly that we lose the sense of their number. But on +others, about little-frequented districts, a meeting is an affair of +moment; we have the sight far off of some one coming towards us, the +growing definiteness of the person, and then the brief passage and +salutation, and the road left empty in front of us for perhaps a great +while to come. Such encounters have a wistful interest that can hardly +be understood by the dweller in places more populous. We remember +standing beside a countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in +a city that was more than ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed +stunned and bewildered by the continual passage of different faces; and +after a long pause, during which he appeared to search for some suitable +expression, he said timidly that there seemed to be a _great deal of +meeting thereabouts_. The phrase is significant. It is the expression of +town-life in the language of the long, solitary country highways. A +meeting of one with one was what this man had been used to in the +pastoral uplands from which he came; and the concourse of the streets +was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication of such "meetings." + +And now we come to that last and most subtle quality of all, to that +sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so powerfully to our +minds by a road. In real nature as well as in old landscapes, beneath +that impartial daylight in which a whole variegated plain is plunged and +saturated, the line of the road leads the eye forth with the vague sense +of desire up to the green limit of the horizon. Travel is brought home +to us, and we visit in spirit every grove and hamlet that tempts us in +the distance. _Sehnsucht_--the passion for what is ever beyond--is +livingly expressed in that white riband of possible travel that severs +the uneven country; not a ploughman following his plough up the shining +furrow, not the blue smoke of any cottage in a hollow, but is brought to +us with a sense of nearness and attainability by this wavering line of +junction. There is a passionate paragraph in Werther that strikes the +very key. "When I came hither," he writes, "how the beautiful valley +invited me on every side, as I gazed down into it from the hill-top! +There the wood--ah, that I might mingle in its shadows! there the +mountain summits--ah, that I might look down from them over the broad +country! the interlinked hills! the secret valleys! O, to lose myself +among their mysteries! I hurried into the midst, and came back without +finding aught I hoped for. Alas! the distance is like the future. A vast +whole lies in the twilight before our spirit; sight and feeling alike +plunge and lose themselves in the prospect, and we yearn to surrender +our whole being, and let it be filled full with all the rapture of one +single glorious sensation; and alas! when we hasten to the fruition, +when _there_ is changed to _here_, all is afterwards as it was before, +and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our soul thirsts +after a still ebbing elixir." It is to this wandering and uneasy spirit +of anticipation that roads minister. Every little vista, every little +glimpse that we have of what lies before us, gives the impatient +imagination rein, so that it can outstrip the body and already plunge +into the shadow of the woods, and overlook from the hilltop the plain +beyond it, and wander in the windings of the valleys that are still far +in front. The road is already there--we shall not be long behind. It is +as if we were marching with the rear of a great army, and, from far +before, heard the acclamation of the people as the vanguard entered some +friendly and jubilant city. Would not every man, through all the long +miles of march, feel as if he also were within the gates? + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [39] Compare Blake, in the "Marriage of Heaven and Hell": "Improvement + makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, + are roads of Genius." + + + + +IV + +NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN + +(1874) + + +I wish to direct the reader's attention to a certain quality in the +movements of children when young, which is somehow lovable in them, +although it would be even unpleasant in any grown person. Their +movements are not graceful, but they fall short of grace by something so +sweetly humorous that we only admire them the more. The imperfection is +so pretty and pathetic, and it gives so great a promise of something +different in the future, that it attracts us more than many forms of +beauty. They have something of the merit of a rough sketch by a master, +in which we pardon what is wanting or excessive for the sake of the very +bluntness and directness of the thing. It gives us pleasure to see the +beginning of gracious impulses and the springs of harmonious movement +laid bare to us with innocent simplicity. + +One night some ladies formed a sort of impromptu dancing-school in the +drawing-room of an hotel in France. One of the ladies led the ring, and +I can recall her as a model of accomplished, cultured movement. Two +little girls, about eight years old, were the pupils; that is an age of +great interest in girls, when natural grace comes to its consummation of +justice and purity, with little admixture of that other grace of +forethought and discipline that will shortly supersede it altogether. In +these two, particularly, the rhythm was sometimes broken by an excess of +energy, as though the pleasure of the music in their light bodies could +endure no longer the restraint of regulated dance. So that, between +these and the lady, there was not only some beginning of the very +contrast I wish to insist upon, but matter enough to set one thinking a +long while on the beauty of motion. I do not know that, here in England, +we have any good opportunity of seeing what that is; the generation of +British dancing men and women are certainly more remarkable for other +qualities than for grace: they are, many of them, very conscientious +artists, and give quite a serious regard to the technical parts of their +performance; but the spectacle, somehow, is not often beautiful, and +strikes no note of pleasure. If I had seen no more, therefore, this +evening might have remained in my memory as a rare experience. But the +best part of it was yet to come. For after the others had desisted, the +musician still continued to play, and a little button between two and +three years old came out into the cleared space and began to figure +before us as the music prompted. I had an opportunity of seeing her, not +on this night only, but on many subsequent nights; and the wonder and +comical admiration she inspired was only deepened as time went on. She +had an admirable musical ear; and each new melody, as it struck in her a +new humour, suggested wonderful combinations and variations of movement. +Now it would be a dance with which she would suit the music, now rather +an appropriate pantomime, and now a mere string of disconnected +attitudes. But whatever she did, she did it with the same verve and +gusto. The spirit of the air seemed to have entered into her, and to +possess her like a passion; and you could see her struggling to find +expression for the beauty that was in her against the inefficacy of the +dull, half-informed body. Though her footing was uneven, and her +gestures often ludicrously helpless, still the spectacle was not merely +amusing; and though subtle inspirations of movement miscarried in +tottering travesty, you could still see that they had been inspirations; +you could still see that she had set her heart on realising something +just and beautiful, and that, by the discipline of these abortive +efforts, she was making for herself in the future a quick, supple, and +obedient body. It was grace in the making. She was not to be daunted by +any merriment of people looking on critically; the music said something +to her, and her whole spirit was intent on what the music said: she must +carry out its suggestions, she must do her best to translate its +language into that other dialect of the modulated body into which it can +be translated most easily and fully. + +Just the other day I was witness to a second scene, in which the motive +was something similar; only this time with quite common children, and in +the familiar neighbourhood of Hampstead. A little congregation had +formed itself in the lane underneath my window, and was busy over a +skipping-rope. There were two sisters, from seven to nine perhaps, with +dark faces and dark hair, and slim, lithe, little figures clad in lilac +frocks. The elder of these two was mistress of the art of skipping. She +was just and adroit in every movement; the rope passed over her black +head and under her scarlet-stockinged legs with a precision and +regularity that was like machinery; but there was nothing mechanical in +the infinite variety and sweetness of her inclinations, and the +spontaneous agile flexure of her lean waist and hips. There was one +variation favourite with her, in which she crossed her hands before her +with a motion not unlike that of weaving, which was admirably intricate +and complete. And when the two took the rope together and whirled in and +out with occasional interruptions, there was something Italian in the +type of both--in the length of nose, in the slimness and accuracy of the +shapes--and something gay and harmonious in the double movement, that +added to the whole scene a southern element, and took me over sea and +land into distant and beautiful places. Nor was this impression lessened +when the elder girl took in her arms a fair-headed baby, while the +others held the rope for her, turned and gyrated, and went in and out +over it lightly, with a quiet regularity that seemed as if it might go +on for ever. Somehow, incongruous as was the occupation, she reminded me +of Italian Madonnas. And now, as before in the hotel drawing-room, the +humorous element was to be introduced; only this time it was in broad +farce. The funniest little girl, with a mottled complexion and a big, +damaged nose, and looking for all the world like any dirty, broken-nosed +doll in a nursery lumber-room, came forward to take her turn. While the +others swung the rope for her as gently as it could be done--a mere +mockery of movement--and playfully taunted her timidity, she passaged +backwards and forwards in a pretty flutter of indecision, putting up her +shoulders and laughing with the embarrassed laughter of children by the +water's edge, eager to bathe and yet fearful. There never was anything +at once so droll and so pathetic. One did not know whether to laugh or +to cry. And when at last she had made an end of all her deprecations and +drawings back, and summoned up heart enough to straddle over the rope, +one leg at a time, it was a sight to see her ruffle herself up like a +peacock and go away down the lane with her damaged nose, seeming to +think discretion the better part of valour, and rather uneasy lest they +should ask her to repeat the exploit. Much as I had enjoyed the grace of +the older girls, it was now just as it had been before in France, and +the clumsiness of the child seemed to have a significance and a sort of +beauty of its own, quite above this grace of the others in power to +affect the heart. I had looked on with a certain sense of balance and +completion at the silent, rapid, masterly evolutions of the eldest; I +had been pleased by these in the way of satisfaction. But when little +broken-nose began her pantomime of indecision I grew excited. There was +something quite fresh and poignant in the delight I took in her +imperfect movements. I remember, for instance, that I moved my own +shoulders, as if to imitate her; really, I suppose, with an inarticulate +wish to help her out. + +Now, there are many reasons why this gracelessness of young children +should be pretty and sympathetic to us. And, first, there is an interest +as of battle. It is in travail and laughable _fiasco_ that the young +school their bodies to beautiful expression, as they school their minds. +We seem, in watching them, to divine antagonists pitted one against the +other; and, as in other wars, so in this war of the intelligence against +the unwilling body, we do not wish to see even the cause of progress +triumph without some honourable toil; and we are so sure of the ultimate +result, that it pleases us to linger in pathetic sympathy over these +reverses of the early campaign, just as we do over the troubles that +environ the heroine of a novel on her way to the happy ending. Again, +people are very ready to disown the pleasure they take in a thing +merely because it is big, as an Alp, or merely because it is little, as +a little child; and yet this pleasure is surely as legitimate as +another. There is much of it here; we have an irrational indulgence for +small folk; we ask but little where there is so little to ask it of; we +cannot overcome our astonishment that they should be able to move at +all, and are interested in their movements somewhat as we are interested +in the movements of a puppet. And again, there is a prolongation of +expectancy when, as in these movements of children, we are kept +continually on the very point of attainment and ever turned away and +tantalised by some humorous imperfection. This is altogether absent in +the secure and accomplished movements of persons more fully grown. The +tight-rope walker does not walk so freely or so well as any one else can +walk upon a good road; and yet we like to watch him for the mere sake of +the difficulty; we like to see his vacillations; we like this last so +much even, that I am told a really artistic tight-rope walker must feign +to be troubled in his balance, even if he is not so really. And again, +we have in these baby efforts an assurance of spontaneity that we do not +have often. We know this at least certainly, that the child tries to +dance for its own pleasure, and not for any by-end of ostentation and +conformity. If we did not know it we should see it. There is a +sincerity, a directness, an impulsive truth, about their free gestures +that shows throughout all imperfection, and it is to us as a +reminiscence of primitive festivals and the Golden Age. Lastly, there is +in the sentiment much of a simple human compassion for creatures more +helpless than ourselves. One nearly ready to die is pathetic; and so is +one scarcely ready to live. In view of their future, our heart is +softened to these clumsy little ones. They will be more adroit when they +are not so happy. + +Unfortunately, then, this character that so much delights us is not one +that can be preserved by any plastic art. It turns, as we have seen, +upon consideration not really æsthetic. Art may deal with the slim +freedom of a few years later; but with this fettered impulse, with these +stammering motions, she is powerless to do more than stereotype what is +ungraceful, and, in the doing of it, lose all pathos and humanity. So +these humorous little ones must go away into the limbo of beautiful +things that are not beautiful for art, there to wait a more perfect age +before they sit for their portraits. + + + + +V + +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES + +(1874) + + +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we +have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one side +after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. A few +months ago some words were said in the _Portfolio_ as to an "austere +regimen in scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as +"healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the test, so to +speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be +understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet +the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, +and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we +see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the +ardour and patience of a botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we +perfect ourselves in the art of seeing nature more favourably. We learn +to live with her, as people learn to live with fretful or violent +spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut our eyes against +all that is bleak or inharmonious. We learn, also, to come to each +place in the right spirit. The traveller, as Brantôme quaintly tells us, +"_fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin_"; and into these +discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by +the way; they take their tone greatly from the varying character of the +scene; a sharp ascent brings different thoughts from a level road; and +the man's fancies grow lighter as he comes out of the wood into a +clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the +thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our humours as +through differently-coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the +equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at +will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves +sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we +are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable +sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of +beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle and sincere +character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in others. And even +where there is no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most +obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a place with some attraction +of romance. We may learn to go far afield for associations, and handle +them lightly when we have found them. Sometimes an old print comes to +our aid; I have seen many a spot lit up at once with picturesque +imaginations, by a reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. +Dick Turpin has been my lay figure for many an English lane. And I +suppose the Trossachs would hardly be the Trossachs for most tourists if +a man of admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with +harmonious figures, and brought them thither with minds rightly prepared +for the impression. There is half the battle in this preparation. For +instance: I have rarely been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the +wild and inhospitable places of our own Highlands. I am happier where it +is tame and fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I +understand that there are some phases of mental trouble that harmonise +well with such surroundings, and that some persons, by the dispensing +power of the imagination, can go back several centuries in spirit, and +put themselves into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsociable way +of life that was in its place upon these savage hills. Now, when I am +sad, I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before +Saul; and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me but an +unpleasant pity; so that I can never hit on the right humour for this +sort of landscape, and lose much pleasure in consequence. Still, even +here, if I were only let alone, and time enough were given, I should +have all manner of pleasures, and take many clear and beautiful images +away with me when I left. When we cannot think ourselves into sympathy +with the great features of a country, we learn to ignore them, and put +our head among the grass for flowers, or pore, for long times together, +over the changeful current of a stream. We come down to the sermon in +stones, when we are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. We +begin to peep and botanise, we take an interest in birds and insects, we +find many things beautiful in miniature. The reader will recollect the +little summer scene in "Wuthering Heights"--the one warm scene, perhaps, +in all that powerful, miserable novel--and the great feature that is +made therein by grasses and flowers and a little sunshine: this is in +the spirit of which I now speak. And, lastly, we can go indoors; +interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more picturesque, than the +shows of the open air, and they have that quality of shelter of which I +shall presently have more to say. + +With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth the +paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, while it is +only in a few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few hours +agreeably. For, if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the +neighbourhood. Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about +uninteresting corners. We forget to some degree the superior loveliness +of other places, and fall into a tolerant and sympathetic spirit which +is its own reward and justification. Looking back the other day on some +recollections of my own, I was astonished to find how much I owed to +such a residence; six weeks in one unpleasant country-side had done +more, it seemed, to quicken and educate my sensibilities than many years +in places that jumped more nearly with my inclination. + +The country to which I refer was a level and treeless plateau over which +the winds cut like a whip. For miles on miles it was the same. A river, +indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I resided; but the valley +of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the heart +to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no beauty +or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little irregularity of +surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: +there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to see by +the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here +and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; and you were only +accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt telegraph-posts +and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. To one who had +learned to know their song in warm pleasant places by the Mediterranean, +it seemed to taunt the country, and make it still bleaker by suggested +contrast. Even the waste places by the side of the road were not, as +Hawthorne liked to put it, "taken back to Nature" by any decent covering +of vegetation. Wherever the land had the chance, it seemed to lie +fallow. There is a certain tawny nudity of the South, bare sun-burnt +plains, coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only in the blue +transparent air; but this was of another description--this was the +nakedness of the North; the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and +was ashamed and cold. + +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had passed +into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other when +they met with "Breezy, breezy," instead of the customary "Fine day" of +farther south. These continual winds were not like the harvest breeze, +that just keeps an equable pressure against your face as you walk, and +serves to set all the trees talking over your head, or bring round you +the smell of the wet surface of the country after a shower. They were of +the bitter, hard, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and +respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have +their own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them +brandish great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over the +colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their +passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is +nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all +its sights and noises; and the effect gets between some painters and +their sober eyesight, so that, even when the rest of their picture is +calm, the foliage is coloured like foliage in a gale. There was nothing, +however, of this sort to be noticed in a country where there were no +trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive shadows of clouds or +those of rigid houses and walls. But the wind was nevertheless an +occasion of pleasure; for nowhere could you taste more fully the +pleasure of a sudden lull, or a place of opportune shelter. The reader +knows what I mean; he must remember how, when he has sat himself down +behind a dyke on a hill-side, he delighted to hear the wind hiss vainly +through the crannies at his back; how his body tingled all over with +warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, +that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the far-away +hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful +passage of the "Prelude," has used this as a figure for the feeling +struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the +great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the other way with +as good effect: + + "Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, + Escaped as from an enemy, we turn + Abruptly into some sequester'd nook, + Still as a shelter'd place when winds blow loud!" + +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must have +been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of escape. He had +gone up, one sunny, windy morning, to the top of a great cathedral +somewhere abroad; I think it was Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished +marvel by the Rhine; and after a long while in dark stairways, he issued +at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. At that +elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower +strata of the air, and he had forgotten it in the quiet interior of the +church and during his long ascent; and so you may judge of his surprise +when, resting his arms on the sunlit balustrade and looking over into +the "Place" far below him, he saw the good people holding on their hats +and leaning hard against the wind as they walked. There is something, to +my fancy, quite perfect in this little experience of my +fellow-traveller's. The ways of men seem always very trivial to us when +we find ourselves alone on a church top, with the blue sky and a few +tall pinnacles, and see far below us the steep roofs and foreshortened +buttresses, and the silent activity of the city streets; but how much +more must they not have seemed so to him as he stood, not only above +other men's business, but above other men's climate, in a golden zone +like Apollo's! + +This was the sort of pleasure I found in the country of which I write. +The pleasure was to be out of the wind, and to keep it in memory all the +time, and hug oneself upon the shelter. And it was only by the sea that +any such sheltered places were to be found. Between the black worm-eaten +headlands there are little bights and havens, well screened from the +wind and the commotion of the external sea, where the sand and weeds +look up into the gazer's face from a depth of tranquil water, and the +sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb +the silence and the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my +memory beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, old fighting +men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall +to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high between +their owners, that one, from out of a window, shot the other as he stood +in his own doorway. There is something in the juxtaposition of these two +enemies full of tragic irony. It is grim to think of bearded men and +bitter women taking hateful counsel together about the two hall-fires at +night, when the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter +wind was loose over the battlements. And in the study we may reconstruct +for ourselves some pale figure of what life then was. Not so when we are +there; when we are there such thoughts come to us only to intensify a +contrary impression, and association is turned against itself. I +remember walking thither three afternoons in succession, my eyes weary +with being set against the wind, and how, dropping suddenly over the +edge of the down, I found myself in a new world of warmth and shelter. +The wind, from which I had escaped, "as from an enemy," was seemingly +quite local. It carried no clouds with it, and came from such a quarter +that it did not trouble the sea within view. The two castles, black and +ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from these +by something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something that +the last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. +It would be difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took +possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I +have said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and bemauled by +previous tempests; I had the memory at heart of the insane strife of the +pigmies who had erected these two castles and lived in them in mutual +distrust and enmity, and knew I had only to put my head out of this +little cup of shelter to find the hard wind blowing in my eyes; and yet +there were the two great tracts of motionless blue air and peaceful sea +looking on, unconcerned and apart, at the turmoil of the present moment +and the memorials of the precarious past. There is ever something +transitory and fretful in the impression of a high wind under a +cloudless sky; it seems to have no root in the constitution of things; +it must speedily begin to faint and wither away like a cut flower. And +on those days the thought of the wind and the thought of human life came +very near together in my mind. Our noisy years did indeed seem moments +in the being of the eternal silence: and the wind, in the face of that +great field of stationary blue, was as the wind of a butterfly's wing. +The placidity of the sea was a thing likewise to be remembered. Shelley +speaks of the sea as "hungering for calm," and in this place one learned +to understand the phrase. Looking down into these green waters from the +broken edge of the rock, or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it +seemed to me that they were enjoying their own tranquillity; and when +now and again it was disturbed by a wind ripple on the surface, or the +quick black passage of a fish far below, they settled back again (one +could fancy) with relief. + +On shore too, in the little nook of shelter, everything was so subdued +and still that the least particular struck in me a pleasurable surprise. +The desultory crackling of the whin-pods in the afternoon sun usurped +the ear. The hot, sweet breath of the bank, that had been saturated all +day long with sunshine, and now exhaled it into my face, was like the +breath of a fellow-creature. I remember that I was haunted by two lines +of French verse; in some dumb way they seemed to fit my surroundings and +give expression to the contentment that was in me, and I kept repeating +to myself-- + + "Mon coeur est un luth suspendu; + Sitôt qu'on le touche, il résonne." + +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for +that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve to +complete the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were +certainly a part of it for me. + +And this happened to me in the place of all others where I liked least +to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my own ingratitude. "Out +of the strong came forth sweetness." There, in the bleak and gusty +North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression of peace. I saw the +sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in that little corner, was all +alive and friendly to me. So, wherever a man is, he will find something +to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men +and women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird +singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, +there is no country without some amenity--let him only look for it in +the right spirit, and he will surely find. + + + + +VI + +AN AUTUMN EFFECT + +(1875) + + "Nous ne décrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous nous + efforçons d'exprimer sobrement et simplement l'impression que nous en + avons reçue."--M. ANDRÉ THEURIET, "L'Automne dans les Bois," _Revue + des Deux Mondes_, 1st Oct. 1874, p. 562.[40] + + +A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may leave +upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed and +dissipated if we stayed longer. Clear vision goes with the quick foot. +Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see them +for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone +before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can +steal like a dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, +shifting round towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, +and belie what they showed us in the morning. We expose our mind to the +landscape (as we would expose the prepared plate in the camera) for the +moment only during which the effect endures; and we are away before the +effect can change. Hence we shall have in our memories a long scroll of +continuous wayside pictures, all imbued already with the prevailing +sentiment of the season, the weather, and the landscape, and certain to +be unified more and more, as time goes on, by the unconscious processes +of thought. So that we who have only looked at a country over our +shoulder, so to speak, as we went by, will have a conception of it far +more memorable and articulate than a man who has lived there all his +life from a child upwards, and had his impression of to-day modified by +that of to-morrow, and belied by that of the day after, till at length +the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted out from him +behind the confusion of variable effect. + +I began my little pilgrimage in the most enviable of all humours: that +in which a person, with a sufficiency of money and a knapsack, turns his +back on a town and walks forward into a country of which he knows only +by the vague report of others. Such an one has not surrendered his will +and contracted for the next hundred miles, like a man on a railway. He +may change his mind at every finger-post, and, where ways meet, follow +vague preferences freely and go the low road or the high, choose the +shadow or the sunshine, suffer himself to be tempted by the lane that +turns immediately into the woods, or the broad road that lies open +before him into the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some +city, or a range of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low +horizon. In short, he may gratify his every whim and fancy, without a +pang of reproving conscience, or the least jostle to his self-respect. +It is true, however, that most men do not possess the faculty of free +action, the priceless gift of being able to live for the moment only; +and as they begin to go forward on their journey, they will find that +they have made for themselves new fetters. Slight projects they may have +entertained for a moment, half in jest, become iron laws to them, they +know not why. They will be led by the nose by these vague reports of +which I spoke above; and the mere fact that their informant mentioned +one village and not another will compel their footsteps with +inexplicable power. And yet a little while, yet a few days of this +fictitious liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calling +on them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy +expectation, will set its hand upon their shoulder and lead them back +into the old paths. Once and again we have all made the experiment. We +know the end of it right well. And yet if we make it for the hundredth +time to-morrow, it will have the same charm as ever; our heart will beat +and our eyes will be bright, as we leave the town behind us, and we +shall feel once again (as we have felt so often before) that we are +cutting ourselves loose for ever from our whole past life, with all its +sins and follies and circumscriptions, and go forward as a new creature +into a new world. + +It is well, perhaps, that I had this first enthusiasm to encourage me up +the long hill above High Wycombe; for the day was a bad day for walking +at best, and now began to draw towards afternoon, dull, heavy, and +lifeless. A pall of grey cloud covered the sky, and its colour reacted +on the colour of the landscape. Near at hand, indeed, the hedgerow trees +were still fairly green, shot through with bright autumnal yellows, +bright as sunshine. But a little way off, the solid bricks of woodland +that lay squarely on slope and hill-top were not green, but russet and +grey, and ever less russet and more grey as they drew off into the +distance. As they drew off into the distance, also, the woods seemed to +mass themselves together, and lay thin and straight, like clouds, upon +the limit of one's view. Not that this massing was complete, or gave the +idea of any extent of forest, for every here and there the trees would +break up and go down into a valley in open order, or stand in long +Indian file along the horizon, tree after tree relieved, foolishly +enough, against the sky. I say foolishly enough, although I have seen +the effect employed cleverly in art, and such long line of single trees +thrown out against the customary sunset of a Japanese picture with a +certain fantastic effect that was not to be despised; but this was over +water and level land, where it did not jar, as here, with the soft +contour of hills and valleys. The whole scene had an indefinable look of +being painted, the colour was so abstract and correct, and there was +something so sketchy and merely impressional about these distant single +trees on the horizon that one was forced to think of it all as of a +clever French landscape. For it is rather in nature that we see +resemblance to art, than in art to nature; and we say a hundred times, +"How like a picture!" for once that we say, "How like the truth!" The +forms in which we learn to think of landscape are forms that we have got +from painted canvas. Any man can see and understand a picture; it is +reserved for the few to separate anything out of the confusion of +nature, and see that distinctly and with intelligence. + +The sun came out before I had been long on my way; and as I had got by +that time to the top of the ascent, and was now treading a labyrinth of +confined by-roads, my whole view brightened considerably in colour, for +it was the distance only that was grey and cold, and the distance I +could see no longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling of larks +which seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all the time I was +in that country the larks did not desert me. The air was alive with them +from High Wycombe to Tring; and as, day after day, their "shrill +delight" fell upon me out of the vacant sky, they began to take such a +prominence over other conditions, and form so integral a part of my +conception of the country, that I could have baptised it "The Country of +Larks." This, of course, might just as well have been in early spring; +but everything else was deeply imbued with the sentiment of the later +year. There was no stir of insects in the grass. The sunshine was more +golden, and gave less heat than summer sunshine; and the shadows under +the hedge were somewhat blue and misty. It was only in autumn that you +could have seen the mingled green and yellow of the elm foliage, and the +fallen leaves that lay about the road, and covered the surface of +wayside pools so thickly that the sun was reflected only here and there +from little joints and pin-holes in that brown coat of proof; or that +your ear would have been troubled, as you went forward, by the +occasional report of fowling-pieces from all directions and all degrees +of distance. + +For a long time this dropping fire was the one sign of human activity +that came to disturb me as I walked. The lanes were profoundly still. +They would have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing of the +larks. And as it was, there came over me at times a feeling of isolation +that was not disagreeable, and yet was enough to make me quicken my +steps eagerly when I saw some one before me on the road. This +fellow-voyager proved to be no less a person than the parish constable. +It had occurred to me that in a district which was so little populous +and so well wooded, a criminal of any intelligence might play +hide-and-seek with the authorities for months; and this idea was +strengthened by the aspect of the portly constable as he walked by my +side with deliberate dignity and turned-out toes. But a few minutes' +converse set my heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame +birds, it appeared. If my informant did not immediately lay his hand on +an offender, he was content to wait; some evening after nightfall there +would come a tap at his door, and the outlaw, weary of outlawry, would +give himself quietly up to undergo sentence, and resume his position in +the life of the country-side. Married men caused him no disquietude +whatever; he had them fast by the foot. Sooner or later they would come +back to see their wives, a peeping neighbour would pass the word, and my +portly constable would walk quietly over and take the bird sitting. And +if there were a few who had no particular ties in the neighbourhood, and +preferred to shift into another county when they fell into trouble, +their departure moved the placid constable in no degree. He was of +Dogberry's opinion; and if a man would not stand in the Prince's name, +he took no note of him, but let him go, and thanked God he was rid of a +knave. And surely the crime and the law were in admirable keeping: +rustic constable was well met with rustic offender. The officer sitting +at home over a bit of fire until the criminal came to visit him, and the +criminal coming--it was a fair match. One felt as if this must have been +the order in that delightful seaboard Bohemia where Florizel and Perdita +courted in such sweet accents, and the Puritan sang psalms to hornpipes, +and the four-and-twenty shearers danced with nosegays in their bosoms, +and chanted their three songs apiece at the old shepherd's festival; and +one could not help picturing to oneself what havoc among good people's +purses, and tribulation for benignant constable, might be worked here by +the arrival, over stile and footpath, of a new Autolycus. + +Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveller, I left the road and struck +across country. It was rather a revelation to pass from between the +hedgerows and find quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming and +going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in every second field, +lusty horses and stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took +me through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of +plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant +to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making +ready for the winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now +not far from the end of my day's journey. A few hundred yards farther, +and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go down hill through +a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was soon in shadow myself, +but the afternoon sun still coloured the upmost boughs of the wood, and +made a fire over my head in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapour +lay among the slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; and from +farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross laughter, as +though clowns were making merry in the bush. There was something about +the atmosphere that brought all sights and sounds home to one with a +singular purity, so that I felt as if my senses had been washed with +water. After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to +remount the hill; and just as I, mounting along with it, had got back +again, from the head downwards, into the thin golden sunshine, I saw in +front of me a donkey tied to a tree. Now, I have a certain liking for +donkeys, principally, I believe, because of the delightful things that +Sterne has written of them. But this was not after the pattern of the +ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, that seemed to fit him rather +for rare festal occasions than for constant drudgery. Besides, he was +very small, and of the daintiest proportions you can imagine in a +donkey. And so, sure enough, you had only to look at him to see he had +never worked. There was something too roguish and wanton in his face, a +look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived +much cudgelling. It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive +children oftener than they had plodded with a freight through miry +lanes. He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and +though he was just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still gave +proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at +me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just then; for, with +the admirable instinct of all men and animals under restraint, he had so +wound and wound the halter about the tree that he could go neither back +nor forwards, nor so much as put down his head to browse. There he +stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, amused. He +had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, +giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that +still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature +took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some trouble on my part, +and much distrust and resistance on the part of Neddy, got him forced +backward until the whole length of the halter was set loose, and he was +once more as free a donkey as I dared to make him. I was pleased (as +people are) with this friendly action to a fellow-creature in +tribulation, and glanced back over my shoulder to see how he was +profiting by his freedom. The brute was looking after me; and no sooner +did he catch my eye than he put up his long white face into the air, +pulled an impudent mouth at me, and began to bray derisively. If ever +any one person made a grimace at another, that donkey made a grimace at +me. The hardened ingratitude of his behaviour, and the impertinence that +inspired his whole face as he curled up his lip, and showed his teeth, +and began to bray, so tickled me, and was so much in keeping with what I +had imagined to myself about his character, that I could not find it in +my heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This +seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me again by way +of rejoinder; and we went on for a while, braying and laughing, until I +began to grow a-weary of it, and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned +to pursue my way. In so doing--it was like going suddenly into cold +water--I found myself face to face with a prim little old maid. She was +all in a flutter, the poor old dear! She had concluded beyond question +that this must be a lunatic who stood laughing aloud at a white donkey +in the placid beech-woods. I was sure, by her face, that she had already +recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself +for the worst. And so, to reassure her, I uncovered and besought her, +after a very staid fashion, to put me on my way to Great Missenden. Her +voice trembled a little, to be sure, but I think her mind was set at +rest; and she told me, very explicitly, to follow the path until I came +to the end of the wood, and then I should see the village below me in +the bottom of the valley. And, with mutual courtesies, the little old +maid and I went on our respective ways. + +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she had +said, in the trough of a gentle valley, with many great elms about it. +The smoke from its chimneys went up pleasantly in the afternoon +sunshine. The sleepy hum of a threshing-machine filled the neighbouring +fields and hung about the quaint street corners. A little above, the +church sits well back on its haunches against the hill-side--an attitude +for a church, you know, that makes it look as if it could be ever so +much higher if it liked; and the trees grew about it thickly, so as to +make a density of shade in the churchyard. A very quiet place it looks; +and yet I saw many boards and posters about threatening dire punishment +against those who broke the church windows or defaced the precinct, and +offering rewards for the apprehension of those who had done the like +already. It was fair-day in Great Missenden. There were three stalls set +up _sub jove_, for the sale of pastry and cheap toys; and a great number +of holiday children thronged about the stalls, and noisily invaded every +corner of the straggling village. They came round me by coveys, blowing +simultaneously upon penny trumpets as though they imagined I should fall +to pieces like the battlements of Jericho. I noticed one among them who +could make a wheel of himself like a London boy, and seemingly enjoyed a +grave pre-eminence upon the strength of the accomplishment. By and by, +however, the trumpets began to weary me, and I went indoors, leaving the +fair, I fancy at its height. + +Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was pitch dark in the +village street, and the darkness seemed only the greater for a light +here and there in an uncurtained window or from an open door. Into one +such window I was rude enough to peep, and saw within a charming _genre_ +picture. In a room, all white wainscot and crimson wall-paper, a perfect +gem of colour after the black, empty darkness in which I had been +groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as well as I could make out, +to an attentive child upon her knee, while an old woman sat placidly +dozing over the fire. You may be sure I was not behindhand with a story +for myself--a good old story after the manner of G.P.R. James and the +village melodramas, with a wicked squire, and poachers, and an +attorney, and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who +should love, and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson +room. Baudelaire has a few dainty sentences on the fancies that we are +inspired with when we look through a window into other people's lives; +and I think Dickens has somewhat enlarged on the same text. The subject, +at least, is one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I remember, +night after night, at Brussels, watching a good family sup together, +make merry, and retire to rest; and night after night I waited to see +the candles lit, and the salad made, and the last salutations dutifully +exchanged, without any abatement of interest. Night after night I found +the scene rivet my attention and keep me awake in bed with all manner of +quaint imaginations. Much of the pleasure of the "Arabian Nights" hinges +upon this Asmodean interest; and we are not weary of lifting other +people's roofs and going about behind the scenes of life with the Caliph +and the serviceable Giaffar. It is a salutary exercise, besides; it is +salutary to get out of ourselves and see people living together in +perfect unconsciousness of our existence, as they will live when we are +gone. If to-morrow the blow falls, and the worst of our ill fears is +realised, the girl will none the less tell stories to the child on her +lap in the cottage at Great Missenden, nor the good Belgians light their +candle, and mix their salad, and go orderly to bed. + +The next morning was sunny overhead and damp underfoot, with a thrill in +the air like a reminiscence of frost. I went up into the sloping garden +behind the inn and smoked a pipe pleasantly enough, to the tune of my +landlady's lamentations over sundry cabbages and cauliflowers that had +been spoiled by caterpillars. She had been so much pleased in the +summer-time, she said, to see the garden all hovered over by white +butterflies. And now, look at the end of it! She could nowise reconcile +this with her moral sense. And, indeed, unless these butterflies are +created with a side-look to the composition of improving apologues, it +is not altogether easy, even for people who have read Hegel and Dr. +M'Cosh, to decide intelligibly upon the issue raised. Then I fell into a +long and abstruse calculation with my landlord; having for object to +compare the distance driven by him during eight years' service on the +box of the Wendover coach with the girth of the round world itself. We +tackled the question most conscientiously, made all necessary allowance +for Sundays and leap-years, and were just coming to a triumphant +conclusion of our labours when we were stayed by a small lacuna in my +information. I did not know the circumference of the earth. The landlord +knew it, to be sure--plainly he had made the same calculation twice and +once before,--but he wanted confidence in his own figures, and from the +moment I showed myself so poor a second seemed to lose all interest in +the result. + +Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same valley with Great +Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills trend off on either +hand like a coast-line, and a great hemisphere of plain lies, like a +sea, before one. I went up a chalky road, until I had a good outlook +over the place. The vale, as it opened out into the plain, was shallow, +and a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. From the +level to which I have now attained the fields were exposed before me +like a map, and I could see all that bustle of autumn field-work which +had been hid from me yesterday behind the hedgerows, or shown to me only +for a moment as I followed the footpath. Wendover lay well down in the +midst, with mountains of foliage about it. The great plain stretched +away to the northward, variegated near at hand with the quaint pattern +of the fields, but growing ever more and more indistinct, until it +became a mere hurly-burly of trees and bright crescents of river, and +snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous +cloud-land over the horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, touched here and +there with blue, and with certain faint russets that looked as if they +were reflections of the colour of the autumnal woods below. I could hear +the ploughmen shouting to their horses, the uninterrupted carol of larks +innumerable overhead, and, from a field where the shepherd was +marshalling his flock, a sweet tumultuous tinkle of sheep-bells. All +these noises came to me very thin and distinct in the clear air. There +was a wonderful sentiment of distance and atmosphere about the day and +the place. + +I mounted the hill yet farther by a rough staircase of chalky footholds +cut in the turf. The hills about Wendover, and, as far as I could see, +all the hills in Buckinghamshire, wear a sort of hood of beech +plantation; but in this particular case the hood had been suffered to +extend itself into something more like a cloak, and hung down about the +shoulders of the hill in wide folds, instead of lying flatly along the +summit. The trees grew so close, and their boughs were so matted +together, that the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. The +prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering red, touched here and there +with vivid yellow. But the autumn had scarce advanced beyond the +outworks; it was still almost summer in the heart of the wood; and as +soon as I had scrambled through the hedge, I found myself in a dim green +forest atmosphere under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the +wood had itself for a background and the trees were massed together +thickly, the colour became intensified and almost gem-like: a perfect +fire of green, that seemed none the less green for a few specks of +autumn gold. None of the trees were of any considerable age or stature; +but they grew well together, I have said; and as the road turned and +wound among them, they fell into pleasant groupings and broke the light +up pleasantly. Sometimes there would be a colonnade of slim, straight +tree-stems with the light running down them as down the shafts of +pillars, that looked as if it ought to lead to something, and led only +to a corner of sombre and intricate jungle. Sometimes a spray of +delicate foliage would be thrown out flat, the light lying flatly along +the top of it, so that against a dark background it seemed almost +luminous. There was a great hush over the thicket (for, indeed, it was +more of a thicket than a wood); and the vague rumours that went among +the tree-tops, and the occasional rustling of big birds or hares among +the undergrowth, had in them a note of almost treacherous stealthiness, +that put the imagination on its guard and made me walk warily on the +russet carpeting of last year's leaves. The spirit of the place seemed +to be all attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to +number my footfalls. One could not help feeling that there ought to be +some reason for this stillness: whether, as the bright old legend goes, +Pan lay somewhere near in a siesta, or whether, perhaps, the heaven was +meditating rain, and the first drops would soon come pattering through +the leaves. It was not unpleasant, in such an humour, to catch sight, +ever and anon, of large spaces of the open plain. This happened only +where the path lay much upon the slope, and there was a flaw in the +solid leafy thatch of the wood at some distance below the level at which +I chanced myself to be walking; then, indeed, little scraps of +foreshortened distance, miniature fields, and Liliputian houses and +hedgerow trees would appear for a moment in the aperture, and grow +larger and smaller, and change and melt one into another, as I continued +to go forward, and so shift my point of view. + +For ten minutes, perhaps, I had heard from somewhere before me in the +wood a strange, continuous noise, as of clucking, cooing, and gobbling, +now and again interrupted by a harsh scream. As I advanced towards this +noise, it began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through +the trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something like the +tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved to be, and a +neat little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing almost to the +door of it. Just before me, however, as I came up the path, the trees +drew back and let in a wide flood of daylight on to a circular lawn. It +was here that the noises had their origin. More than a score of peacocks +(there are altogether thirty at the farm), a proper contingent of +peahens, and a great multitude that I could not number of more ordinary +barn-door fowls, were all feeding together on this little open lawn +among the beeches. They fed in a dense crowd, which swayed to and fro, +and came hither and thither as by a sort of tide, and of which the +surface was agitated like the surface of a sea as each bird guzzled his +head along the ground after the scattered corn. The clucking, cooing +noise that had led me thither was formed by the blending together of +countless expressions of individual contentment into one collective +expression of contentment, or general grace during meat. Every now and +again a big peacock would separate himself from the mob and take a +stately turn or two about the lawn, or perhaps mount for a moment upon +the rail, and there shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with +himself and what he had to eat. It happened, for my sins, that none of +these admirable birds had anything beyond the merest rudiment of a tail. +Tails, it seemed, were out of season just then. But they had their necks +for all that; and by their necks alone they do as much surpass all the +other birds of our grey climate as they fall in quality of song below +the blackbird or the lark. Surely the peacock, with its incomparable +parade of glorious colour and the scrannel voice of it issuing forth, as +in mockery, from its painted throat, must, like my landlady's +butterflies at Great Missenden, have been invented by some skilful +fabulist for the consolation and support of homely virtue: or rather, +perhaps, by a fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the +moment without having a studious enough eye to the complete effect; for +I thought these melting greens and blues so beautiful that afternoon, +that I would have given them my vote just then before the sweetest pipe +in all the spring woods. For indeed there is no piece of colour of the +same extent in nature, that will so flatter and satisfy the lust of a +man's eyes; and to come upon so many of them, after these acres of +stone-coloured heavens and russet woods, and grey-brown ploughlands and +white roads, was like going three whole days' journey to the southward, +or a month back into the summer. + +I was sorry to leave "Peacock Farm"--for so the place is called, after +the name of its splendid pensioners--and go forward again in the quiet +woods. It began to grow both damp and dusk under the beeches: and as the +day declined the colour faded out of the foliage: and shadow, without +form and void, took the place of all the fine tracery of leaves and +delicate gradations of living green that had before accompanied my walk. +I had been sorry to leave "Peacock Farm," but I was not sorry to find +myself once more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat +troubled-looking evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn +at Wendover. + +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street should +go; or rather, every now and then a man seems to have arisen with a new +idea on the subject, and led away a little sect of neighbours to join in +his heresy. It would have somewhat the look of an abortive +watering-place, such as we may now see them here and there along the +coast, but for the age of the houses, the comely quiet design of some of +them, and the look of long habitation, of a life that is settled and +rooted, and makes it worth while to train flowers about the windows, and +otherwise shape the dwelling to the humour of the inhabitant. The +church, which might perhaps have served as rallying-point for these +loose houses, and pulled the township into something like intelligible +unity, stands some distance off among great trees; but the inn (to take +the public buildings in order of importance) is in what I understand to +be the principal street: a pleasant old house, with bay windows, and +three peaked gables, and many swallows' nests plastered about the eaves. + +The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside: indeed, I never +saw any room much more to be admired than the low wainscoted parlour in +which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a short oblong in +shape, save that the fireplace was built across one of the angles so as +to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle was similarly truncated +by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was white, and there was a Turkey +carpet on the floor, so old that it might have been imported by Walter +Shandy before he retired, worn almost through in some places, but in +others making a good show of blues and oranges, none the less harmonious +for being somewhat faded. The corner cupboard was agreeable in design; +and there were just the right things upon the shelves--decanters and +tumblers, and blue plates, and one red rose in a glass of water. The +furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down +to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may fancy +how pleasant it looked all flushed and flickered over by the light of a +brisk companionable fire, and seen, in a strange, tilted sort of +perspective, in the three compartments of the old mirror above the +chimney. As I sat reading in the great arm-chair, I kept looking round +with the tail of my eye at the quaint, bright picture that was about me, +and could not help some pleasure and a certain childish pride in forming +part of it. The book I read was about Italy in the early Renaissance, +the pageantries and the light loves of princes, the passion of men for +learning, and poetry, and art; but it was written, by good luck, after a +solid, prosaic fashion, that suited the room infinitely more nearly than +the matter; and the result was that I thought less, perhaps, of Lippo +Lippi, or Lorenzo, or Politian, than of the good Englishman who had +written in that volume what he knew of them, and taken so much pleasure +in his solemn polysyllables. + +I was not left without society. My landlord had a very pretty little +daughter whom we shall call Lizzie. If I had made any notes at the time, +I might be able to tell you something definite of her appearance. But +faces have a trick of growing more and more spiritualised and abstract +in the memory, until nothing remains of them but a look, a haunting +expression; just that secret quality in a face that is apt to slip out +somehow under the cunningest painter's touch, and leave the portrait +dead for the lack of it. And if it is hard to catch with the finest of +camel's hair pencils, you may think how hopeless it must be to pursue +after it with clumsy words. If I say, for instance, that this look, +which I remember as Lizzie, was something wistful that seemed partly to +come of slyness and in part of simplicity, and that I am inclined to +imagine it had something to do with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in +one of her large eyes, I shall have said all that I can, and the reader +will not be much advanced towards comprehension. I had struck up an +acquaintance with this little damsel in the morning, and professed much +interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one +which was kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been +very long in the parlour before the door opened, and in came Miss Lizzie +with two dolls tucked clumsily under her arm. She was followed by her +brother John, a year or so younger than herself, not simply to play +propriety at our interview, but to show his own two whips in emulation +of his sister's dolls. I did my best to make myself agreeable to my +visitors, showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls' dresses, and, +with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age and +character. I did not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it +was evident she was both bewildered and a little contemptuous. Although +she was ready herself to treat her dolls as if they were alive, she +seemed to think rather poorly of any grown person who could fall +heartily into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes she would look at me +with gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared I +must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly +into the question of their names, she laughed at me so long and heartily +that I began to feel almost embarrassed. But when, in an evil moment, I +asked to be allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep herself no +longer to herself. Clambering down from the chair on which she sat +perched to show me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of +the room and into the bar--it was just across the passage,--and I could +hear her telling her mother in loud tones, but apparently more in sorrow +than in merriment, that _the gentleman in the parlour wanted to kiss +Dolly_. I fancy she was determined to save me from this humiliating +action, even in spite of myself, for she never gave me the desired +permission. She reminded me of an old dog I once knew, who would never +suffer the master of the house to dance, out of an exaggerated sense of +the dignity of that master's place and carriage. + +After the young people were gone there was but one more incident ere I +went to bed. I heard a party of children go up and down the dark street +for a while, singing together sweetly. And the mystery of this little +incident was so pleasant to me that I purposely refrained from asking +who they were, and wherefore they went singing at so late an hour. One +can rarely be in a pleasant place without meeting with some pleasant +accident. I have a conviction that these children would not have gone +singing before the inn unless the inn-parlour had been the delightful +place it was. At least, if I had been in the customary public room of +the modern hotel, with all its disproportions and discomforts, my ears +would have been dull, and there would have been some ugly temper or +other uppermost in my spirit, and so they would have wasted their songs +upon an unworthy hearer. + +Next morning I went along to visit the church. It is a long-backed +red-and-white building, very much restored, and stands in a pleasant +graveyard among those great trees of which I have spoken already. The +sky was drowned in a mist. Now and again pulses of cold wind went about +the enclosure, and set the branches busy overhead, and the dead leaves +scurrying in to the angles of the church buttresses. Now and again, +also, I could hear the dull sudden fall of a chestnut among the +grass--the dog would bark before the rectory door--or there would come a +clinking of pails from the stable-yard behind. But in spite of these +occasional interruptions--in spite, also, of the continuous autumn +twittering that filled the trees--the chief impression somehow was one +as of utter silence, inasmuch that the little greenish bell that peeped +out of a window in the tower disquieted me with a sense of some possible +and more inharmonious disturbance. The grass was wet, as if with a +hoar-frost that had just been melted. I do not know that ever I saw a +morning more autumnal. As I went to and fro among the graves, I saw some +flowers set reverently before a recently erected tomb, and drawing near +was almost startled to find they lay on the grave of a man seventy-two +years old when he died. We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the +young, where love has been cut short untimely, and great possibilities +have been restrained by death. We strew them there in token that these +possibilities, in some deeper sense, shall yet be realised, and the +touch of our dead loves remain with us and guide us to the end. And yet +there was more significance, perhaps, and perhaps a greater consolation, +in this little nosegay on the grave of one who had died old. We are apt +to make so much of the tragedy of death, and think so little of the +enduring tragedy of some men's lives, that we see more to lament for in +a life cut off in the midst of usefulness and love, than in one that +miserably survives all love and usefulness, and goes about the world the +phantom of itself, without hope, or joy, or any consolation. These +flowers seemed not so much the token of love that survived death, as of +something yet more beautiful--of love that had lived a man's life out to +an end with him, and been faithful and companionable, and not weary of +loving, throughout all these years. + +The morning cleared a little, and the sky was once more the old +stone-coloured vault over the sallow meadows and the russet woods, as I +set forth on a dog-cart from Wendover to Tring. The road lay for a good +distance along the side of the hills, with the great plain below on one +hand, and the beech-woods above on the other. The fields were busy with +people ploughing and sowing; every here and there a jug of ale stood in +the angle of the hedge, and I could see many a team wait smoking in the +furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take a +draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless +hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, a +spirit of picnic. The horses smoked and the men laboured and shouted and +drank in the sharp autumn morning; so that one had a strong effect of +large, open-air existence. The fellow who drove me was something of a +humorist; and his conversation was all in praise of an agricultural +labourer's way of life. It was he who called my attention to these jugs +of ale by the hedgerow; he could not sufficiently express the liberality +of these men's wages; he told me how sharp an appetite was given by +breaking up the earth in the morning air, whether with plough or spade, +and cordially admired this provision of nature. He sang _O fortunatos +agricolas_! indeed, in every possible key, and with many cunning +inflections, till I began to wonder what was the use of such people as +Mr. Arch, and to sing the same air myself in a more diffident manner. + +Tring was reached, and then Tring railway station; for the two are not +very near, the good people of Tring having held the railway, of old +days, in extreme apprehension, lest some day it should break loose in +the town and work mischief. I had a last walk, among russet beeches as +usual, and the air filled, as usual, with the carolling of larks; I +heard shots fired in the distance, and saw, as a new sign of the +fulfilled autumn, two horsemen exercising a pack of fox-hounds. And then +the train came and carried me back to London. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [40] I had nearly finished the transcription of the following pages, + when I saw on a friend's table the number containing the piece from + which this sentence is extracted, and, struck with a similarity of + title, took it home with me and read it with indescribable + satisfaction. I do not know whether I more envy M. Theuriet the + pleasure of having written this delightful article, or the reader + the pleasure, which I hope he has still before him, of reading it + once and again, and lingering over the passages that please him + most. + + + + +VII + +A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY + +(_A Fragment_: 1876) + + +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire of +Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick side of +the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft with +shallow dells, and sown here and there with farms and tufts of wood. +Inland, it loses itself, joining, I suppose, the great herd of similar +hills that occupies the centre of the Lowlands. Towards the sea, it +swells out the coast-line into a protuberance, like a bay window in a +plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. This hill is +known as the Brown Hill of Carrick, or, more shortly, Brown Carrick. + +It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they were +tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the +pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind +had made ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet +weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. An +effusion of coppery light on the summit of Brown Carrick showed where +the sun was trying to look through; but along the horizon clouds of cold +fog had settled down, so that there was no distinction of sky and sea. +Over the white shoulders of the headlands, or in the opening of bays, +there was nothing but a great vacancy and blackness; and the road as it +drew near the edge of the cliff seemed to skirt the shores of creation +and void space. + +The snow crunched underfoot, and at farms all the dogs broke out barking +as they smelt a passer-by upon the road. I met a fine old fellow, who +might have sat as the father in "The Cottar's Saturday Night," and who +swore most heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a little after I +scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather cockles. +His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was broken up into flakes and +channels, like mud beginning to dry, and weathered in two colours, an +incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air of being surprised--which, +God knows, he might well be--that life had gone so ill with him. The +shape of his trousers was in itself a jest, so strangely were they +bagged and ravelled about his knees; and his coat was all bedaubed with +clay as though he had lain in a rain-dub during the New Year's +festivity. I will own I was not sorry to think he had had a merry New +Year, and been young again for an evening; but I was sorry to see the +mark still there. One could not expect such an old gentleman to be much +of a dandy, or a great student of respectability in dress; but there +might have been a wife at home, who had brushed out similar stains after +fifty New Years, now become old, or a round-armed daughter, who would +wish to have him neat, were it only out of self-respect and for the +ploughman sweetheart when he looks round at night. Plainly, there was +nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness hung heavily on +his old arms. He was seventy-six, he told me; and nobody would give a +day's work to a man that age: they would think he couldn't do it. "And, +'deed," he went on, with a sad little chuckle, "'deed, I doubt if I +could." He said good-bye to me at a foot-path, and crippled wearily off +to his work. It will make your heart ache if you think of his old +fingers groping in the snow. + +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. And +so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of +childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading +downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven +among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus +for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers' houses. Hard by, a few +shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall +gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay on the beach to the +tide-mark. It was daubed on to the sills of the ruin; it roosted in the +crannies of the rock like white sea-birds; even on outlying reefs there +would be a little cock of snow, like a toy lighthouse. Everything was +grey and white in a cold and dolorous sort of shepherd's plaid. In the +profound silence, broken only by the noise of oars at sea, a horn was +sounded twice; and I saw the postman, girt with two bags, pause a moment +at the end of the clachan for letters. It is, perhaps, characteristic of +Dunure that none were brought him. + +The people at the public-house did not seem well pleased to see me, and +though I would fain have stayed by the kitchen fire, sent me "ben the +hoose" into the guest-room. This guest-room at Dunure was painted in +quite æsthetic fashion. There are rooms in the same taste not a hundred +miles from London, where persons of an extreme sensibility meet together +without embarrassment. It was all in a fine dull bottle-green and black; +a grave harmonious piece of colouring, with nothing, so far as coarser +folk can judge, to hurt the better feelings of the most exquisite +purist. A cherry-red half window-blind kept up an imaginary warmth in +the cold room, and threw quite a glow on the floor. Twelve cockle-shells +and a halfpenny china figure were ranged solemnly along the +mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was an original note, and instead of +sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would merit +an article to itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text. It was +patchwork, but the patchwork of the poor; no glowing shreds of old +brocade and Chinese silk, shaken together in the kaleidoscope of some +tasteful housewife's fancy; but a work of art in its own way, and +plainly a labour of love. The patches came exclusively from people's +raiment. There was no colour more brilliant than a heather mixture; "My +Johnnie's grey breeks," well polished over the oar on the boat's +thwart, entered largely into its composition. And the spoils of an old +black cloth coat, that had been many a Sunday to church, added something +(save the mark!) of preciousness to the material. + +While I was at luncheon four carters came in--long-limbed, muscular +Ayrshire Scots, with lean, intelligent faces. Four quarts of stout were +ordered; they kept filling the tumbler with the other hand as they +drank; and in less time than it takes me to write these words the four +quarts were finished--another round was proposed, discussed, and +negatived--and they were creaking out of the village with their carts. + +The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any place more desolate +from a distance, nor one that less belied its promise near at hand. Some +crows and gulls flew away croaking as I scrambled in. The snow had +drifted into the vaults. The clachan dabbled with snow, the white hills, +the black sky, the sea marked in the coves with faint circular wrinkles, +the whole world, as it looked from a loop-hole in Dunure, was cold, +wretched, and out-at-elbows. If you had been a wicked baron and +compelled to stay there all the afternoon, you would have had a rare fit +of remorse. How you would have heaped up the fire and gnawed your +fingers! I think it would have come to homicide before the evening--if +it were only for the pleasure of seeing something red! And the masters +of Dunure, it is to be noticed, were remarkable of old for inhumanity. +One of these vaults where the snow had drifted was that "black voute" +where "Mr. Alane Stewart, Commendatour of Crossraguel," endured his +fiery trials. On the 1st and 7th of September 1570 (ill dates for Mr. +Alan!), Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, +his pantryman, and another servant, bound the poor Commendator "betwix +an iron chimlay and a fire," and there cruelly roasted him until he +signed away his abbacy. It is one of the ugliest stories of an ugly +period, but not, somehow, without such a flavour of the ridiculous as +makes it hard to sympathise quite seriously with the victim. And it is +consoling to remember that he got away at last, and kept his abbacy, +and, over and above, had a pension from the Earl until he died. + +Some way beyond Dunure a wide bay, of somewhat less unkindly aspect, +opened out. Colzean plantations lay all along the steep shore, and there +was a wooded hill towards the centre, where the trees made a sort of +shadowy etching over the snow. The road went down and up, and past a +blacksmith's cottage that made fine music in the valley. Three +compatriots of Burns drove up to me in a cart. They were all drunk, and +asked me jeeringly if this was the way to Dunure. I told them it was; +and my answer was received with unfeigned merriment. One gentleman was +so much tickled he nearly fell out of the cart; indeed, he was only +saved by a companion, who either had not so fine a sense of humour or +had drunken less. + +"The toune of Mayboll," says the inimitable Abercrummie,[41] "stands +upon an ascending ground from east to west, and lyes open to the south. +It hath one principall street, with houses upon both sides, built of +freestone, and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one +at each end of this street. That on the east belongs to the Erle of +Cassilis. On the west end is a castle, which belonged sometime to the +laird of Blairquan, which is now the tolbuith, and is adorned with a +pyremide [conical roof], and a row of ballesters round it raised from +the top of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. +There be four lanes which pass from the principall street; one is called +the Back Vennel, which is steep, declining to the south-west, and leads +to a lower street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and +it runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been +many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the +countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert +themselves in converse together at their owne houses. It was once the +principall street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry +having been decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. +Just opposite to this vennel, there is another that leads north-west, +from the chiefe street to the green, which is a pleasant plott of +ground, enclosed round with an earthen wall, wherein they were wont to +play football, but now at the Gowff and byasse-bowls. The houses of this +towne, on both sides of the street, have their several gardens belonging +to them; and in the lower street there be some pretty orchards, that +yield store of good fruit." As Patterson says, this description is near +enough even to-day, and is mighty nicely written to boot. I am bound to +add, of my own experience, that Maybole is tumble-down and dreary. +Prosperous enough in reality, it has an air of decay; and though the +population has increased, a roofless house every here and there seems to +protest the contrary. The women are more than well-favoured, and the men +fine tall fellows; but they look slipshod and dissipated. As they +slouched at street corners, or stood about gossiping in the snow, it +seemed they would have been more at home in the slums of a large city +than here in a country place betwixt a village and a town. I heard a +great deal about drinking, and a great deal about religious revivals: +two things in which the Scottish character is emphatic and most +unlovely. In particular, I heard of clergymen who were employing their +time in explaining to a delighted audience the physics of the Second +Coming. It is not very likely any of us will be asked to help. If we +were, it is likely we should receive instructions for the occasion, and +that on more reliable authority. And so I can only figure to myself a +congregation truly curious in such flights of theological fancy, as one +of veteran and accomplished saints, who have fought the good fight to an +end and outlived all worldly passion, and are to be regarded rather as +a part of the Church Triumphant than the poor, imperfect company on +earth. And yet I saw some young fellows about the smoking-room who +seemed, in the eyes of one who cannot count himself strait-laced, in +need of some more practical sort of teaching. They seemed only eager to +get drunk, and to do so speedily. It was not much more than a week after +the New Year; and to hear them return on their past bouts with a gusto +unspeakable was not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of talk, for +the accuracy of which I can vouch-- + +"Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?" + +"We had that!" + +"I wasna able to be oot o' my bed. Man, I was awful bad on Wednesday." + +"Ay, ye were gey bad." + +And you should have seen the bright eyes, and heard the sensual accents! +They recalled their doings with devout gusto and a sort of rational +pride. Schoolboys, after their first drunkenness, are not more boastful; +a cock does not plume himself with a more unmingled satisfaction as he +paces forth among his harem; and yet these were grown men, and by no +means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very eager about +the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of temperance +for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone nearer the +mark. And yet, as it seemed to me typical of much that is evil in +Scotland, Maybole is also typical of much that is best. Some of the +factories, which have taken the place of weaving in the town's economy, +were originally founded and are still possessed by self-made men of the +sterling, stout old breed--fellows who made some little bit of an +invention, borrowed some little pocketful of capital, and then, step by +step, in courage, thrift, and industry, fought their way upward to an +assured position. + +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; but, as a bit of +spelling, this inscription on the Tolbooth bell seems too delicious to +withhold: "This bell is founded at Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, a Frenchman, +the 6th November 1696, Bi appointment of the heritors of the parish of +Maiyboll." The Castle deserves more notice. It is a large and shapely +tower, plain from the ground upward, but with a zone of ornamentation +running about the top. In a general way this adornment is perched on the +very summit of the chimney-stacks; but there is one corner more +elaborate than the rest. A very heavy string-course runs round the upper +story, and just above this, facing up the street, the tower carries a +small oriel window, fluted and corbelled and carved about with stone +heads. It is so ornate it has somewhat the air of a shrine. And it was, +indeed, the casket of a very precious jewel, for in the room to which it +gives light lay, for long years, the heroine of the sweet old ballad of +"Johnnie Faa"--she who, at the call of the gipsies' songs, "came +tripping down the stair, and all her maids before her." Some people say +the ballad has no basis in fact, and have written, I believe, +unanswerable papers to the proof. But in the face of all that, the very +look of that high oriel window convinces the imagination, and we enter +into all the sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of +the long, lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against the +mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the +children at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. We +conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her some +snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes +overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be not true +of this or that lady, or this or that old tower, it is true in the +essence of all men and women: for all of us, some time or other, hear +the gipsies singing; over all of us is the glamour cast. Some resist and +sit resolutely by the fire. Most go and are brought back again, like +Lady Cassilis. A few, of the tribe of Waring, go and are seen no more; +only now and again, at springtime, when the gipsies' song is afloat in +the amethyst evening, we can catch their voices in the glee. + +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible than during the day. +Clouds coursed over the sky in great masses; the full moon battled the +other way, and lit up the snow with gleams of flying silver; the town +came down the hill in a cascade of brown gables, bestridden by smooth +white roofs, and spangled here and there with lighted windows. At either +end the snow stood high up in the darkness, on the peak of the Tolbooth +and among the chimneys of the Castle. As the moon flashed a bull's-eye +glitter across the town between the racing clouds, the white roofs +leaped into relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, and their +shadows over the white roofs. In the town itself the lit face of the +clock peered down the street; an hour was hammered out on Mr. Geli's +bell, and from behind the red curtains of a public-house some one +trolled out--a compatriot of Burns, again!--"The saut tear blin's my +e'e." + +Next morning there were sun and a flapping wind. From the street-corners +of Maybole I could catch breezy glimpses of green fields. The road +underfoot was wet and heavy--part ice, part snow, part water; and any +one I met greeted me, by way of salutation, with "A fine thowe" (thaw). +My way lay among rather bleak hills, and past bleak ponds and +dilapidated castles and monasteries, to the Highland-looking village of +Kirkoswald. It has little claim to notice save that Burns came there to +study surveying in the summer of 1777, and there also, in the kirkyard, +the original of Tam o' Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth +noticing, however, that this was the first place I thought +"Highland-looking." Over the hill from Kirkoswald a farm-road leads to +the coast. As I came down above Turnberry, the sea view was indeed +strangely different from the day before. The cold fogs were all blown +away; and there was Ailsa Craig, like a refraction, magnified and +deformed, of the Bass Rock; and there were the chiselled mountain tops +of Arran, veined and tipped with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, +blue land of Cantyre. Cottony clouds stood, in a great castle, over the +top of Arran, and blew out in long streamers to the south. The sea was +bitten all over with white; little ships, tacking up and down the Firth, +lay over at different angles in the wind. On Shanter they were ploughing +lea; a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if +the spring were in him. + +The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along the shore, among sandhills +and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few cottages +stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, not easy to +describe in words: a triangular porch projected from above the door, +supported at the apex by a single upright post; a secondary door was +hinged to the post, and could be hasped on either cheek of the real +entrance; so, whether the wind was north or south, the cotter could make +himself a triangular bight of shelter where to set his chair and finish +a pipe with comfort. There is one objection to this device: for, as the +post stands in the middle of the fairway, any one precipitately issuing +from the cottage must run his chance of a broken head. So far as I am +aware, it is peculiar to the little corner of country about Girvan. And +that corner is noticeable for more reasons: it is certainly one of the +most characteristic districts in Scotland. It has this movable porch by +way of architecture; it has, as we shall see, a sort of remnant of +provincial costume, and it has the handsomest population in the +Lowlands.... + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [41] William Abercrombie. See _Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, under + "Maybole" (Part iii.). + + + + +VIII + +FOREST NOTES + +(1875-6) + +ON THE PLAIN + + +Perhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of the +Gâtinais, where they border with the wooded hills of Fontainebleau. Here +and there a few grey rocks creep out of the forest as if to sun +themselves. Here and there a few apple-trees stand together on a knoll. +The quaint, undignified tartan of a myriad small fields dies out into +the distance; the strips blend and disappear; and the dead flat lies +forth open and empty, with no accident save perhaps a thin line of trees +or faint church-spire against the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in +spite of pettiness in the near details, the impression becomes more +solemn and vast towards evening. The sun goes down, a swollen orange, as +it were into the sea. A blue-clad peasant rides home, with a harrow +smoking behind him among the dry clods. Another still works with his +wife in their little strip. An immense shadow fills the plain; these +people stand in it up to their shoulders; and their heads, as they stoop +over their work and rise again, are relieved from time to time against +the golden sky. + +These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any means +overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical +representative of the serf of yore, and think not so much of present +times, which may be prosperous enough, as of the old days when the +peasant was taxed beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in +Michelet's image, like a hare between two furrows. These very people now +weeding their patch under the broad sunset, that very man and his wife, +it seems to us, have suffered all the wrongs of France. It is they who +have been their country's scape-goat for long ages; they who, generation +after generation, have sowed and not reaped, reaped and another has +garnered; and who have now entered into their reward, and enjoy their +good things in their turn. For the days are gone by when the Seigneur +ruled and profited. "Le Seigneur," says the old formula, "enferme ses +manants comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel à la terre. Tout est à lui, +forêt chenue, oiseau dans l'air, poisson dans l'eau, bête au buisson, +l'onde qui coule, la cloche dont le son au loin roule." Such was his old +state of sovereignty, a local god rather than a mere king. And now you +may ask yourself where he is, and look round for vestiges of my late +lord, and in all the country-side there is no trace of him but his +forlorn and fallen mansion. At the end of a long avenue, now sown with +grain, in the midst of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and +crowing chanticleers and droning bees, the old château lifts its red +chimneys and peaked roofs and turning vanes into the wind and sun. There +is a glad spring bustle in the air, perhaps, and the lilacs are all in +flower, and the creepers green about the broken balustrade; but no +spring shall revive the honour of the place. Old women of the people, +little children of the people, saunter and gambol in the walled court or +feed the ducks in the neglected moat. Plough-horses, mighty of limb, +browse in the long stables. The dial-hand on the clock waits for some +better hour. Out on the plain, where hot sweat trickles into men's eyes, +and the spade goes in deep and comes up slowly, perhaps the peasant may +feel a movement of joy at his heart when he thinks that these spacious +chimneys are now cold, which have so often blazed and flickered upon gay +folk at supper, while he and his hollow-eyed children watched through +the night with empty bellies and cold feet. And perhaps, as he raises +his head and sees the forest lying like a coast-line of low hills along +the sea-like level of the plain, perhaps forest and château hold no +unsimilar place in his affections. + +If the château was my lord's the forest was my lord the king's; neither +of them for this poor Jacques. If he thought to eke out his meagre way +of life by some petty theft of wood for the fire, or for a new +roof-tree, he found himself face to face with a whole department, from +the Grand Master of the Woods and Waters, who was a high-born lord, down +to the common sergeant, who was a peasant like himself, and wore stripes +or bandolier by way of uniform. For the first offence, by the Salic law, +there was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man be taken more than +once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the colour of his guilt, he +might be whipped, branded, or hanged. There was a hangman over at Melun, +and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town gate, where +Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the sky as he went to +market. + +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would be the more hares and +rabbits to eat out his harvest, and the more hunters to trample it down. +My lord has a new horn from England. He has laid out seven francs in +decorating it with silver and gold, and fitting it with a silken leash +to hang about his shoulder. The hounds have been on a pilgrimage to the +shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert in the Ardennes, or some other +holy intercessor who has made a speciality of the health of +hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the game was turned and the branch broken +by our best piqueur. A rare day's hunting lies before us. Wind a jolly +flourish, sound the _bien-aller_ with all your lungs. Jacques must stand +by, hat in hand, while the quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across +his field, and a year's sparing and labouring is as though it had not +been. If he can see the ruin with a good enough grace, who knows but he +may fall in favour with my lord; who knows but his son may become the +last and least among the servants at his lordship's kennel--one of the +two poor varlets who get no wages and sleep at night among the +hounds?[42] + +For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not only warming +him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in days of sore trouble, +when my lord of the château, with all his troopers and trumpets, had +been beaten from field after field into some ultimate fastness, or lay +overseas in an English prison. In these dark days, when the watch on the +church steeple saw the smoke of burning villages on the sky-line, or a +clump of spears and fluttering pennon drawing nigh across the plain, +these good folk gat them up, with all their household gods, into the +wood, whence, from some high spur, their timid scouts might overlook the +coming and going of the marauders, and see the harvest ridden down, and +church and cottage go up to heaven all night in flame. It was but an +unhomely refuge that the woods afforded, where they must abide all +change of weather and keep house with wolves and vipers. Often there was +none left alive, when they returned, to show the old divisions of field +from field. And yet, as times went, when the wolves entered at night +into depopulated Paris, and perhaps De Retz was passing by with a +company of demons like himself, even in these caves and thickets there +were glad hearts and grateful prayers. + +Once or twice, as I say, in the course of the ages, the forest may have +served the peasant well, but at heart it is a royal forest, and noble by +old association. These woods have rung to the horns of all the kings of +France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They have seen St. Louis +exercise the dogs he brought with him from Egypt; Francis I. go +a-hunting with ten thousand horses in his train; and Peter of Russia +following his first stag. And so they are still haunted for the +imagination by royal hunts and progresses, and peopled with the faces +of memorable men of yore. And this distinction is not only in virtue of +the pastime of dead monarchs. Great events, great revolutions, great +cycles in the affairs of men, have here left their note, here taken +shape in some significant and dramatic situation. It was hence that +Guise and his leaguers led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, +booted and spurred, and with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met the +Pope beside a woodland cross. Here, on his way to Elba, not so long +after, he kissed the eagle of the Old Guard, and spoke words of +passionate farewell to his soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, rather +than yield its ensign to the new power, one of his faithful regiments +burned that memorial of so much toil and glory on the Grand Master's +table, and drank its dust in brandy, as a devout priest consumes the +remnants of the Host. + + +IN THE SEASON + +Close into the edge of the forest, so close that the trees of the +_bornage_ stand pleasantly about the last houses, sits a certain small +and very quiet village. There is but one street, and that, not long ago, +was a green lane, where the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. As you +go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, you +will arrive at last before an inn where artists lodge. To the door (for +I imagine it to be six o'clock on some fine summer's even), half a +dozen, or maybe half a score, of people have brought out chairs, and now +sit sunning themselves and waiting the omnibus from Melun. If you go on +into the court you will find as many more, some in the billiard-room +over absinthe and a match of corks, some without over a last cigar and a +vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; Hortense is +drawing water from the well; and as all the rooms open into the court, +you can see the white-capped cook over the furnace in the kitchen, and +some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, +jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-à-manger. +"_Edmond, encore un vermouth_," cries a man in velveteen, adding in a +tone of apologetic after-thought, "_un double, s'il vous plaît_." "Where +are you working?" asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. "At the +Garrefour de l'Épine," returns the other in corduroy (they are all +gaitered, by the way). "I couldn't do a thing to it. I ran out of white. +Where were you?" "I wasn't working. I was looking for motives." Here is +an outbreak of jubilation, and a lot of men clustering together about +some new-comer with outstretched hands; perhaps the "correspondence" has +come in and brought So-and-so from Paris, or perhaps it is only +So-and-so who has walked over from Chailly to dinner. + +"_À table, Messieurs!_" cries M. Siron, bearing through the court the +first tureen of soup. And immediately the company begins to settle down +about the long tables in the dining-room, framed all round with sketches +of all degrees of merit and demerit. There's the big picture of the +huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his +legs--well, his legs in stockings. And here is the little picture of a +raw mutton-chop, in which Such-a-one knocked a hole last summer with no +worse a missile than a plum from the dessert. And under all these works +of art so much eating goes forward, so much drinking, so much jabbering +in French and English, that it would do your heart good merely to peep +and listen at the door. One man is telling how they all went last year +to the fête at Fleury, and another how well So-and-so would sing of an +evening; and here are a third and fourth making plans for the whole +future of their lives; and there is a fifth imitating a conjuror making +faces on his clenched fist, surely of all arts the most difficult and +admirable! A sixth has eaten his fill, lights a cigarette, and resigns +himself to digestion. A seventh has just dropped in, and calls for +soup. Number eight, meanwhile, has left the table, and is once more +trampling the poor piano under powerful and uncertain fingers. + +Dinner over, people drop outside to smoke and chat. Perhaps we go along +to visit our friends at the other end of the village, where there is +always a good welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled oysters +and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised in the +dining-room, and the piano exhibits all its paces under manful +jockeying, to the light of three or four candles and a lamp or two, +while the waltzers move to and fro upon the wooden floor, and sober men, +who are not given to such light pleasures, get up on the table or the +sideboard, and sit there looking on approvingly over a pipe and a +tumbler of wine. Or sometimes--suppose my lady moon looks forth, and the +court from out the half-lit dining-room seems nearly as bright as by +day, and the light picks out the window-panes, and makes a clear shadow +under every vine leaf on the wall--sometimes a picnic is proposed, and a +basket made ready, and a good procession formed in front of the hotel. +The two trumpeters in honour go before; and as we file down the long +alley, and up through devious footpaths among rocks and pine-trees, with +every here and there a dark passage of shadow, and every here and there +a spacious outlook over moonlit woods, these two precede us and sound +many a jolly flourish as they walk. We gather ferns and dry boughs into +the cavern, and soon a good blaze flutters the shadows of the old +bandits' haunt, and shows shapely beards and comely faces and toilettes +ranged about the wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch is burnt and sent +round in scalding thimblefuls. So a good hour or two may pass with song +and jest. And then we go home in the moonlight morning, straggling a +good deal among the birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called +together again, as one of our leaders winds his horn. Perhaps some one +of the party will not heed the summons, but chooses out some by-way of +his own. As he follows the winding sandy road, he hears the flourishes +grow fainter and fainter in the distance, and die finally out, and still +walks on in the strange coolness and silence and between the crisp +lights and shadows of the moonlit woods, until suddenly the bell rings +out the hour from far-away Chailly, and he starts to find himself alone. +No surf-bell on forlorn and perilous shores, no passing knell over the +busy market-place, can speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue +to human ears. Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations in +his mind. And as he stands rooted, it has grown once more so utterly +silent that it seems to him he might hear the church-bells ring the hour +out all the world over, not at Chailly only, but in Paris, and away in +outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where his childhood +passed between the sun and flowers. + + +IDLE HOURS + +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to be +understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. The +stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees that +go streaming up like monstrous sea-weeds and waver in the moving winds +like the weeds in submarine currents, all these set the mind working on +the thought of what you may have seen off a foreland or over the side of +a boat, and make you feel like a diver, down in the quiet water, fathoms +below the tumbling, transitory surface of the sea. And yet in itself, as +I say, the strangeness of these nocturnal solitudes is not to be felt +fully without the sense of contrast. You must have risen in the morning +and seen the woods as they are by day, kindled and coloured in the sun's +light; you must have felt the odour of innumerable trees at even, the +unsparing heat along the forest roads, and the coolness of the groves. + +And on the first morning you will doubtless rise betimes. If you have +not been wakened before by the visit of some adventurous pigeon, you +will be wakened as soon as the sun can reach your window--for there are +no blinds or shutters to keep him out--and the room, with its bare wood +floor and bare whitewashed walls, shines all round you in a sort of +glory of reflected lights. You may doze a while longer by snatches, or +lie awake to study the charcoal men and dogs and horses with which +former occupants have defiled the partitions: Thiers, with wily profile; +local celebrities, pipe in hand; or, maybe, a romantic landscape +splashed in oil. Meanwhile artist after artist drops into the +salle-à-manger for coffee, and then shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, +and paint-box, bound into a fagot, and sets off for what he calls his +"motive." And artist after artist, as he goes out of the village, +carries with him a little following of dogs. For the dogs, who belong +only nominally to any special master, hang about the gate of the forest +all day long, and whenever any one goes by who hits their fancy, profit +by his escort, and go forth with him to play an hour or two at hunting. +They would like to be under the trees all day. But they cannot go alone. +They require a pretext. And so they take the passing artist as an excuse +to go into the woods, as they might take a walking-stick as an excuse to +bathe. With quick ears, long spines, and bandy legs, or perhaps as tall +as a greyhound and with a bulldog's head, this company of mongrels will +trot by your side all day and come home with you at night, still showing +white teeth and wagging stunted tail. Their good humour is not to be +exhausted. You may pelt them with stones if you please, all they will do +is to give you a wider berth. If once they come out with you, to you +they will remain faithful, and with you return; although if you meet +them next morning in the street, it is as like as not they will cut you +with a countenance of brass. + +The forest--a strange thing for an Englishman--is very destitute of +birds. This is no country where every patch of wood among the meadows +gives up an incense of song, and every valley wandered through by a +streamlet rings and reverberates from side to side with a profusion of +clear notes. And this rarity of birds is not to be regretted on its own +account only. For the insects prosper in their absence, and become as +one of the plagues of Egypt. Ants swarm in the hot sand; mosquitoes +drone their nasal drone; wherever the sun finds a hole in the roof of +the forest, you see a myriad transparent creatures coming and going in +the shaft of light; and even between-whiles, even where there is no +incursion of sun-rays into the dark arcade of the wood, you are +conscious of a continual drift of insects, an ebb and flow of +infinitesimal living things between the trees. Nor are insects the only +evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave +among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see +a crooked viper slither across the road. + +Perhaps you may set yourself down in the bay between two spreading +beech-roots with a book on your lap, and be awakened all of a sudden by +a friend: "I say, just keep where you are, will you? You make the +jolliest motive." And you reply: "Well, I don't mind, if I may smoke." +And thereafter the hours go idly by. Your friend at the easel labours +doggedly a little way off, in the wide shadow of the tree; and yet +farther, across a strait of glaring sunshine, you see another painter, +encamped in the shadow of another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. +You cannot watch your own effigy growing out of the white trunk, and the +trunk beginning to stand forth from the rest of the wood, and the whole +picture getting dappled over with the flecks of sun that slip through +the leaves overhead, and, as a wind goes by and sets the trees +a-talking, flicker hither and thither like butterflies of light. But you +know it is going forward; and, out of emulation with the painter, get +ready your own palette, and lay out the colour for a woodland scene in +words. + +Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern and heather, set in a +basin of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. All the +open is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands out as though it +were cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its highest key. +The boulders are some of them upright and dead like monolithic castles, +some of them prone like sleeping cattle. The junipers--looking, in their +soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone +seeking the place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and +rain--are daubed in forcibly against the glowing ferns and heather. +Every tassel of their rusty foliage is defined with pre-Raphaelite +minuteness. And a sorry figure they make out there in the sun, like +misbegotten yew-trees! The scene is all pitched in a key of colour so +peculiar, and lit up with such a discharge of violent sunlight, as a man +might live fifty years in England and not see. + +Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, words of Ronsard to a +pathetic tremulous air, of how the poet loved his mistress long ago, and +pressed on her the flight of time, and told her how white and quiet the +dead lay under the stones, and how the boat dipped and pitched as the +shades embarked for the passionless land. Yet a little while, sang the +poet, and there shall be no more love; only to sit and remember loves +that might have been. There is a falling flourish in the air that +remains in the memory and comes back in incongruous places, on the seat +of hansoms or in the warm bed at night, with something of a forest +savour. + +"You can get up now," says the painter; "I'm at the background." + +And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into the wood, +the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the shadows stretching +farther into the open. A cool air comes along the highways, and the +scents awaken. The fir-trees breathe abroad their ozone. Out of unknown +thickets comes forth the soft, secret, aromatic odour of the woods, not +like a smell of the free heaven, but as though court ladies, who had +known these paths in ages long gone by, still walked in the summer +evenings, and shed from their brocades a breath of musk or bergamot upon +the woodland winds. One side of the long avenues is still kindled with +the sun, the other is plunged in transparent shadow. Over the trees the +west begins to burn like a furnace; and the painters gather up their +chattels, and go down, by avenue or footpath, to the plain. + + +A PLEASURE-PARTY + +As this excursion is a matter of some length, and, moreover, we go in +force, we have set aside our usual vehicle, the pony-cart, and ordered a +large wagonette from Lejosne's. It has been waiting for near an hour, +while one went to pack a knapsack, and t'other hurried over his toilette +and coffee; but now it is filled from end to end with merry folk in +summer attire, the coachman cracks his whip, and amid much applause from +round the inn-door off we rattle at a spanking trot. The way lies +through the forest, up hill and down dale, and by beech and pine wood, +in the cheerful morning sunshine. The English get down at all the +ascents and walk on ahead for exercise; the French are mightily +entertained at this, and keep coyly underneath the tilt. As we go we +carry with us a pleasant noise of laughter and light speech, and some +one will be always breaking out into a bar or two of opera bouffe. +Before we get to the Route Ronde here comes Desprez, the colourman from +Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of +merchandise; and it is "Desprez, leave me some malachite green"; +"Desprez, leave me so much canvas"; "Desprez, leave me this, or leave me +that"; M. Desprez standing the while in the sunlight with grave face and +many salutations. The next interruption is more important. For some time +back we have had the sound of cannon in our ears; and now, a little past +Franchard, we find a mounted trooper holding a led horse, who brings +the wagonette to a stand. The artillery is practising in the +Quadrilateral, it appears; passage along the Route Ronde formally +interdicted for the moment. There is nothing for it but to draw up at +the glaring cross-roads, and get down to make fun with the notorious +Cocardon, the most ungainly and ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and +ill-bred dogs of Barbizon, or clamber about the sandy banks. And +meanwhile the Doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal +beard, is busy wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the +too facile sentry. His speech is smooth and dulcet, his manner dignified +and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor has voyaged all +the world over, and speaks all languages from French to Patagonian. He +has not come home from perilous journeys to be thwarted by a corporal of +horse. And so we soon see the soldier's mouth relax, and his shoulders +imitate a relenting heart. "_En voiture, Messieurs, Mesdames_," sings +the Doctor; and on we go again at a good round pace, for black care +follows hard after us, and discretion prevails not a little over valour +in some timorous spirits of the party. At any moment we may meet the +sergeant, who will send us back. At any moment we may encounter a flying +shell, which will send us somewhere farther off than Grez. + +Grez--for that is our destination--has been highly recommended for its +beauty. "_Il y a de l'eau_," people have said, with an emphasis, as if +that settled the question, which, for a French mind, I am rather led to +think it does. And Grez, when we get there, is indeed a place worthy of +some praise. It lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old +bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden +descends in terraces to the river; stableyard, kailyard, orchard, and a +space of lawn, fringed with rushes and embellished with a green arbour. +On the opposite bank there is a reach of English-looking plain, set +thickly with willows and poplars. And between the two lies the river, +clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants +cluster about the starlings of the long low bridge, and stand half-way +up upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch the dipped oar with +long antennæ, and chequer the slimy bottom with the shadow of their +leaves. And the river wanders hither and thither among the islets, and +is smothered and broken up by the reeds, like an old building in the +lithe, hardy arms of the climbing ivy. You may watch the box where the +good man of the inn keeps fish alive for his kitchen, one oily ripple +following another over the top of the yellow deal. And you can hear a +splashing and a prattle of voices from the shed under the old kirk, +where the village women wash and wash all day among the fish and +water-lilies. It seems as if linen washed there should be specially cool +and sweet. + +We have come here for the river. And no sooner have we all bathed than +we board the two shallops and push off gaily, and go gliding under the +trees and gathering a great treasure of water-lilies. Some one sings; +some trail their hands in the cool water; some lean over the gunwale to +see the image of the tall poplars far below, and the shadow of the boat, +with balanced oars and their own head protruded, glide smoothly over the +yellow floor of the stream. At last, the day declining--all silent and +happy, and up to the knees in the wet lilies--we punt slowly back again +to the landing-place beside the bridge. There is a wish for solitude on +all. One hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; another goes a +walk in the country with Cocardon; a third inspects the church. And it +is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn's best wine goes round +from glass to glass, that we begin to throw off the restraint and fuse +once more into a jolly fellowship. + +Half the party are to return to-night with the wagonette; and some of +the others, loath to break up good company, will go with them a bit of +the way and drink a stirrup-cup at Marlotte. It is dark in the +wagonette, and not so merry as it might have been. The coachman loses +the road. So-and-so tries to light fireworks with the most indifferent +success. Some sing, but the rest are too weary to applaud; and it seems +as if the festival were fairly at an end-- + + "Nous avons fait la noce, + Rentrons à nos foyers!" + +And such is the burthen, even after we have come to Marlotte and taken +our places in the court at Mother Antonine's. There is punch on the long +table out in the open air, where the guests dine in summer weather. The +candles flare in the night wind, and the faces round the punch are lit +up, with shifting emphasis, against a background of complete and solid +darkness. It is all picturesque enough; but the fact is, we are aweary. +We yawn; we are out of the vein; we have made the wedding, as the song +says, and now, for pleasure's sake, let's make an end on't. When here +comes striding into the court, booted to mid-thigh, spurred and +splashed, in a jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable +Blank; and in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is witness +of our laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, +picture-dealers, all eccentric ways of speaking and thinking, with a +possession, a fury, a strain of mind and voice, that would rather +suggest a nervous crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry as +ever when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily to all the +good folk going farther. Then, as we are far enough from thoughts of +sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint house, and sit an hour or so in a +great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, littered with sleeping hounds, +and lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by a wood-fire in a mediæval +chimney. And then we plod back through the darkness to the inn beside +the river. + +How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next morning, +the grey showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the face of +the stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. Yesterday's lilies +encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage +towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer lies upon the +dripping house roofs, and all the colour is washed out of the green and +golden landscape of last night, as though an envious man had taken a +water-colour sketch and blotted it together with a sponge. We go out +a-walking in the wet roads. But the roads about Grez have a trick of +their own. They go on for a while among clumps of willows and patches of +vine, and then, suddenly and without any warning, cease and determine in +some miry hollow or upon some bald knowe; and you have a short period of +hope, then right-about face, and back the way you came! So we draw about +the kitchen fire and play a round game of cards for ha'pence, or go to +the billiard-room for a match at corks; and by one consent a messenger +is sent over for the wagonette--Grez shall be left to-morrow. + +To-morrow dawns so fair that two of the party agree to walk back for +exercise, and let their knapsacks follow by the trap. I need hardly say +they are neither of them French; for, of all English phrases, the phrase +"for exercise" is the least comprehensible across the Straits of Dover. +All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. The wet woods are full +of scents in the noontide. At a certain cross, where there is a +guard-house, they make a halt, for the forester's wife is the daughter +of their good host at Barbizon. And so there they are hospitably +received by the comely woman, with one child in her arms and another +prattling and tottering at her gown, and drink some syrup of quince in +the back parlour, with a map of the forest on the wall, and some prints +of love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. As they draw near the +Quadrilateral, and hear once more the report of the big guns, they take +a by-road to avoid the sentries, and go on a while somewhat vaguely, +with the sound of the cannon in their ears and the rain beginning to +fall. The ways grow wider and sandier; here and there there are real +sand hills, as though by the seashore; the fir-wood is open and grows in +clumps upon the hillocks, and the race of sign-posts is no more. One +begins to look at the other doubtfully. "I am sure we should keep more +to the right," says one; and the other is just as certain they should +hold to the left. And now, suddenly, the heavens open, and the rain +falls "sheer and strong and loud," as out of a shower-bath. In a moment +they are as wet as shipwrecked sailors. They cannot see out of their +eyes for the drift, and the water churns and gurgles in their boots. +They leave the track and try across country with a gambler's +desperation, for it seems as if it were impossible to make the situation +worse; and, for the next hour, go scrambling from boulder to boulder, or +plod along paths that are now no more than rivulets, and across waste +clearings where the scattered shells and broken fir-trees tell all too +plainly of the cannon in the distance. And meantime the cannon grumble +out responses to the grumbling thunder. There is such a mixture of +melodrama and sheer discomfort about all this, it is at once so grey and +so lurid, that it is far more agreeable to read and write about by the +chimney-corner than to suffer in the person. At last they chance on the +right path, and make Franchard in the early evening, the sorriest pair +of wanderers that ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by the Bois +d'Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins Brulés, to the clean +hostelry, dry clothes, and dinner. + + +THE WOODS IN SPRING + +I think you will like the forest best in the sharp early spring-time, +when it is just beginning to re-awaken, and innumerable violets peep +from among the fallen leaves; when two or three people at most sit down +to dinner, and, at table, you will do well to keep a rug about your +knees, for the nights are chill, and the salle-à-manger opens on the +court. There is less to distract the attention, for one thing, and the +forest is more itself. It is not bedotted with artists' sunshades as +with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn with the remains of English +picnics. The hunting still goes on, and at any moment your heart may be +brought into your mouth as you hear far-away horns; or you may be told +by an agitated peasant that the Vicomte has gone up the avenue, not ten +minutes since, "_à fond de train, monsieur, et avec douze piqueurs._" + +If you go up to some coign of vantage in the system of low hills that +permeates the forest, you will see many different tracts of country, +each of its own cold and melancholy neutral tint, and all mixed together +and mingled the one into the other at the seams. You will see tracts of +leafless beeches of a faint yellowish grey, and leafless oaks a little +ruddier in the hue. Then zones of pine of a solemn green; and, dotted +among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, the +delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white +branches yet more delicate, and crowned and canopied with a purple haze +of twigs. And then a long, bare ridge of tumbled boulders, with bright +sandbreaks between them, and wavering sandy roads among the bracken and +brown heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not the +perfect beauty, nor the gem-like colouring, of the wood in the later +year, when it is no more than one vast colonnade of verdant shadow, +tremulous with insects, intersected here and there by lanes of sunlight +set in purple heather. The loveliness of the woods in March is not, +assuredly, of this blowsy rustic type. It is made sharp with a grain of +salt, with a touch of ugliness. It has a sting like the sting of bitter +ale; you acquire the love of it as men acquire a taste for olives. And +the wonderful clear, pure air wells into your lungs the while by +voluptuous inhalations, and makes the eyes bright, and sets the heart +tinkling to a new tune--or, rather, to an old tune; for you remember in +your boyhood something akin to this spirit of adventure, this thirst for +exploration, that now takes you masterfully by the hand, plunges you +into many a deep grove, and drags you over many a stony crest. It is as +if the whole wood were full of friendly voices calling you farther in, +and you turn from one side to another, like Buridan's donkey, in a maze +of pleasure. + +Comely beeches send up their white, straight, clustered branches, barred +with green moss, like so many fingers from a half-clenched hand. Mighty +oaks stand to the ankles in a fine tracery of underwood; thence the tall +shaft climbs upward, and the great forest of stalwart boughs spreads out +into the golden evening sky, where the rooks are flying and calling. On +the sward of the Bois d'Hyver the firs stand well asunder with outspread +arms, like fencers saluting; and the air smells of resin all around, and +the sound of the axe is rarely still. But strangest of all, and in +appearance oldest of all, are the dim and wizard upland districts of +young wood. The ground is carpeted with fir-tassel, and strewn with +fir-apples and flakes of fallen bark. Rocks lie crouching in the +thicket, guttered with rain, tufted with lichen, white with years and +the rigours of the changeful seasons. Brown and yellow butterflies are +sown and carried away again by the light air--like thistledown. The +loneliness of these coverts is so excessive, that there are moments when +pleasure draws to the verge of fear. You listen and listen for some +noise to break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by the +intensity of the strain; your sense of your own identity is troubled; +your brain reels, like that of some gymnosophist poring on his own nose +in Asiatic jungles; and should you see your own outspread feet, you see +them, not as anything of yours, but as a feature of the scene around +you. + +Still the forest is always, but the stillness is not always unbroken. +You can hear the wind pass in the distance over the tree-tops; sometimes +briefly, like the noise of a train; sometimes with a long steady rush, +like the breaking of waves. And sometimes, close at hand, the branches +move, a moan goes through the thicket, and the wood thrills to its +heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage on the road to Fontainebleau, a +bird gives a dry continual chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, or +you may time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's +axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks goes by; +and from time to time the cooing of wild doves falls upon the ear, not +sweet and rich and near at hand as in England, but a sort of voice of +the woods, thin and far away, as fits these solemn places. Or you hear +suddenly the hollow, eager, violent barking of dogs; scared deer flit +past you through the fringes of the wood; then a man or two running, in +green blouse, with gun and game-bag on a bandolier; and then, out of the +thick of the trees, comes the jar of rifle-shots. Or perhaps the hounds +are out, and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through +the clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, +where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar is afoot, +and all over the forest, and in all neighbouring villages, there is a +vague excitement and a vague hope; for who knows whither the chase may +lead? and even to have seen a single piqueur, or spoken to a single +sportsman, is to be a man of consequence for the night. + +Besides men who shoot and men who ride with the hounds, there are few +people in the forest, in the early spring, save woodcutters plying their +axes steadily, and old women and children gathering wood for the fire. +You may meet such a party coming home in the twilight: the old woman +laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch +behind them in her wake. That is the worst of what there is to +encounter; and if I tell you of what once happened to a friend of mine, +it is by no means to tantalise you with false hopes; for the adventure +was unique. It was on a very cold, still, sunless morning, with a flat +grey sky and a frosty tingle in the air, that this friend (who shall +here be nameless) heard the notes of a key-bugle played with much +hesitation, and saw the smoke of a fire spread out along the green +pine-tops, in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. +He drew near warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an +open. The old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring at the fire. +The eldest son, in the uniform of a private of dragoons, was choosing +out notes on a key-bugle. Two or three daughters lay in the +neighbourhood picking violets. And the whole party as grave and silent +as the woods around them! My friend watched for a long time, he says; +but all held their peace; not one spoke or smiled; only the dragoon kept +choosing out single notes upon the bugle, and the father knitted away at +his work and made strange movements the while with his flexible +eyebrows. They took no notice whatever of my friend's presence, which +was disquieting in itself, and increased the resemblance of the whole +party to mechanical wax-works. Certainly, he affirms, a wax figure might +have played the bugle with more spirit than that strange dragoon. And as +this hypothesis of his became more certain, the awful insolubility of +why they should be left out there in the woods with nobody to wind them +up again when they ran down, and a growing disquietude as to what might +happen next, became too much for his courage, and he turned tail, and +fairly took to his heels. It might have been a singing in his ears, but +he fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. +Nothing has ever transpired to clear up the mystery; it may be they were +automata; or it may be (and this is the theory to which I lean myself) +that this is all another chapter of Heine's "Gods in Exile"; that the +upright old man with the eyebrows was no other than Father Jove, and the +young dragoon with the taste for music either Apollo or Mars. + + +MORALITY + +Strange indeed is the attraction of the forest for the minds of men. Not +one or two only, but a great chorus of grateful voices have arisen to +spread abroad its fame. Half the famous writers of modern France have +had their word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, Michelet, +Béranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, Murger, the brothers +Goncourt, Théodore de Banville, each of these has done something to the +eternal praise and memory of these woods. Even at the very worst of +times, even when the picturesque was anathema in the eyes of all Persons +of Taste, the forest still preserved a certain reputation for beauty. It +was in 1730 that the Abbé Guilbert published his "Historical Description +of the Palace, Town, and Forest of Fontainebleau." And very droll it is +to see him, as he tries to set forth his admiration in terms of what was +then permissible. The monstrous rocks, etc., says the Abbé, "sont +admirées avec surprise des voyageurs qui s'écrient aussitôt avec Horace: +Ut mihi devio rupes et vacuum nemus mirari libet." The good man is not +exactly lyrical in his praise; and you see how he sets his back against +Horace as against a trusty oak. Horace, at any rate, was classical. For +the rest, however, the Abbé likes places where many alleys meet; or +which, like the Belle-Étoile, are kept up "by a special gardener," and +admires at the Table du Roi the labours of the Grand Master of Woods and +Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, "qui a fait faire ce magnifique +endroit." + +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a +claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of +the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes +and renews a weary spirit. Disappointed men, sick Francis Firsts and +vanquished Grand Monarchs, time out of mind have come here for +consolation. Hither perplexed folk have retired out of the press of +life, as into a deep bay-window on some night of masquerade, and here +found quiet and silence, and rest, the mother of wisdom. It is the great +moral spa; this forest without a fountain is itself the great fountain +of Juventius. It is the best place in the world to bring an old sorrow +that has been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like +Béranger's, your gaiety has run away from home and left open the door +for sorrow to come in, of all covers in Europe, it is here you may +expect to find the truant hid. With every hour you change. The air +penetrates through your clothes, and nestles to your living body. You +love exercise and slumber, long fasting and full meals. You forget all +your scruples and live a while in peace and freedom, and for the moment +only. For here, all is absent that can stimulate to moral feeling. Such +people as you see may be old, or toil-worn, or sorry; but you see them +framed in the forest, like figures on a painted canvas; and for you, +they are not people in any living and kindly sense. You forget the grim +contrariety of interests. You forget the narrow lane where all men +jostle together in unchivalrous contention, and the kennel, deep and +unclean, that gapes on either hand for the defeated. Life is simple +enough, it seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes like a mad +fancy out of a last night's dream. + +Your ideal is not perhaps high, but it is plain and possible. You become +enamoured of a life of change and movement and the open air, where the +muscles shall be more exercised than the affections. When you have had +your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may +buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. You may bestride a +good nag, and ride forth, with a pair of saddle-bags, into the enchanted +East. You may cross the Black Forest, and see Germany widespread before +you, like a map, dotted with old cities, walled and spired, that dream +all day on their own reflections in the Rhine or Danube. You may pass +the spinal cord of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where +Italy extends her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the +midland sea. You may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may +be awakened at dawn by the scream of the express or the small pipe of +the robin in the hedge. For you the rain should allay the dust of the +beaten road; the wind dry your clothes upon you as you walked. Autumn +should hang out russet pears and purple grapes along the lane; inn after +inn proffer you their cups of raw wine; river by river receive your body +in the sultry noon. Wherever you went warm valleys and high trees and +pleasant villages should compass you about; and light fellowships should +take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour upon your way. You may +see from afar off what it will come to in the end--the weather-beaten +red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of the feet, cut off from all +near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an Ishmael, and an outcast. And +yet it will seem well--and yet, in the air of the forest, this will seem +the best--to break all the network bound about your feet by birth and +old companionship and loyal love, and bear your shovelful of phosphates +to and fro, in town and country, until the hour of the great dissolvent. + +Or, perhaps, you will keep to the cover. For the forest is by itself, +and forest life owns small kinship with life in the dismal land of +labour. Men are so far sophisticated that they cannot take the world as +it is given to them by the sight of their eyes. Not only what they see +and hear, but what they know to be behind, enter into their notion of a +place. If the sea, for instance, lie just across the hills, sea-thoughts +will come to them at intervals, and the tenor of their dreams from time +to time will suffer a sea-change. And so here, in this forest, a +knowledge of its greatness is for much in the effect produced. You +reckon up the miles that lie between you and intrusion. You may walk +before you all day long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, +or stumble out of fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And +there is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your seclusion. When +Charles VI. hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there +was captured an old stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and +these words engraved on the collar: "Cæsar mini hoc donavit." It is no +wonder if the minds of men were moved at this occurrence and they stood +aghast to find themselves thus touching hands with forgotten ages, and +following an antiquity with hound and horn. And even for you, it is +scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder how many centuries this +stag had carried its free antlers through the wood, and how many summers +and winters had shone and snowed on the imperial badge. If the extent of +solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter's hounds +and horses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these groves, with +all the pangs and trepidations of man's life, and elude Death, the +mighty hunter, for more than the span of human years? Here, also, crash +his arrows; here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of the pale +horse. But he does not hunt this cover with all his hounds, for the game +is thin and small: and if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged +ever in the deepest thickets, you too might live on into later +generations and astonish men by your stalwart age and the trophies of an +immemorial success. + +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is nothing +here to cabin or thwart your free desires. Here all the impudences of +the brawling world reach you no more. You may count your hours, like +Endymion, by the strokes of the lone woodcutter, or by the progression +of the lights and shadows and the sun wheeling his wide circuit through +the naked heavens. Here shall you see no enemies but winter and rough +weather. And if a pang comes to you at all, it will be a pang of +healthful hunger. All the puling sorrows, all the carking repentance, +all this talk of duty that is no duty, in the great peace, in the pure +daylight of these woods, fall away from you like a garment. And if +perchance you come forth upon an eminence, where the wind blows upon you +large and fresh, and the pines knock their long stems together, like an +ungainly sort of puppets, and see far away over the plain a factory +chimney defined against the pale horizon--it is for you, as for the +staid and simple peasant when, with his plough, he upturns old arms and +harness from the furrow of the glebe. Ay, sure enough, there was a +battle there in the old times; and, sure enough, there is a world out +yonder where men strive together with a noise of oaths and weeping and +clamorous dispute. So much you apprehend by an athletic act of the +imagination. A faint far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as +of some dead religion. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [42] "Deux poures varlez qui n'out nulz gages et qui gissoient la + nuit avec les chiens." See Champollion-Figeac's "Louis et Charles + d'Orléans," i. 63, and for my lord's English horn, _ibid._ 96. + + + + +CRITICISMS + + + + +CRITICISMS + +I + +LORD LYTTON'S "FABLES IN SONG" + + +It seems as if Lord Lytton, in this new book of his, had found the form +most natural to his talent. In some ways, indeed, it may be held +inferior to "Chronicles and Characters"; we look in vain for anything +like the terrible intensity of the night-scene in "Irene," or for any +such passages of massive and memorable writing as appeared, here and +there, in the earlier work, and made it not altogether unworthy of its +model, Hugo's "Legend of the Ages." But it becomes evident, on the most +hasty retrospect, that this earlier work was a step on the way towards +the later. It seems as if the author had been feeling about for his +definite medium, and was already, in the language of the child's game, +growing hot. There are many pieces in "Chronicles and Characters" that +might be detached from their original setting, and embodied, as they +stand, among the "Fables in Song." + +For the term Fable is not very easy to define rigorously. In the most +typical form some moral precept is set forth by means of a conception +purely fantastic, and usually somewhat trivial into the bargain; there +is something playful about it, that will not support a very exacting +criticism, and the lesson must be apprehended by the fancy at half a +hint. Such is the great mass of the old stories of wise animals or +foolish men that have amused our childhood. But we should expect the +fable, in company with other and more important literary forms, to be +more and more loosely, or at least largely, comprehended as time went +on, and so to degenerate in conception from this original type. That +depended for much of its piquancy on the very fact that it was +fantastic: the point of the thing lay in a sort of humorous +inappropriateness; and it is natural enough that pleasantry of this +description should become less common, as men learn to suspect some +serious analogy underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches us +quite differently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin's theory. +Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this primitive sort of +fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough truths; so that at the end of +some story, in which vice or folly had met with its destined punishment, +the fabulist might be able to assure his auditors, as we have often to +assure tearful children on the like occasions, that they may dry their +eyes, for none of it was true. + +But this benefit of fiction becomes lost with more sophisticated hearers +and authors: a man is no longer the dupe of his own artifice, and cannot +deal playfully with truths that are a matter of bitter concern to him in +his life. And hence, in the progressive centralisation of modern +thought, we should expect the old form of fable to fall gradually into +desuetude, and be gradually succeeded by another, which is a fable in +all points except that it is not altogether fabulous. And this new form, +such as we should expect, and such as we do indeed find, still presents +the essential character of brevity; as in any other fable also, there +is, underlying and animating the brief action, a moral idea; and as in +any other fable, the object is to bring this home to the reader through +the intellect rather than through the feelings; so that, without being +very deeply moved or interested by the characters of the piece, we +should recognise vividly the hinges on which the little plot revolves. +But the fabulist now seeks analogies where before he merely sought +humorous situations. There will be now a logical nexus between the moral +expressed and the machinery employed to express it. The machinery, in +fact, as this change is developed, becomes less and less fabulous. We +find ourselves in presence of quite a serious, if quite a miniature +division of creative literature; and sometimes we have the lesson +embodied in a sober, everyday narration, as in the parables of the New +Testament, and sometimes merely the statement or, at most, the +collocation of significant facts in life, the reader being left to +resolve for himself the vague, troublesome, and not yet definitely moral +sentiment which has been thus created. And step by step with the +development of this change, yet another is developed: the moral tends to +become more indeterminate and large. It ceases to be possible to append +it, in a tag, to the bottom of the piece, as one might write the name +below a caricature; and the fable begins to take rank with all other +forms of creative literature, as something too ambitious, in spite of +its miniature dimensions, to be resumed in any succinct formula without +the loss of all that is deepest and most suggestive in it. + +Now it is in this widest sense that Lord Lytton understands the term; +there are examples in his two pleasant volumes of all the forms already +mentioned, and even of another which can only be admitted among fables +by the utmost possible leniency of construction. "Composure," "Et +Cætera," and several more, are merely similes poetically elaborated. So, +too, is the pathetic story of the grandfather and grandchild: the child, +having treasured away an icicle and forgotten it for ten minutes, comes +back to find it already nearly melted, and no longer beautiful: at the +same time, the grandfather has just remembered and taken out a bundle of +love-letters, which he too had stored away in years gone by, and then +long neglected; and, behold! the letters are as faded and sorrowfully +disappointing as the icicle. This is merely a simile poetically worked +out; and yet it is in such as these, and some others, to be mentioned +further on, that the author seems at his best. Wherever he has really +written after the old model, there is something to be deprecated: in +spite of all the spirit and freshness, in spite of his happy assumption +of that cheerful acceptation of things as they are, which, rightly or +wrongly, we come to attribute to the ideal fabulist, there is ever a +sense as of something a little out of place. A form of literature so +very innocent and primitive looks a little over-written in Lord Lytton's +conscious and highly-coloured style. It may be bad taste, but sometimes +we should prefer a few sentences of plain prose narration, and a little +Bewick by way of tail-piece. So that it is not among those fables that +conform most nearly to the old model, but one had nearly said among +those that most widely differ from it, that we find the most +satisfactory examples of the author's manner. + +In the mere matter of ingenuity, the metaphysical fables are the most +remarkable; such as that of the windmill who imagined that it was he who +raised the wind; or that of the grocer's balance ("Cogito ergo sum") who +considered himself endowed with free-will, reason, and an infallible +practical judgment; until, one fine day, the police made a descent upon +the shop, and find the weights false and the scales unequal; and the +whole thing is broken up for old iron. Capital fables, also, in the same +ironical spirit, are "Prometheus Unbound," the tale of the vainglorying +of a champagne-cork, and "Teleology," where a nettle justifies the ways +of God to nettles while all goes well with it, and, upon a change of +luck, promptly changes its divinity. + +In all these there is still plenty of the fabulous if you will, +although, even here, there may be two opinions possible; but there is +another group, of an order of merit perhaps still higher, where we look +in vain for any such playful liberties with Nature. Thus we have +"Conservation of Force"; where a musician, thinking of a certain +picture, improvises in the twilight; a poet, hearing the music, goes +home inspired, and writes a poem; and then a painter, under the +influence of this poem, paints another picture, thus lineally descended +from the first. This is fiction, but not what we have been used to call +fable. We miss the incredible element, the point of audacity with which +the fabulist was wont to mock at his readers. And still more so is this +the case with others. "The Horse and the Fly" states one of the +unanswerable problems of life in quite a realistic and straightforward +way. A fly startles a cab-horse, the coach is overset; a newly-married +pair within and the driver, a man with a wife and family, are all +killed. The horse continues to gallop off in the loose traces, and ends +the tragedy by running over an only child; and there is some little +pathetic detail here introduced in the telling, that makes the reader's +indignation very white-hot against some one. It remains to be seen who +that some one is to be: the fly? Nay, but on closer inspection, it +appears that the fly, actuated by maternal instinct, was only seeking a +place for her eggs: is maternal instinct, then, "sole author of these +mischiefs all"? "Who's in the Right?" one of the best fables in the +book, is somewhat in the same vein. After a battle has been won, a group +of officers assemble inside a battery, and debate together who should +have the honour of the success; the Prince, the general staff, the +cavalry, the engineer who posted the battery in which they then stand +talking, are successively named: the sergeant, who pointed the guns, +sneers to himself at the mention of the engineer; and, close by, the +gunner, who had applied the match, passes away with a smile of triumph, +since it was through his hand that the victorious blow had been dealt. +Meanwhile, the cannon claims the honour over the gunner; the +cannon-ball, who actually goes forth on the dread mission, claims it +over the cannon, who remains idly behind; the powder reminds the +cannon-ball that, but for him, it would still be lying on the arsenal +floor; and the match caps the discussion; powder, cannon-ball, and +cannon would be all equally vain and ineffectual without fire. Just then +there comes on a shower of rain, which wets the powder and puts out the +match, and completes this lesson of dependence, by indicating the +negative conditions which are as necessary for any effect, in their +absence, as is the presence of this great fraternity of positive +conditions, not any one of which can claim priority over any other. But +the fable does not end here, as perhaps, in all logical strictness, it +should. It wanders off into a discussion as to which is the truer +greatness, that of the vanquished fire or that of the victorious rain. +And the speech of the rain is charming: + + "Lo, with my little drops I bless again + And beautify the fields which thou didst blast! + Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt, + But call not Greatness what the Gods call Guilt. + Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt, + And poppied corn, I bring. + 'Mid mouldering Babels, to oblivion built, + My violets spring. + Little by little my small drops have strength + To deck with green delights the grateful earth." + +And so forth, not quite germane (it seems to me) to the matter in hand, +but welcome for its own sake. + +Best of all are the fables that deal more immediately with the emotions. +There is, for instance, that of "The Two Travellers," which is +profoundly moving in conception, although by no means as well written as +some others. In this, one of the two, fearfully frost-bitten, saves his +life out of the snow at the cost of all that was comely in his body; +just as, long before, the other, who has now quietly resigned himself to +death, had violently freed himself from Love at the cost of all that was +finest and fairest in his character. Very graceful and sweet is the +fable (if so it should be called) in which the author sings the praises +of that "kindly perspective," which lets a wheat-stalk near the eye +cover twenty leagues of distant country, and makes the humble circle +about a man's hearth more to him than all the possibilities of the +external world. The companion fable to this is also excellent. It tells +us of a man who had, all his life through, entertained a passion for +certain blue hills on the far horizon, and had promised himself to +travel thither ere he died, and become familiar with these distant +friends. At last, in some political trouble, he is banished to the very +place of his dreams. He arrives there overnight, and, when he rises and +goes forth in the morning, there sure enough are the blue hills, only +now they have changed places with him, and smile across to him, distant +as ever, from the old home whence he has come. Such a story might have +been very cynically treated; but it is not so done, the whole tone is +kindly and consolatory, and the disenchanted man submissively takes the +lesson, and understands that things far away are to be loved for their +own sake, and that the unattainable is not truly unattainable, when we +can make the beauty of it our own. Indeed, throughout all these two +volumes, though there is much practical scepticism, and much irony on +abstract questions, this kindly and consolatory spirit is never absent. +There is much that is cheerful and, after a sedate, fireside fashion, +hopeful. No one will be discouraged by reading the book; but the ground +of all this hopefulness and cheerfulness remains to the end somewhat +vague. It does not seem to arise from any practical belief in the future +either of the individual or the race, but rather from the profound +personal contentment of the writer. This is, I suppose, all we must look +for in the case. It is as much as we can expect, if the fabulist shall +prove a shrewd and cheerful fellow-wayfarer, one with whom the world +does not seem to have gone much amiss, but who has yet laughingly +learned something of its evil. It will depend much, of course, upon our +own character and circumstances, whether the encounter will be agreeable +and bracing to the spirits, or offend us as an ill-timed mockery. But +where, as here, there is a little tincture of bitterness along with the +good-nature, where it is plainly not the humour of a man cheerfully +ignorant, but of one who looks on, tolerant and superior and smilingly +attentive, upon the good and bad of our existence, it will go hardly if +we do not catch some reflection of the same spirit to help us on our +way. There is here no impertinent and lying proclamation of peace--none +of the cheap optimism of the well-to-do; what we find here is a view of +life that would be even grievous, were it not enlivened with this +abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon redeemed by a stroke of pathos. + +It is natural enough, I suppose, that we should find wanting in this +book some of the intenser qualities of the author's work; and their +absence is made up for by much happy description after a quieter +fashion. The burst of jubilation over the departure of the snow, which +forms the prelude to "The Thistle," is full of spirit and of pleasant +images. The speech of the forest in "Sans Souci" is inspired by a +beautiful sentiment for nature of the modern sort, and pleases us more, +I think, as poetry should please us, than anything in "Chronicles and +Characters." There are some admirable felicities of expression here and +there; as that of the hill, whose summit + + "Did print + The azure air with pines." + +Moreover, I do not recollect in the author's former work any symptom of +that sympathetic treatment of still life, which is noticeable now and +again in the fables; and perhaps most noticeably, when he sketches the +burned letters as they hover along the gusty flue, "Thin, sable veils, +wherein a restless spark Yet trembled." But the description is at its +best when the subjects are unpleasant, or even grisly. There are a few +capital lines in this key on the last spasm of the battle before alluded +to. Surely nothing could be better, in its own way, than the fish in +"The Last Cruise of the Arrogant," "the shadowy, side-faced, silent +things," that come butting and staring with lidless eyes at the sunken +steam-engine. And although, in yet another, we are told, pleasantly +enough, how the water went down into the valleys, where it set itself +gaily to saw wood, and on into the plains, where it would soberly carry +grain to town; yet the real strength of the fable is when it deals with +the shut pool in which certain unfortunate raindrops are imprisoned +among slugs and snails, and in the company of an old toad. The sodden +contentment of the fallen acorn is strangely significant; and it is +astonishing how unpleasantly we are startled by the appearance of her +horrible lover, the maggot. + +And now for a last word, about the style. This is not easy to criticise. +It is impossible to deny to it rapidity, spirit, and a full sound; the +lines are never lame, and the sense is carried forward with an +uninterrupted, impetuous rush. But it is not equal. After passages of +really admirable versification, the author falls back upon a sort of +loose, cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of Mr. Browning's +minor pieces, and almost inseparable from wordiness, and an easy +acceptation of somewhat cheap finish. There is nothing here of that +compression which is the note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair, +perhaps, to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by side +with one of the signal masterpieces of another, and a very perfect poet; +and yet it is interesting, when we see how the portraiture of a dog, +detailed through thirty odd lines, is frittered down and finally almost +lost in the mere laxity of the style, to compare it with the clear, +simple, vigorous delineation that Burns, in four couplets, has given us +of the ploughman's collie. It is interesting, at first, and then it +becomes a little irritating; for when we think of other passages so much +more finished and adroit, we cannot help feeling, that with a little +more ardour after perfection of form, criticism would have found nothing +left for her to censure. A similar mark of precipitate work is the +number of adjectives tumultuously heaped together, sometimes to help out +the sense, and sometimes (as one cannot but suspect) to help out the +sound of the verses. I do not believe, for instance, that Lord Lytton +himself would defend the lines in which we are told how Laocoön +"Revealed to _Roman_ crowds, now _Christian_ grown, That _Pagan_ anguish +which, in _Parian_ stone, the _Rhodian_ artist," and so on. It is not +only that this is bad in itself; but that it is unworthy of the company +in which it is found; that such verses should not have appeared with the +name of a good versifier like Lord Lytton. We must take exception, also, +in conclusion, to the excess of alliteration. Alliteration is so liable +to be abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it; and yet it is a +trick that seems to grow upon the author with years. It is a pity to see +fine verses, such as some in "Demos," absolutely spoiled by the +recurrence of one wearisome consonant. + + + + +II + +SALVINI'S MACBETH + + +Salvini closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance of +_Macbeth_. It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of local colour that he +chose to play the Scottish usurper for the first time before Scotsmen; +and the audience were not insensible of the privilege. Few things, +indeed, can move a stronger interest than to see a great creation taking +shape for the first time. If it is not purely artistic, the sentiment is +surely human. And the thought that you are before all the world, and +have the start of so many others as eager as yourself, at least keeps +you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if it does +not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance and see +the actor "bend up each corporal agent" to realise a masterpiece of a +few hours' duration. With a player so variable as Salvini, who trusts +to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night after +night, does the same thing differently but always well, it can never be +safe to pass judgment after a single hearing. And this is more +particularly true of last week's _Macbeth_; for the whole third act was +marred by a grievously humorous misadventure. Several minutes too soon +the ghost of Banquo joined the party, and after having sat helpless a +while at a table, was ignominiously withdrawn. Twice was this ghostly +Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage before his time; twice removed +again; and yet he showed so little hurry when he was really wanted, +that, after an awkward pause, Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to +empty air. The arrival of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk +that made him nod all over, was the last accident in the chapter, and +worthily topped the whole. It may be imagined how lamely matters went +throughout these cross purposes. + +In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini's Macbeth had an +emphatic success. The creation is worthy of a place beside the same +artist's Othello and Hamlet. It is the simplest and most unsympathetic +of the three; but the absence of the finer lineaments of Hamlet is +redeemed by gusto, breadth, and a headlong unity. Salvini sees nothing +great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle, and that courage which +comes of strong and copious circulation. The moral smallness of the man +is insisted on from the first, in the shudder of uncontrollable jealousy +with which he sees Duncan embracing Banquo. He may have some northern +poetry of speech, but he has not much logical understanding. In his +dealings with the supernatural powers he is like a savage with his +fetich, trusting them beyond bounds while all goes well, and whenever he +is crossed, casting his belief aside and calling "fate into the list." +For his wife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew +for her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her +is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to +the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much +meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. +Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who +happened to be nearest to him at a moment of excitement. Love has fallen +out of this marriage by the way, and left a curious friendship. Only +once--at the very moment when she is showing herself so little a woman +and so much a high-spirited man--only once is he very deeply stirred +towards her; and that finds expression in the strange and horrible +transport of admiration, doubly strange and horrible on Salvini's +lips--"Bring forth men-children only!" + +The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the audience best. +Macbeth's voice, in the talk with his wife, was a thing not to be +forgotten; and when he spoke of his hangman's hands he seemed to have +blood in his utterance. Never for a moment, even in the very article of +the murder, does he possess his own soul. He is a man on wires. From +first to last it is an exhibition of hideous cowardice. For, after all, +it is not here, but in broad daylight, with the exhilaration of +conflict, where he can assure himself at every blow he has the longest +sword and the heaviest hand, that this man's physical bravery can keep +him up; he is an unwieldy ship, and needs plenty of way on before he +will steer. + +In the banquet scene, while the first murderer gives account of what he +has done, there comes a flash of truculent joy at the "twenty trenchèd +gashes" on Banquo's head. Thus Macbeth makes welcome to his imagination +those very details of physical horror which are so soon to turn sour in +him. As he runs out to embrace these cruel circumstances, as he seeks to +realise to his mind's eye the reassuring spectacle of his dead enemy, he +is dressing out the phantom to terrify himself; and his imagination, +playing the part of justice, is to "commend to his own lips the +ingredients of his poisoned chalice." With the recollection of Hamlet +and his father's spirit still fresh upon him, and the holy awe with +which that good man encountered things not dreamt of in his philosophy, +it was not possible to avoid looking for resemblances between the two +apparitions and the two men haunted. But there are none to be found. +Macbeth has a purely physical dislike for Banquo's spirit and the +"twenty trenchèd gashes." He is afraid of he knows not what. He is +abject, and again blustering. In the end he so far forgets himself, his +terror, and the nature of what is before him, that he rushes upon it as +he would upon a man. When his wife tells him he needs repose, there is +something really childish in the way he looks about the room, and, +seeing nothing, with an expression of almost sensual relief, plucks up +heart enough to go to bed. And what is the upshot of the visitation? It +is written in Shakespeare, but should be read with the commentary of +Salvini's voice and expression:--"_O! siam nell' opra ancor +fanciulli_,"--"We are yet but young in deed." Circle below circle. He is +looking with horrible satisfaction into the mouth of hell. There may +still be a prick to-day; but to-morrow conscience will be dead, and he +may move untroubled in this element of blood. + +In the fifth act we see this lowest circle reached; and it is Salvini's +finest moment throughout the play. From the first he was admirably made +up, and looked Macbeth to the full as perfectly as ever he looked +Othello. From the first moment he steps upon the stage you can see this +character is a creation to the fullest meaning of the phrase; for the +man before you is a type you know well already. He arrives with Banquo +on the heath, fair and red-bearded, sparing of gesture, full of pride +and the sense of animal wellbeing, and satisfied after the battle like a +beast who has eaten his fill. But in the fifth act there is a change. +This is still the big, burly, fleshly, handsome-looking Thane; here is +still the same face which in the earlier acts could be superficially +good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. But now the atmosphere +of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and +subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable degradation, a +slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his features. He has breathed the +air of carnage, and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of +the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint--he has +ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. A +contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and +the doctor as people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as +he knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About +her he questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety; +and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can "minister to a mind +diseased." When the news of her death is brought him, he is staggered +and falls into a seat; but somehow it is not anything we can call grief +that he displays. There had been two of them against God and man; and +now, when there is only one, it makes perhaps less difference than he +had expected. And so her death is not only an affliction, but one more +disillusion; and he redoubles in bitterness. The speech that follows, +given with tragic cynicism in every word, is a dirge, not so much for +her as for himself. From that time forth there is nothing human left in +him, only "the fiend of Scotland," Macduff's "hell-hound," whom, with a +stern glee, we see baited like a bear and hunted down like a wolf. He is +inspired and set above fate by a demoniacal energy, a lust of wounds and +slaughter. Even after he meets Macduff his courage does not fail; but +when he hears the Thane was not born of woman, all virtue goes out of +him; and though he speaks sounding words of defiance, the last combat is +little better than a suicide. + +The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and a headlong +unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp and powerful; and within +these somewhat narrow limits there is so much play and saliency that, so +far as concerns Salvini himself, a third great success seems +indubitable. Unfortunately, however, a great actor cannot fill more than +a very small fraction of the boards; and though Banquo's ghost will +probably be more seasonable in his future apparitions, there are some +more inherent difficulties in the piece. The company at large did not +distinguish themselves. Macduff, to the huge delight of the gallery, +out-Macduff'd the average ranter. The lady who filled the principal +female part has done better on other occasions, but I fear she has not +metal for what she tried last week. Not to succeed in the sleep-walking +scene is to make a memorable failure. As it was given, it succeeded in +being wrong in art without being true to nature. + +And there is yet another difficulty, happily easy to reform, which +somewhat interfered with the success of the performance. At the end of +the incantation scene the Italian translator has made Macbeth fall +insensible upon the stage. This is a change of questionable propriety +from a psychological point of view; while in point of view of effect it +leaves the stage for some moments empty of all business. To remedy this, +a bevy of green ballet-girls came forth and pointed their toes about the +prostrate king. A dance of High Church curates, or a hornpipe by Mr. T. +P. Cooke, would not be more out of the key; though the gravity of a +Scots audience was not to be overcome, and they merely expressed their +disapprobation by a round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of +Christmas fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from pit +to gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told, the Italian +tradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach than the +observance. With the total disappearance of these damsels, with a +stronger Lady Macbeth, and, if possible, with some compression of those +scenes in which Salvini does not appear, and the spectator is left at +the mercy of Macduffs and Duncans, the play would go twice as well, and +we should be better able to follow and enjoy an admirable work of +dramatic art. + + + + +III + +BAGSTER'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" + + +I have here before me an edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress," bound in +green, without a date, and described as "illustrated by nearly three +hundred engravings, and memoir of Bunyan." On the outside it is lettered +"Bagster's Illustrated Edition," and after the author's apology, facing +the first page of the tale, a folding pictorial "Plan of the Road" is +marked as "drawn by the late Mr. T. Conder," and engraved by J. Basire. +No further information is anywhere vouchsafed; perhaps the publishers +had judged the work too unimportant; and we are still left ignorant +whether or not we owe the woodcuts in the body of the volume to the same +hand that drew the plan. It seems, however, more than probable. The +literal particularity of mind which, in the map, laid down the +flower-plots in the devil's garden, and carefully introduced the +court-house in the town of Vanity, is closely paralleled in many of the +cuts; and in both, the architecture of the buildings and the disposition +of the gardens have a kindred and entirely English air. Whoever he was, +the author of these wonderful little pictures may lay claim to be the +best illustrator of Bunyan.[43] They are not only good illustrations, +like so many others; but they are like so few, good illustrations of +Bunyan. Their spirit, in defect and quality, is still the same as his +own. The designer also has lain down and dreamed a dream, as literal, as +quaint, and almost as apposite as Bunyan's; and text and pictures +make but the two sides of the same homespun yet impassioned story. To +do justice to the designs, it will be necessary to say, for the +hundredth time, a word or two about the masterpiece which they adorn. + +All allegories have a tendency to escape from the purpose of their +creators; and as the characters and incidents become more and more +interesting in themselves, the moral, which these were to show forth, +falls more and more into neglect. An architect may command a wreath of +vine-leaves round the cornice of a monument; but if, as each leaf came +from the chisel, it took proper life and fluttered freely on the wall, +and if the vine grew, and the building were hidden over with foliage and +fruit, the architect would stand in much the same situation as the writer +of allegories. The "Faëry Queen" was an allegory, I am willing to +believe; but it survives as an imaginative tale in incomparable verse. +The case of Bunyan is widely different; and yet in this also Allegory, +poor nymph, although never quite forgotten, is sometimes rudely thrust +against the wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; with "his fingers in +his ears, he ran on," straight for his mark. He tells us himself, in the +conclusion to the first part, that he did not fear to raise a laugh; +indeed, he feared nothing, and said anything; and he was greatly served +in this by a certain rustic privilege of his style, which, like the talk +of strong uneducated men, when it does not impress by its force, still +charms by its simplicity. The mere story and the allegorical design +enjoyed perhaps his equal favour. He believed in both with an energy of +faith that was capable of moving mountains. And we have to remark in him, +not the parts where inspiration fails and is supplied by cold and merely +decorative invention, but the parts where faith has grown to be +credulity, and his characters become so real to him that he forgets the +end of their creation. We can follow him step by step into the trap which +he lays for himself by his own entire good faith and triumphant +literality of vision, till the trap closes and shuts him in an +inconsistency. The allegories of the Interpreter and of the Shepherds of +the Delectable Mountains are all actually performed, like stage-plays, +before the pilgrims. The son of Mr. Great-grace visibly "tumbles hills +about with his words." Adam the First has his condemnation written +visibly on his forehead, so that Faithful reads it. At the very instant +the net closes round the pilgrims, "the white robe falls from the black +man's body." Despair "getteth him a grievous crab-tree cudgel"; it was in +"sunshiny weather" that he had his fits; and the birds in the grove about +the House Beautiful, "our country birds," only sing their little pious +verses "at the spring, when the flowers appear and the sun shines warm." +"I often," says Piety, "go out to hear them; we also ofttimes keep them +tame on our house." The post between Beulah and the Celestial City sounds +his horn, as you may yet hear in country places. Madam Bubble, that +"tall, comely dame, something of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant +attire, but old," "gives you a smile at the end of each sentence"--a real +woman she; we all know her. Christiana dying "gave Mr. Stand-fast a +ring," for no possible reason in the allegory, merely because the touch +was human and affecting. Look at Great-heart, with his soldierly ways, +garrison ways, as I had almost called them; with his taste in weapons; +his delight in any that "he found to be a man of his hands"; his +chivalrous point of honour, letting Giant Maul get up again when he was +down, a thing fairly flying in the teeth of the moral; above all, with +his language in the inimitable tale of Mr. Fearing: "I thought I should +have lost my man"--"chicken-hearted"--"at last he came in, and I will say +that for my lord, he carried it wonderful lovingly to him." This is no +Independent minister; this is a stout, honest, big-busted ancient, +adjusting his shoulder-belts, twirling his long moustaches as he speaks. +Last and most remarkable, "My sword," says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, +he in whom Great-heart delighted, "my sword I give to him that shall +succeed me in my pilgrimage, _and my courage and skill to him that can +get it_." And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox than was ever +dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we are told that "all the trumpets +sounded for him on the other side." + +In every page the book is stamped with the same energy of vision and the +same energy of belief. The quality is equally and indifferently +displayed in the spirit of the fighting, the tenderness of the pathos, +the startling vigour and strangeness of the incidents, the natural +strain of the conversations, and the humanity and charm of the +characters. Trivial talk over a meal, the dying words of heroes, the +delights of Beulah or the Celestial City, Apollyon and my Lord +Hate-good, Great-heart, and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, all have been imagined +with the same clearness, all written of with equal gusto and precision, +all created in the same mixed element, of simplicity that is almost +comical, and art that, for its purpose, is faultless. + +It was in much the same spirit that our artist sat down to his drawings. +He is by nature a Bunyan of the pencil. He, too, will draw anything, +from a butcher at work on a dead sheep, up to the courts of Heaven. "A +Lamb for Supper" is the name of one of his designs, "Their Glorious +Entry" of another. He has the same disregard for the ridiculous, and +enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of style, so that we are pleased +even when we laugh the most. He is literal to the verge of folly. If +dust is to be raised from the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will +"fly abundantly" in the picture. If Faithful is to lie "as dead" before +Moses, dead he shall lie with a warrant--dead and stiff like granite; +nay (and here the artist must enhance upon the symbolism of the author), +it is with the identical stone tables of the law that Moses fells the +sinner. Good and bad people, whom we at once distinguish in the text by +their names, Hopeful, Honest, and Valiant-for-Truth, on the one hand, as +against By-ends, Sir Having Greedy, and the Lord Old-man on the other, +are in these drawings as simply distinguished by their costume. Good +people, when not armed _cap-à-pie_, wear a speckled tunic girt about the +waist, and low hats, apparently of straw. Bad people swagger in +tail-coats and chimney-pots, a few with knee-breeches, but the large +majority in trousers, and for all the world like guests at a +garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, by some inexplicable quirk, stands +before Christian in laced hat, embroidered waistcoat, and trunk-hose. +But above all examples of this artist's intrepidity, commend me to the +print entitled "Christian Finds it Deep." "A great darkness and horror," +says the text, have fallen on the pilgrim; it is the comfortless +deathbed with which Bunyan so strikingly concludes the sorrows and +conflicts of his hero. How to represent this worthily the artist knew +not; and yet he was determined to represent it somehow. This was how he +did: Hopeful is still shown to his neck above the water of death; but +Christian has bodily disappeared, and a blot of solid blackness +indicates his place. + +As you continue to look at these pictures, about an inch square for the +most part, sometimes printed three or more to the page, and each having +a printed legend of its own, however trivial the event recorded, you +will soon become aware of two things: first, that the man can draw, and, +second, that he possesses the gift of an imagination. "Obstinate +reviles," says the legend; and you should see Obstinate reviling. "He +warily retraces his steps"; and there is Christian, posting through the +plain, terror and speed in every muscle. "Mercy yearns to go" shows you +a plain interior with packing going forward, and, right in the middle, +Mercy yearning to go--every line of the girl's figure yearning. In "The +Chamber called Peace" we see a simple English room, bed with white +curtains, window valance and door, as may be found in many thousand +unpretentious houses; but far off, through the open window, we behold +the sun uprising out of a great plain, and Christian hails it with his +hand: + + "Where am I now! is this the love and care + Of Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are! + Thus to provide! That I should be forgiven! + And dwell already the next door to heaven!" + +A page or two further, from the top of the House Beautiful, the damsels +point his gaze toward the Delectable Mountains: "The Prospect," so the +cut is ticketed--and I shall be surprised, if on less than a square of +paper you can show me one so wide and fair. Down a cross road on an +English plain, a cathedral city outlined on the horizon, a hazel shaw +upon the left, comes Madam Wanton dancing with her fair enchanted cup, +and Faithful, book in hand, half pauses. The cut is perfect as a symbol; +the giddy movement of the sorceress, the uncertain poise of the man +struck to the heart by a temptation, the contrast of that even plain of +life whereon he journeys with the bold, ideal bearing of the wanton--the +artist who invented and portrayed this had not merely read Bunyan, he +had also thoughtfully lived. The Delectable Mountains--I continue +skimming the first part--are not on the whole happily rendered. Once, +and once only, the note is struck, when Christian and Hopeful are seen +coming, shoulder-high, through a thicket of green shrubs--box, perhaps, +or perfumed nutmeg; while behind them, domed or pointed, the hills stand +ranged against the sky. A little further, and we come to that +masterpiece of Bunyan's insight into life, the Enchanted Ground; where, +in a few traits, he has set down the latter end of such a number of the +would-be good; where his allegory goes so deep that, to people looking +seriously on life, it cuts like satire. The true significance of this +invention lies, of course, far out of the way of drawing; only one +feature, the great tedium of the land, the growing weariness in +welldoing, may be somewhat represented in a symbol. The pilgrims are +near the end: "Two Miles Yet," says the legend. The road goes ploughing +up and down over a rolling heath; the wayfarers, with outstretched arms, +are already sunk to the knees over the brow of the nearest hill; they +have just passed a milestone with the cipher two; from overhead a great, +piled, summer cumulus, as of a slumberous summer afternoon, beshadows +them: two miles! it might be hundreds. In dealing with the Land of +Beulah the artist lags, in both parts, miserably behind the text, but in +the distant prospect of the Celestial City more than regains his own. +You will remember when Christian and Hopeful "with desire fell sick." +"Effect of the Sunbeams" is the artist's title. Against the sky, upon a +cliffy mountain, the radiant temple beams upon them over deep, subjacent +woods; they, behind a mound, as if seeking shelter from the +splendour--one prostrate on his face, one kneeling, and with hands +ecstatically lifted--yearn with passion after that immortal city. Turn +the page, and we behold them walking by the very shores of death; +Heaven, from this nigher view, has risen half-way to the zenith, and +sheds a wider glory; and the two pilgrims, dark against that brightness, +walk and sing out of the fulness of their hearts. No cut more thoroughly +illustrates at once the merit and the weakness of the artist. Each +pilgrim sings with a book in his grasp--a family Bible at the least for +bigness; tomes so recklessly enormous that our second impulse is to +laughter. And yet that is not the first thought, nor perhaps the last. +Something in the attitude of the manikins--faces they have none, they +are too small for that--something in the way they swing these monstrous +volumes to their singing, something perhaps borrowed from the text, some +subtle differentiation from the cut that went before and the cut that +follows after--something, at least, speaks clearly of a fearful joy, of +Heaven seen from the deathbed, of the horror of the last passage no less +than of the glorious coming home. There is that in the action of one of +them which always reminds me, with a difference, of that haunting last +glimpse of Thomas Idle, travelling to Tyburn in the cart. Next come the +Shining Ones, wooden and trivial enough; the pilgrims pass into the +river; the blot already mentioned settles over and obliterates +Christian. In two more cuts we behold them drawing nearer to the other +shore; and then, between two radiant angels, one of whom points upward, +we see them mounting in new weeds, their former lendings left behind +them on the inky river. More angels meet them; Heaven is displayed, and +if no better, certainly no worse, than it has been shown by others--a +place, at least, infinitely populous and glorious with light--a place +that haunts solemnly the hearts of children. And then this symbolic +draughtsman once more strikes into his proper vein. Three cuts conclude +the first part. In the first the gates close, black against the glory +struggling from within. The second shows us Ignorance--alas! poor +Arminian!--hailing, in a sad twilight, the ferryman Vain-Hope; and in +the third we behold him, bound hand and foot, and black already with the +hue of his eternal fate, carried high over the mountain-tops of the +world by two angels of the anger of the Lord. "Carried to Another +Place," the artist enigmatically names his plate--a terrible design. + +Wherever he touches on the black side of the supernatural his pencil +grows more daring and incisive. He has many true inventions in the +perilous and diabolic; he has many startling nightmares realised. It is +not easy to select the best; some may like one and some another; the +nude, depilated devil bounding and casting darts against the Wicket +Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hang over Christian by the Mouth +of Hell; the horned shade that comes behind him whispering blasphemies; +the daylight breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains and +falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian's further progress +along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at every yard or +two, a gin, a pitfall, or a snare awaits the passer-by--loathsome white +devilkins harbouring close under the bank to work the springes, +Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword's point at the +nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the farther +side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset the first of +Christian's journey, with the frog-like structure of the skull, the +frog-like limberness of limbs--crafty, slippery, lustful-looking devils, +drawn always in outline as though possessed of a dim, infernal +luminosity. Horrid fellows are they, one and all; horrid fellows and +horrific scenes. In another spirit that Good-Conscience "to whom Mr. +Honest had spoken in his lifetime," a cowled, grey, awful figure, one +hand pointing to the heavenly shore, realises, I will not say all, but +some at least of the strange impressiveness of Bunyan's words. It is no +easy nor pleasant thing to speak in one's lifetime with Good-Conscience; +he is an austere, unearthly friend, whom maybe Torquemada knew; and the +folds of his raiment are not merely claustral, but have something of the +horror of the pall. Be not afraid, however; with the hand of that +appearance Mr. Honest will get safe across. + + +[Illustration: Obstinate reviles] + +[Illustration: Mr. Worldly-Wiseman] + +[Illustration: He warily retraces his steps] + +[Illustration: Christian at the gate] + +[Illustration: The parlour unswept] + +[Illustration: The chamber called Peace] + +[Illustration: The prospect] + +[Illustration: Is met by Apollyon] + +[Illustration: The fiend in discourse] + +[Illustration: The conflict] + +[Illustration: Close combat] + +[Illustration: The deadly thrust] + +[Illustration: Thanksgiving for victory] + +[Illustration: His last weapon--All-prayer] + +[Illustration: Whispering blasphemies] + +[Illustration: Snares, traps, gins, and pitfalls] + +[Illustration: Madam Wanton] + +[Illustration: Two miles yet] + +[Illustration: Effect of the sunbeams] + +[Illustration: Carried to another place] + + +Yet perhaps it is in sequences that this artist best displays himself. +He loves to look at either side of a thing: as, for instance, when he +shows us both sides of the wall--"Grace Inextinguishable" on the one +side, with the devil vainly pouring buckets on the flame, and "The Oil +of Grace" on the other, where the Holy Spirit, vessel in hand, still +secretly supplies the fire. He loves, also, to show us the same event +twice over, and to repeat his instantaneous photographs at the interval +of but a moment. So we have, first, the whole troop of pilgrims coming +up to Valiant, and Great-heart to the front, spear in hand and +parleying; and next, the same cross-roads, from a more distant view, the +convoy now scattered and looking safely and curiously on, and Valiant +handing over for inspection his "right Jerusalem blade." It is true that +this designer has no great care after consistency: Apollyon's spear is +laid by, his quiver of darts will disappear, whenever they might hinder +the designer's freedom; and the fiend's tail is blobbed or forked at his +good pleasure. But this is not unsuitable to the illustration of the +fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry and momentary inspiration. He, with +his hot purpose, hunting sinners with a lasso, shall himself forget the +things that he has written yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless in +the Valley of the Shadow, and then take leave of him talking in his +sleep, as if nothing had happened, in an arbour on the Enchanted Ground. +And again, in his rhymed prologue, he shall assign some of the glory of +the siege of Doubting Castle to his favourite Valiant-for-the-Truth, who +did not meet with the besiegers till long after, at that dangerous +corner by Deadman's Lane. And, with all inconsistencies and freedoms, +there is a power shown in these sequences of cuts: a power of joining on +one action or one humour to another; a power of following out the moods, +even of the dismal subterhuman fiends engendered by the artist's fancy; +a power of sustained continuous realisation, step by step, in nature's +order, that can tell a story, in all its ins and outs, its pauses and +surprises, fully and figuratively, like the art of words. + +One such sequence is the fight of Christian and Apollyon--six cuts, +weird and fiery, like the text. The pilgrim is throughout a pale and +stockish figure; but the devil covers a multitude of defects. There is +no better devil of the conventional order than our artist's Apollyon, +with his mane, his wings, his bestial legs, his changing and terrifying +expression, his infernal energy to slay. In cut the first you see him +afar off, still obscure in form, but already formidable in suggestion. +Cut the second, "The Fiend in Discourse," represents him, not reasoning, +railing rather, shaking his spear at the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced, +his tail writhing in the air, his foot ready for a spring, while +Christian stands back a little, timidly defensive. The third illustrates +these magnificent words: "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole +breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare +thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no +farther: here will I spill thy soul! And with that he threw a flaming +dart at his breast." In the cut he throws a dart with either hand, +belching pointed flames out of his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and +straddling the while across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who +has just sworn by his infernal den. The defence will not be long against +such vice, such flames, such red-hot nether energy. And in the fourth +cut, to be sure, he has leaped bodily upon his victim, sped by foot and +pinion, and roaring as he leaps. The fifth shows the climacteric of the +battle; Christian has reached nimbly out and got his sword, and dealt +that deadly home-thrust, the fiend still stretched upon him, but "giving +back, as one that had received his mortal wound." The raised head, the +bellowing mouth, the paw clapped upon the sword, the one wing relaxed in +agony, all realise vividly these words of the text. In the sixth and +last, the trivial armed figure of the pilgrim is seen kneeling with +clasped hands on the betrodden scene of contest and among the shivers of +the darts; while just at the margin the hinder quarters and the tail of +Apollyon are whisking off, indignant and discomfited. + +In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy of the text, and +that point is one rather of the difference of arts than the difference +of artists. Throughout his best and worst, in his highest and most +divine imaginations as in the narrowest sallies of his sectarianism, the +human-hearted piety of Bunyan touches and ennobles, convinces, accuses +the reader. Through no art beside the art of words can the kindness of a +man's affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall find faithfully +parodied the quaintness and the power, the triviality and the surprising +freshness of the author's fancy; there you shall find him outstripped in +ready symbolism and the art of bringing things essentially invisible +before the eyes: but to feel the contact of essential goodness, to be +made in love with piety, the book must be read and not the prints +examined. + +Farewell should not be taken with a grudge; nor can I dismiss in any +other words than those of gratitude a series of pictures which have, to +one at least, been the visible embodiment of Bunyan from childhood up, +and shown him, through all his years, Great-heart lungeing at Giant +Maul, and Apollyon breathing fire at Christian, and every turn and town +along the road to the Celestial City, and that bright place itself, seen +as to a stave of music, shining afar off upon the hill-top, the candle +of the world. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [43] The illustrator was, in fact, a lady, Miss Eunice Bagster, + eldest daughter of the publisher, Samuel Bagster; except in the case + of the cuts depicting the fight with Apollyon, which were designed + by her brother, Mr. Jonathan Bagster. The edition was published in + 1845. I am indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. + Robert Bagster, the present managing director of the firm.--SIR + SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE. + + + + + AN APPEAL + + TO THE + _Clergy of the Church of Scotland_ + + WITH A NOTE FOR THE LAITY + + "_Had I a strong voice, as it is the weakest alive, yea, could I lift + it up as a trumpet, I would sound a retreat from our unnatural + contentions, and irreligious strivings for religion_" + + ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON, 1669 + + + _William Blackwood & Sons_ + + _Edinburgh and London_ + 1875 + + Price 3d.] + + (_Facsimile of original Title-page_) + + + + +AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND + +WITH A NOTE FOR THE LAITY + + "Had I a strong voice, as it is the weakest alive, yea, could I lift + it up as a trumpet, I would sound a retreat from our unnatural + contentions, and irreligious strivings for religion."--ARCHBISHOP + LEIGHTON, 1669. + + +Gentlemen,--The position of the Church of Scotland is now one of +considerable difficulty; not only the credit of the Church, not only the +credit of Christianity, but to some extent also that of the national +character, is at stake. You have just gained a great victory, in spite +of an opposition neither very logical nor very generous; you have +succeeded in effecting, by quiet constitutional processes, a great +reform which brings your Church somewhat nearer in character to what is +required by your Dissenting brethren. It remains to be seen whether you +can prove yourselves as generous as you have been wise and patient. And +the position, as I say, is one of difficulty. Many, doubtless, left the +Church for a reason which is now removed; many have joined other sects +who would rather have joined themselves with you, had you been then as +you now are; and for these you are bound to render as easy as may be the +way of reconciliation, and show, by some notable action, the reality of +your own desire for Peace. But I am not unaware that there are others, +and those possibly a majority, who hold very different opinions--who +regard the old quarrel as still competent, or have found some new reason +for dissent; and from these the Church, if she makes such an advance as +she ought to make, in all loyalty and charity, may chance to meet that +most sensible of insults--ridicule, in return for an honest offer of +reconciliation. I am not unaware, also, that there is yet another ground +of difficulty; and that those even who would be most ready to hold the +cause of offence as now removed will find it hard to forget the +past--will continue to think themselves unjustly used--will not be +willing to come back, as though they were repentant offenders, among +those who delayed the reform and quietly enjoyed their benefices, while +they bore the heat and burthen of the day in a voluntary exile for the +Truth's sake. + +In view of so many elements of difficulty, no intelligent person can be +free from apprehension for the result; and you, gentlemen, may be +perhaps more ready now to receive advice, to hear and weigh the opinion +of one who is free, because he writes without name, than you would be at +any juncture less critical. There is now a hope, at least, that some +term may be put to our more clamorous dissensions. Those who are at all +open to a feeling of national disgrace look eagerly forward to such a +possibility; they have been witnesses already too long to the strife +that has divided this small corner of Christendom; and they cannot +remember without shame that there has been as much noise, as much +recrimination, as much severance of friends, about mere logical +abstractions in our remote island, as would have sufficed for the great +dogmatic battles of the Continent. It would be difficult to exaggerate +the pity that fills the heart at such a reflection; at the thought of +how this neck of barren hills between two inclement seaways has echoed +for three centuries with the uproar of sectarian battle; of how the east +wind has carried out the sound of our shrill disputations into the +desolate Atlantic, and the west wind has borne it over the German Ocean, +as though it would make all Europe privy to how well we Scottish +brethren abide together in unity. It is not a bright page in the annals +of a small country: it is not a pleasant commentary on the Christianity +that we profess; there is something in it pitiful, as I have said, for +the pitiful man, but bitterly humorous for others. How much time we have +lost, how much of the precious energy and patience of good men we have +exhausted, on these trivial quarrels, it would be nauseous to consider; +we know too much already when we know the facts in block; we know enough +to make us hide our heads for shame, and grasp gladly at any present +humiliation, if it would ensure a little more quiet, a little more +charity, a little more brotherly love in the distant future. + +And it is with this before your eyes that, as I feel certain, you are +now addressing yourselves to the consideration of this important crisis. +It is with a sense of the blackness of this discredit upon the national +character and national Christianity that not you alone but many of other +Churches are now setting themselves to square their future course with +the exigencies of the new position of sects; and it is with you that the +responsibility remains. The obligation lies ever on the victor; and just +so surely as you have succeeded in the face of captious opposition in +carrying forth the substance of a reform of which others had despaired, +just as surely does it lie upon you as a duty to take such steps as +shall make that reform available, not to you only, but to all your +brethren who will consent to profit by it; not only to all the clergy, +but to the cause of decency and peace, throughout your native land. It +is earnestly hoped that you may show yourselves worthy of a great +opportunity, and do more for the public minds by the example of one act +of generosity and humility than you could do by an infinite series of +sermons. + +Without doubt, it is your intention, on the earliest public opportunity, +to make some advance. Without doubt, it is your purpose to improve the +advantage you have gained, and to press upon those who quitted your +communion some thirty years ago your great desire to be once more united +to them. This, at least, will find a place in the most unfriendly +programme you can entertain; and if there are any in the Free Church (as +I doubt not there are some) who seceded, not so much from any dislike to +the just supremacy of the law, as from a belief that the law in these +ecclesiastical matters was applied unjustly, I know well that you will +be most eager to receive them back again; I know well that you will not +let any petty vanity, any scruple of worldly dignity, stand between them +and their honourable return. If, therefore, there were no more to be +done than to display to these voluntary exiles the deep sense of your +respect for their position, this appeal would be unnecessary, and you +might be left to the guidance of your own good feeling. + +But it seems to me that there is need of something more; it seems to me, +and I think that it will seem so to you also, that you must go even +further if you would be equal to the importance of the situation. If +there are any among the Dissenters whose consciences are so far +satisfied with the provisions of the recent Act that they could now +return to your communion, to such, it must not be forgotten, you stand +in a position of great delicacy. The conduct of these men you have so +far justified; you have tacitly admitted that there was some ground for +dissatisfaction with the former condition of the Church; and though you +may still judge those to have been over-scrupulous who were moved by +this imperfection to secede, instead of waiting patiently with you until +it could be remedied by peaceful means, you must not forget that it is +the strong stomach, according to St. Paul, that is to consider the weak, +and should come forward to meet these brethren with something better +than compliments upon your lips. Observe, I speak only of those who +would now see their way back to your communion with a clear conscience; +it is their conduct, and their conduct alone, that you have justified, +and therefore it is only for them that your special generosity is here +solicited. But towards them, if there are any such, your countrymen +would desire to see you behave with all consideration. I do not pretend +to lay before you any definite scheme of action; I wish only to let you +understand what thoughts are busy in the heads of some outside your +councils, so that you may take this also into consideration when you +come to decide. And this, roughly, is how it appears to these: These +good men have exposed themselves to the chance of hardship for the sake +of their scruples, whilst you being of a stronger stomach, continued to +enjoy the security of national endowments. Some of you occupy the very +livings which they resigned for conscience' sake. To others preferment +has fallen which would have fallen to them had they been still eligible. +If, then, any of them are now content to return, you are bound, if not +in justice, then in honour, to do all that you can to testify your +respect for brave conviction, and to repair to them such losses as they +may have suffered, whether for their first secession or their second. +You owe a special duty, not only to the courage that left the Church, +but to the wisdom and moderation that now returns to it. And your sense +of this duty will find a vent not only in word but in action. You will +facilitate their return not only by considerate and brotherly language +but by pecuniary aid; you will seek, by some new endowment scheme, to +preserve for them their ecclesiastical status. That they have no claim +will be their strongest claim on your consideration. Many of you, if not +all, will set apart some share out of your slender livings for their +assistance and support: you will give them what you can afford; and you +will say to them, as you do so, what I dare say to you, that what you +give is theirs--not only in honour but in justice. + +For you know that the justice which should rule the dealings of +Christians, how much more of Christian ministers, is not as the justice +of courts of law or equity; and those who profess the morality of Jesus +Christ have abjured, in that profession, all that can be urged by policy +or worldly prudence. From them we can accept no half-hearted and +calculating generosity; they must make haste to be liberal; they must +catch with eagerness at all opportunities of service, and the mere +whisper of an obligation should be to them more potent than the decree +of a court to others who make profession of a less stringent code. And +remember that it lies with you to show to the world that Christianity is +something more than a verbal system. In the lapse of generations men +grow weary of unsupported precept. They may wait long, and keep long in +memory the bright doings of former days, but they will weary at the +last; they will begin to trouble you for your credentials; if you cannot +give them miracles, they will demand virtue; if you cannot heal the +sick, they will call upon you for some practice of the Christian ethics. +Thus people will knock often at a door if only it be opened to them now +and again; but if the door remains closed too long, they will judge the +house uninhabited and go elsewhere. And thus it is that a season of +persecution, constantly endured, revives the fainting confidence of the +people, and some centuries of prosperity may prepare a Church for ruin. +You have here at your hand an opportunity to do more for the credit of +your Christianity than ever you could do by visions, miracles, or +prophecies. A sacrifice such as this would be better worth, as I said +before, than many sermons; and there is a disposition in mankind that +would ennoble it beyond much that is more ostentatious; for men, whether +lay or clerical, suffer better the flame of the stake than a daily +inconvenience or a pointed sneer, and will not readily be martyred +without some external circumstance and a concourse looking on. And you +need not fear that your virtue will be thrown away; the people of +Scotland will be quick to understand, in default of visible fire and +halter, that you have done a brave action for Christianity and the +national weal; and if they are spared in the future any of the present +ignoble jealousy of sect against sect, they will not forget that to that +end you gave of your household comfort and stinted your children. Even +if you fail--ay, and even if there were not found one to profit by your +invitation--your virtue would still have its own reward. Your +predecessors gave their lives for ends not always the most Christian; +they were tempted, and slain with the sword; they wandered in deserts +and in mountains, in caves and in dens of the earth. But your action +will not be less illustrious; what you may have to suffer may be a small +thing if the world will, but it will have been suffered for the cause of +peace and brotherly love. + +I have said that the people of Scotland will be quick to appreciate what +you do. You know well that they will be quick also to follow your +example. But the sign should come from you. It is more seemly that you +should lead than follow in this matter. Your predecessors gave the word +from their free pulpits which was to brace men for sectarian strife: it +would be a pleasant sequel if the word came from you that was to bid +them bury all jealousy, and forget the ugly and contentious past in a +good hope of peace to come. + +What is said in these few pages may be objected to as vague; it is no +more vague than the position seemed to me to demand. Each man must judge +for himself what it behoves him to do at this juncture, and the whole +Church for herself. All that is intended in this appeal is to begin, in +a tone of dignity and disinterestedness, the consideration of the +question; for when such matters are much pulled about in public prints, +and have been often discussed from many different, and not always from +very high, points of view, there is ever a tendency that the decision of +the parties may contract some taint of meanness from the spirit of their +critics. All that is desired is to press upon you, as ministers of the +Church of Scotland, some sense of the high expectation with which your +country looks to you at this time; and how many reasons there are that +you should show an example of signal disinterestedness and zeal in the +encouragement that you give to returning brethren. For, first, it lies +with you to clear the Church from the discredit of our miserable +contentions; and surely you can never have a fairer opportunity to +improve her claim to the style of a peacemaker. Again, it lies with +you, as I have said, to take the first step, and prove your own true +ardour for an honourable union; and how else are you to prove it? It +lies with you, moreover, to justify in the eyes of the world the time +you have been enjoying your benefices, while these others have +voluntarily shut themselves out from all participation in their +convenience; and how else are you to convince the world that there was +not something of selfishness in your motives? It lies with you, lastly, +to keep your example unspotted before your congregations; and I do not +know how better you are to do that. + +It is never a thankful office to offer advice; and advice is the more +unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the service recommended, +but often from its very obviousness. We are fired with anger against +those who make themselves the spokesmen of plain obligations; for they +seem to insult us as they advise. In the present case I should have +feared to waken some such feeling, had it not been that I was addressing +myself to a body of special men on a very special occasion. I know too +much of the history of ideas to imagine that the sentiments advocated in +this appeal are peculiar to me and a few others. I am confident that +your own minds are already busy with similar reflections. But I know at +the same time how difficult it is for one man to speak to another in +such a matter; how he is withheld by all manner of personal +considerations, and dare not propose what he has nearest his heart, +because the other has a larger family or a smaller stipend, or is older, +more venerable, and more conscientious than himself; and it is in view +of this that I have determined to profit by the freedom of an anonymous +writer, and give utterance to what many of you would have uttered +already, had they been (as I am) apart from the battle. It is easy to be +virtuous when one's own convenience is not affected; and it is no shame +to any man to follow the advice of an outsider who owns that, while he +sees which is the better part, he might not have the courage to profit +himself by this opinion. + + +[_Note for the Laity_] + +The foregoing pages have been in type since the beginning of last +September. I have been advised to give them to the public; and it is +only necessary to add that nothing of all that has taken place since +they were written has made me modify an opinion or so much as change a +word. The question is not one that can be altered by circumstances. + +I need not tell the laity that with them this matter ultimately rests. +Whether we regard it as a question of mere expense or as a question of +good feeling against ill feeling, the solution must come from the Church +members. The lay purse is the long one; and if the lay opinion does not +speak from so high a place, it speaks all the week through and with +innumerable voices. Trumpets and captains are all very well in their +way; but if the trumpets were ever so clear, and the captains as bold as +lions, it is still the army that must take the fort. + +The laymen of the Church have here a question before them, on the +answering of which, as I still think, many others attend. If the +Established Church could throw off its lethargy, and give the Dissenters +some speaking token of its zeal for union, I still think that union, to +some extent, would be the result. There is a motion tabled (as I suppose +all know) for the next meeting of the General Assembly; but something +more than motions must be tabled, and something more must be given than +votes. It lies practically with the laymen, by a new endowment scheme, +to put the Church right with the world in two ways, so that those who +left it more than thirty years ago, and who may now be willing to +return, shall lose neither in money nor in ecclesiastical status. At the +outside, what will they have to do? They will have to do for (say) ten +years what the laymen of the Free Church have done cheerfully ever since +1843. + + _February 12th_ 1875. + + + + +THE CHARITY BAZAAR + +THE LIGHT-KEEPER + +ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES + +ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS + + + + +THE CHARITY BAZAAR + +AN ALLEGORICAL DIALOGUE + + * * * * * + +_PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE_ + + THE INGENUOUS PUBLIC + HIS WIFE + THE TOUT + + * * * * * + + _The Tout, in an allegorical costume, holding a silver trumpet in his + right hand, is discovered on the steps in front of the Bazaar. He + sounds a preliminary flourish._ + + +_The Tout_.--Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to announce a sale +of many interesting, beautiful, rare, quaint, comical, and necessary +articles. Here you will find objects of taste, such as Babies' Shoes, +Children's Petticoats, and Shetland Wool Cravats; objects of general +usefulness, such as Tea-cosies, Bangles, Brahmin Beads, and Madras +Baskets; and objects of imperious necessity, such as Pen-wipers, Indian +Figures carefully repaired with glue, and Sealed Envelopes, containing a +surprise. And all this is not to be sold by your common Shopkeepers, +intent on small and legitimate profits, but by Ladies and Gentlemen, who +would as soon think of picking your pocket of a cotton handkerchief as +of selling a single one of these many interesting, beautiful, rare, +quaint, comical, and necessary articles at less than twice its market +value. (_He sounds another flourish_.) + +_The Wife._--This seems a very fair-spoken young man. + +_The Ingenuous Public_ (_addressing the Tout_).--Sir, I am a man of +simple and untutored mind; but I apprehend that this sale, of which you +give us so glowing a description, is neither more nor less than a +Charity Bazaar? + +_The Tout._--Sir, your penetration has not deceived you. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Into which you seek to entice unwary +passengers? + +_The Tout._--Such is my office. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--But is not a Charity Bazaar, Sir, a place +where, for ulterior purposes, amateur goods are sold at a price above +their market value? + +_The Tout._--I perceive you are no novice. Let us sit down, all three, +upon the doorsteps, and reason this matter at length. The position is a +little conspicuous, but airy and convenient. + + (_The Tout seats himself on the second step, the Ingenuous Public and + his Wife to right and left of him, one step below._) + +_The Tout._--Shopping is one of the dearest pleasures of the human +heart. + +_The Wife._--Indeed, Sir, and that it is. + +_The Tout._--The choice of articles, apart from their usefulness, is an +appetising occupation, and to exchange bald, uniform shillings for a +fine big, figurative knick-knack, such as a windmill, a gross of green +spectacles, or a cocked hat, gives us a direct and emphatic sense of +gain. We have had many shillings before, as good as these; but this is +the first time we have possessed a windmill. Upon these principles of +human nature, Sir, is based the theory of the Charity Bazaar. People +were doubtless charitably disposed. The problem was to make the exercise +of charity entertaining in itself--you follow me, Madam?--and in the +Charity Bazaar a satisfactory solution was attained. The act of giving +away money for charitable purposes is, by this admirable invention, +transformed into an amusement, and puts on the externals of profitable +commerce. You play at shopping a while; and in order to keep up the +illusion, sham goods do actually change hands. Thus, under the +similitude of a game, I have seen children confronted with the horrors +of arithmetic, and even taught to gargle. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--You expound this subject very magisterially, +Sir. But tell me, would it not be possible to carry this element of play +still further? and after I had remained a proper time in the Bazaar, and +negotiated a sufficient number of sham bargains, would it not be +possible to return me my money in the hall? + +_The Tout._--I question whether that would not impair the humour of the +situation. And besides, my dear Sir, the pith of the whole device is to +take that money from you. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--True. But at least the Bazaar might take back +the tea-cosies and pen-wipers. + +_The Tout._--I have no doubt, if you were to ask it handsomely, that you +would be so far accommodated. Still it is out of the theory. The sham +goods, for which, believe me, I readily understand your +disaffection--the sham goods are well adapted for their purpose. Your +lady wife will lay these tea-cosies and pen-wipers aside in a safe +place, until she is asked to contribute to another Charity Bazaar. There +the tea-cosies and pen-wipers will be once more charitably sold. The new +purchasers, in their turn, will accurately imitate the dispositions of +your lady wife. In short, Sir, the whole affair is a cycle of +operations. The tea-cosies and pen-wipers are merely counters; they come +off and on again like a stage army; and year after year people pretend +to buy and pretend to sell them, with a vivacity that seems to indicate +a talent for the stage. But in the course of these illusory +manoeuvres, a great deal of money is given in charity, and that in a +picturesque, bustling, and agreeable manner. If you have to travel +somewhere on business, you would choose the prettiest route, and desire +pleasant companions by the way. And why not show the same spirit in +giving alms? + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Sir, I am profoundly indebted to you for all +you have said. I am, Sir, your absolute convert. + +_The Wife._--Let us lose no time, but enter the Charity Bazaar. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Yes; let us enter the Charity Bazaar. + +_Both_ (_singing_).--Let us enter, let us enter, let us enter, Let us +enter the Charity Bazaar! + + (_An interval is supposed to elapse. The Ingenuous Public and his Wife + are discovered issuing from the Charity Bazaar._) + +_The Wife._--How fortunate you should have brought your cheque-book! + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Well, fortunate in a sense. (_Addressing the +Tout._)--Sir, I shall send a van in the course of the afternoon for the +little articles I have purchased. I shall not say good-bye; because I +shall probably take a lift in the front seat, not from any solicitude, +believe me, about the little articles, but as the last opportunity I may +have for some time of enjoying the costly entertainment of a drive. + + THE SCENE CLOSES + + + + +THE LIGHT-KEEPER + +I + + The brilliant kernel of the night, + The flaming lightroom circles me: + I sit within a blaze of light + Held high above the dusky sea. + Far off the surf doth break and roar + Along bleak miles of moonlit shore, + Where through the tides the tumbling wave + Falls in an avalanche of foam + And drives its churnèd waters home + Up many an undercliff and cave. + + The clear bell chimes: the clockworks strain: + The turning lenses flash and pass, + Frame turning within glittering frame + With frosty gleam of moving glass: + Unseen by me, each dusky hour + The sea-waves welter up the tower + Or in the ebb subside again; + And ever and anon all night, + Drawn from afar by charm of light, + A sea-bird beats against the pane. + + And lastly when dawn ends the night + And belts the semi-orb of sea, + The tall, pale pharos in the light + Looks white and spectral as may be. + The early ebb is out: the green + Straight belt of sea-weed now is seen, + That round the basement of the tower + Marks out the interspace of tide; + And watching men are heavy-eyed, + And sleepless lips are dry and sour. + + The night is over like a dream: + The sea-birds cry and dip themselves; + And in the early sunlight, steam + The newly-bared and dripping shelves, + Around whose verge the glassy wave + With lisping wash is heard to lave; + While, on the white tower lifted high, + With yellow light in faded glass + The circling lenses flash and pass, + And sickly shine against the sky. + + 1869. + + +II + + As the steady lenses circle + With a frosty gleam of glass; + And the clear bell chimes, + And the oil brims over the lip of the burner, + Quiet and still at his desk, + The lonely light-keeper + Holds his vigil. + + Lured from afar, + The bewildered sea-gull beats + Dully against the lantern; + Yet he stirs not, lifts not his head + From the desk where he reads, + Lifts not his eyes to see + The chill blind circle of night + Watching him through the panes. + This is his country's guardian, + The outmost sentry of peace. + This is the man, + Who gives up all that is lovely in living + For the means to live. + + Poetry cunningly gilds + The life of the Light-Keeper, + Held on high in the blackness + In the burning kernel of night. + The seaman sees and blesses him; + The Poet, deep in a sonnet, + Numbers his inky fingers + Fitly to praise him: + Only we behold him, + Sitting, patient and stolid, + Martyr to a salary. + + 1870. + + + + +ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES[44] + + +The necessity for marked characteristics in coast illumination increases +with the number of lights. The late Mr. Robert Stevenson, my +grandfather, contributed two distinctions, which he called respectively +the _intermittent_ and the _flashing_ light. It is only to the former of +these that I have to refer in the present paper. The intermittent light +was first introduced at Tarbetness in 1830, and is already in use at +eight stations on the coasts of the United Kingdom. As constructed +originally, it was an arrangement by which a fixed light was alternately +eclipsed and revealed. These recurrent occultations and revelations +produce an effect totally different from that of the revolving light, +which comes gradually into its full strength, and as gradually fades +away. The changes in the intermittent, on the other hand, are immediate; +a certain duration of darkness is followed at once and without the least +gradation by a certain period of light. The arrangement employed by my +grandfather to effect this object consisted of two opaque cylindric +shades or extinguishers, one of which descended from the roof, while the +other ascended from below to meet it, at a fixed interval. The light was +thus entirely intercepted. + +At a later period, at the harbour light of Troon, Mr. Wilson, C.E., +produced an intermittent light by the use of gas, which leaves little to +be desired, and which is still in use at Troon harbour. By a simple +mechanical contrivance, the gas jet was suddenly lowered to the point of +extinction, and, after a set period, as suddenly raised again. The chief +superiority of this form of intermittent light is economy in the +consumption of the gas. In the original design, of course, the oil +continues uselessly to illuminate the interior of the screens during the +period of occultation. + +Mr. Wilson's arrangement has been lately resuscitated by Mr. Wigham of +Dublin, in connection with his new gas-burner. + +Gas, however, is inapplicable to many situations; and it has occurred to +me that the desired result might be effected with strict economy with +oil lights, in the following manner:-- + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +In Fig. 1, AAA represents in plan an ordinary Fresnel's dioptric fixed +light apparatus, and BB' a hemispherical mirror (either metallic or +dioptric on my father's principle) which is made to revolve with uniform +speed about the burner. This mirror, it is obvious, intercepts the rays +of one hemisphere, and, returning them through the flame (less loss by +absorption, etc.), spreads them equally over the other. In this way 180° +of light pass regularly the eye of the seaman; and are followed at once +by 180° of darkness. As the hemispherical mirror begins to open, the +observer receives the full light, since the whole lit hemisphere is +illuminated with strict equality; and as it closes again, he passes into +darkness. + +Other characteristics can be produced by different modifications of the +above. In Fig. 2 the original hemispherical mirror is shown broken up +into three different sectors, BB', CC', and DD'; so that with the same +velocity of revolution the periods of light and darkness will be +produced in quicker succession. In this figure (Fig. 2) the three +sectors have been shown as subtending equal angles, but if one of them +were increased in size and the other two diminished (as in Fig. 3), we +should have one long steady illumination and two short flashes at each +revolution. Again, the number of sectors may be increased; and by +varying both their number and their relative size, a number of +additional characteristics are attainable. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +Colour may also be introduced as a means of distinction. Coloured glass +may be set in the alternate spaces; but it is necessary to remark that +these coloured sectors will be inferior in power to those which remain +white. This objection is, however, obviated to a large extent +(especially where the dioptric spherical mirror is used) by such an +arrangement as is shown in Fig. 4; where the two sectors, WW, are left +unassisted, while the two with the red screens are reinforced +respectively by the two sectors of mirror, MM. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +Another mode of holophotally producing the intermittent light has been +suggested by my father, and is shown in Fig. 5. It consists of alternate +and opposite sectors of dioptric spherical mirror, MM, and of Fresnel's +fixed light apparatus, AA. By the revolution of this composite frame +about the burner, the same immediate alternation of light and darkness +is produced, the first when the front of the fixed panel, and the +second when the back of the mirror, is presented to the eye of the +sailor. + +One advantage of the method that I propose is this, that while we are +able to produce a plain intermittent light; an intermittent light of +variable period, ranging from a brief flash to a steady illumination of +half the revolution; and finally, a light combining the immediate +occultation of the intermittent with combination and change of colour, +we can yet preserve comparative lightness in the revolving parts, and +consequent economy in the driving machinery. It must, however, be +noticed, that none of these last methods are applicable to cases where +more than one radiant is employed: for these cases, either my +grandfather's or Mr. Wilson's contrivance must be resorted to. + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.] + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [44] Read before the Royal Scottish Society of Arts on 27th March + 1871, and awarded the Society's Silver Medal. + + + + +ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS[45] + + +The opportunity of an experiment on a comparatively large scale, and +under conditions of comparative isolation, can occur but rarely in such +a science as Meteorology. Hence Mr. Milne Home's proposal for the +plantation of Malta seemed to offer an exceptional opportunity for +progress. Many of the conditions are favourable to the simplicity of the +result; and it seemed natural that, if a searching and systematic series +of observations were to be immediately set afoot, and continued during +the course of the plantation and the growth of the wood, some light +would be thrown on the still doubtful question of the climatic influence +of forests. + +Mr. Milne Home expects, as I gather, a threefold result:--1st, an +increased and better regulated supply of available water; 2nd, an +increased rainfall; and, 3rd, a more equable climate, with more +temperate summer heat and winter cold.[46] As to the first of these +expectations, I suppose there can be no doubt that it is justified by +facts; but it may not be unnecessary to guard against any confusion of +the first with the second. Not only does the presence of growing timber +increase and regulate the supply of running and spring water +independently of any change in the amount of rainfall, but as +Boussingault found at Marmato,[47] denudation of forest is sufficient to +decrease that supply, even when the rainfall has increased instead of +diminished in amount. The second and third effects stand apart, +therefore, from any question as to the utility of Mr. Milne Home's +important proposal; they are both, perhaps, worthy of discussion at the +present time, but I wish to confine myself in the present paper to the +examination of the third alone. + +A wood, then, may be regarded either as a _superficies_ or as a _solid_; +that is, either as a part of the earth's surface slightly elevated above +the rest, or as a diffused and heterogeneous body displacing a certain +portion of free and mobile atmosphere. It is primarily in the first +character that it attracts our attention, as a radiating and absorbing +surface, exposed to the sun and the currents of the air; such that, if +we imagine a plateau of meadow-land or bare earth raised to the mean +level of the forest's exposed leaf-surface, we shall have an agent +entirely similar in kind, although perhaps widely differing in the +amount of action. Now, by comparing a tract of wood with such a plateau +as we have just supposed, we shall arrive at a clear idea of the +specialities of the former. In the first place, then, the mass of +foliage may be expected to increase the radiating power of each tree. +The upper leaves radiate freely towards the stars and the cold +inter-stellar spaces, while the lower ones radiate to those above and +receive less heat in return; consequently, during the absence of the +sun, each tree cools gradually downward from top to bottom. Hence we +must take into account not merely the area of leaf-surface actually +exposed to the sky, but, to a greater or less extent, the surface of +every leaf in the whole tree or the whole wood. This is evidently a +point in which the action of the forest may be expected to differ from +that of the meadow or naked earth; for though, of course, inferior +strata tend to a certain extent to follow somewhat the same course as +the mass of inferior leaves, they do so to a less degree--conduction, +and the conduction of a very slow conductor, being substituted for +radiation. + +We come next, however, to a second point of difference. In the case of +the meadow, the chilled air continues to lie upon the surface, the +grass, as Humboldt says, remaining all night submerged in the stratum of +lowest temperature; while in the case of trees, the coldest air is +continually passing down to the space underneath the boughs, or what we +may perhaps term the crypt of the forest. Here it is that the +consideration of any piece of woodland conceived as a solid comes +naturally in; for this solid contains a portion of the atmosphere, +partially cut off from the rest, more or less excluded from the +influence of wind, and lying upon a soil that is screened all day from +isolation by the impending mass of foliage. In this way (and chiefly, I +think, from the exclusion of winds), we have underneath the radiating +leaf-surface a stratum of comparatively stagnant air, protected from +many sudden variations of temperature, and tending only slowly to bring +itself into equilibrium with the more general changes that take place in +the free atmosphere. + +Over and above what has been mentioned, thermal effects have been +attributed to the vital activity of the leaves in the transudation of +water, and even to the respiration and circulation of living wood. The +whole actual amount of thermal influence, however, is so small that I +may rest satisfied with mere mention. If these actions have any effect +at all, it must be practically insensible; and the others that I have +already stated are not only sufficient validly to account for all the +observed differences, but would lead naturally to the expectation of +differences very much larger and better marked. To these observations I +proceed at once. Experience has been acquired upon the following three +points:--1, The relation between the temperature of the trunk of a tree +and the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere; 2, The relation +between the temperature of the air under a wood and the temperature of +the air outside; and, 3, The relation between the temperature of the air +above a wood and the temperature of the air above cleared land. + +As to the first question, there are several independent series of +observations; and I may remark in passing, what applies to all, that +allowance must be made throughout for some factor of specific heat. The +results were as follows:--The seasonal and monthly means in the tree and +in the air were not sensibly different. The variations in the tree, in +M. Becquerel's own observations, appear as considerably less than a +fourth of those in the atmosphere, and he has calculated, from +observations made at Geneva between 1796 and 1798, that the variations +in the tree were less than a fifth of those in the air; but the tree in +this case, besides being of a different species, was seven or eight +inches thicker than the one experimented on by himself.[48] The +variations in the tree, therefore, are always less than those in the +air, the ratio between the two depending apparently on the thickness of +the tree in question and the rapidity with which the variations followed +upon one another. The times of the maxima, moreover, were widely +different: in the air, the maximum occurs at 2 P.M. in winter, and at 3 +P.M. in summer; in the tree, it occurs in winter at 6 P.M., and in +summer between 10 and 11 P.M. At nine in the morning in the month of +June, the temperatures of the tree and of the air had come to an +equilibrium. A similar difference of progression is visible in the +means, which differ most in spring and autumn, and tend to equalise +themselves in winter and in summer. But it appears most strikingly in +the case of variations somewhat longer in period than the daily ranges. +The following temperatures occurred during M. Becquerel's observations +in the Jardin des Plantes:-- + + Date. Temperature of Temperature in + the Air. the Tree. + + 1859. Dec. 15, 26.78° 32° + " 16, 19.76° 32° + " 17, 17.78° 31.46° + " 18, 13.28° 30.56° + " 19, 12.02° 28.40° + " 20, 12.54° 25.34° + " 21, 38.30° 27.86° + " 22, 43.34° 30.92° + " 23, 44.06° 31.46° + +A moment's comparison of the two columns will make the principle +apparent. The temperature of the air falls nearly fifteen degrees in +five days; the temperature of the tree, sluggishly following, falls in +the same time less than four degrees. Between the 19th and the 20th the +temperature of the air has changed its direction of motion, and risen +nearly a degree; but the temperature of the tree persists in its former +course, and continues to fall nearly three degrees farther. On the 21st +there comes a sudden increase of heat, a sudden thaw; the temperature of +the air rises twenty-five and a half degrees; the change at last reaches +the tree, but only raises its temperature by less than three degrees; +and even two days afterwards, when the air is already twelve degrees +above freezing point, the tree is still half a degree below it. Take, +again, the following case:-- + + Date Temperature of Temperature in + the Air. the Tree. + + 1859. July 13, 84.92° 76.28° + " 14, 82.58° 78.62° + " 15, 80.42° 77.72° + " 16, 79.88° 78.44° + " 17, 73.22° 75.92° + " 18, 68.54° 74.30° + " 19, 65.66° 70.70° + +The same order reappears. From the 13th to the 19th the temperature of +the air steadily falls, while the temperature of the tree continues +apparently to follow the course of previous variations, and does not +really begin to fall, is not really affected by the ebb of heat, until +the 17th, three days at least after it had been operating in the +air.[49] Hence we may conclude that all variations of the temperature +of the air, whatever be their period, from twenty-four hours up to +twelve months, are followed in the same manner by variations in the +temperature of the tree; and that those in the tree are always less in +amount and considerably slower of occurrence than those in the air. This +_thermal sluggishness_, so to speak, seems capable of explaining all the +phenomena of the case without any hypothetical vital power of resisting +temperatures below the freezing point, such as is hinted at even by +Becquerel. + +Réaumur, indeed, is said to have observed temperatures in slender trees +nearly thirty degrees higher than the temperature of the air in the sun; +but we are not informed as to the conditions under which this +observation was made, and it is therefore impossible to assign to it its +proper value. The sap of the ice-plant is said to be materially colder +than the surrounding atmosphere; and there are several other somewhat +incongruous facts, which tend, at first sight, to favour the view of +some inherent power of resistance in some plants to high temperatures, +and in others to low temperatures.[50] But such a supposition seems in +the meantime to be gratuitous. Keeping in view the thermal +redispositions, which must be greatly favoured by the ascent of the sap, +and the difference between the condition as to temperature of such parts +as the root, the heart of the trunk, and the extreme foliage, and never +forgetting the unknown factor of specific heat, we may still regard it +as possible to account for all anomalies without the aid of any such +hypothesis. We may, therefore, I think, disregard small exceptions, and +state the result as follows:-- + +If, after every rise or fall, the temperature of the air remained +stationary for a length of time proportional to the amount of the +change, it seems probable--setting aside all question of vital +heat--that the temperature of the tree would always finally equalise +itself with the new temperature of the air, and that the range in tree +and atmosphere would thus become the same. This pause, however, does not +occur: the variations follow each other without interval; and the +slow-conducting wood is never allowed enough time to overtake the rapid +changes of the more sensitive air. Hence, so far as we can see at +present, trees appear to be simply bad conductors, and to have no more +influence upon the temperature of their surroundings than is fully +accounted for by the consequent tardiness of their thermal variations. + +Observations bearing on the second of the three points have been made by +Becquerel in France, by La Cour in Jutland and Iceland, and by Rivoli at +Posen. The results are perfectly congruous. Becquerel's observations[51] +were made under wood, and about a hundred yards outside in open ground, +at three stations in the district of Montargis, Loiret. There was a +difference of more than one degree Fahrenheit between the mean annual +temperatures in favour of the open ground. The mean summer temperature +in the wood was from two to three degrees lower than the mean summer +temperature outside. The mean maxima in the wood were also lower than +those without by a little more than two degrees. Herr La Cour[52] found +the daily range consistently smaller inside the wood than outside. As +far as regards the mean winter temperatures, there is an excess in +favour of the forest, but so trifling in amount as to be unworthy of +much consideration. Libri found that the minimum winter temperatures +were not sensibly lower at Florence, after the Apennines had been +denuded of forest, than they had been before.[53] The disheartening +contradictoriness of his observations on this subject led Herr Rivoli to +the following ingenious and satisfactory comparison.[54] Arranging his +results according to the wind that blew on the day of observation, he +set against each other the variation of the temperature under wood from +that without, and the variation of the temperature of the wind from the +local mean for the month:-- + + +-------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Wind. | N. | N.E.| E. | S.E.| S. | S.W.| W. | N.W.| + | |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----| + |Var. in Wood |+0.60|+0.26|+0.26|+0.04|-0.04|-0.20|+0.16|+0.07| + |Var. in Wind |-0.30|-2.60|-3.30|-1.20|+1.00|+1.30|+1.00|+1.00| + +-------------------------------------------------------------+ + +From this curious comparison, it becomes apparent that the variations of +the difference in question depend upon the amount of variations of +temperature which take place in the free air, and on the slowness with +which such changes are communicated to the stagnant atmosphere of woods; +in other words, as Herr Rivoli boldly formulates it, a forest is simply +a bad conductor. But this is precisely the same conclusion as we have +already arrived at with regard to individual trees; and in Herr Rivoli's +table, what we see is just another case of what we saw in M. +Becquerel's--the different progression of temperatures. It must be +obvious, however, that the thermal condition of a single tree must be +different in many ways from that of a combination of trees and more or +less stagnant air, such as we call a forest. And accordingly we find, in +the case of the latter, the following new feature: The mean yearly +temperature of woods is lower than the mean yearly temperature of free +air, while they are decidedly colder in summer, and very little, if at +all, warmer in winter. Hence, on the whole, forests are colder than +cleared lands. But this is just what might have been expected from the +amount of evaporation, the continued descent of cold air, and its +stagnation in the close and sunless crypt of a forest; and one can only +wonder here, as elsewhere, that the resultant difference is so +insignificant and doubtful. + +We come now to the third point in question, the thermal influence of +woods upon the air above them. It will be remembered that we have seen +reason to believe their effect to be similar to that of certain other +surfaces, except in so far as it may be altered, in the case of the +forest, by the greater extent of effective radiating area, and by the +possibility of generating a descending cold current as well as an +ascending hot one. M. Becquerel is (so far as I can learn) the only +observer who has taken up the elucidation of this subject. He placed his +thermometers at three points:[55] A and B were both about seventy feet +above the surface of the ground; but A was at the summit of a chestnut +tree, while B was in the free air, fifty feet away from the other. C was +four or five feet above the ground, with a northern exposure; there was +also a fourth station to the south, at the same level as this last, but +its readings are very seldom referred to. After several years of +observation, the mean temperature at A was found to be between one and +two degrees higher than that at B. The order of progression of +differences is as instructive here as in the two former investigations. +The maximum difference in favour of station A occurred between three and +five in the afternoon, later or sooner according as there had been more +or less sunshine, and ranged sometimes as high as seven degrees. After +this the difference kept declining until sunrise, when there was often a +difference of a degree, or a degree and a half, upon the other side. On +cloudy days the difference tended to a minimum. During a rainy month of +April, for example, the difference in favour of station A was less than +half a degree; the first fifteen days of May following, however, were +sunny, and the difference rose to more than a degree and a half.[56] It +will be observed that I have omitted up to the present point all mention +of station C. I do so because M. Becquerel's language leaves it doubtful +whether the observations made at this station are logically comparable +with those made at the other two. If the end in view were to compare +the progression of temperatures above the earth, above a tree, and in +free air, removed from all such radiative and absorptive influences, it +is plain that all three should have been equally exposed to the sun or +kept equally in shadow. As the observations were made, they give us no +notion of the relative action of earth-surface and forest-surface upon +the temperature of the contiguous atmosphere; and this, as it seems to +me, was just the _crux_ of the problem. So far, however, as they go, +they seem to justify the view that all these actions are the same in +kind, however they may differ in degree. We find the forest heating the +air during the day, and heating it more or less according as there has +been more or less sunshine for it to absorb, and we find it also +chilling it during the night; both of which are actions common to any +radiating surface, and would be produced, if with differences of amount +and time, by any other such surface raised to the mean level of the +exposed foliage. + +To recapitulate: + +1st. We find that single trees appear to act simply as bad conductors. + +2nd. We find that woods, regarded as solids, are, on the whole, slightly +lower in temperature than the free air which they have displaced, and +that they tend slowly to adapt themselves to the various thermal changes +that take place without them. + +3rd. We find forests regarded as surfaces acting like any other part of +the earth's surface, probably with more or less difference in amount and +progression, which we still lack the information necessary to estimate. + +All this done, I am afraid that there can be little doubt that the more +general climatic investigations will be long and vexatious. Even in +South America, with extremely favourable conditions, the result is far +from being definite. Glancing over the table published by M. Becquerel +in his book on climates, from the observations of Humboldt, Hall, +Boussingault, and others, it becomes evident, I think, that nothing can +be founded upon the comparisons therein instituted; that all reasoning, +in the present state of our information, is premature and unreliable. +Strong statements have certainly been made; and particular cases lend +themselves to the formation of hasty judgments. "From the Bay of Cupica +to the Gulf of Guayaquil," says M. Boussingault, "the country is covered +with immense forest and traversed by numerous rivers; it rains there +almost ceaselessly; and the mean temperature of this moist district +scarcely reaches 78.8° F.... At Payta commence the sandy deserts of +Priura and Sechura; to the constant humidity of Choco succeeds almost at +once an extreme of dryness; and the mean temperature of the coast +increases at the same time by 1.8° F."[57] Even in this selected +favourable instance it might be argued that the part performed in the +change by the presence or absence of forest was comparatively small; +there seems to have been, at the same time, an entire change of soil; +and, in our present ignorance, it would be difficult to say by how much +this of itself is able to affect the climate. Moreover, it is possible +that the humidity of the one district is due to other causes besides the +presence of wood, or even that the presence of wood is itself only an +effect of some more general difference or combination of differences. Be +that as it may, however, we have only to look a little longer at the +table before referred to, to see how little weight can be laid on such +special instances. Let us take five stations, all in this very district +of Choco. Hacquita is eight hundred and twenty feet above Novita, and +their mean temperatures are the same. Alto de Mombu, again, is five +hundred feet higher than Hacquita, and the mean temperature has here +fallen nearly two degrees. Go up another five hundred feet to Tambo de +la Orquita, and again we find no fall in the mean temperature. Go up +some five hundred further to Chami, and there is a fall in the mean +temperature of nearly six degrees. Such numbers are evidently quite +untrustworthy; and hence we may judge how much confidence can be placed +in any generalisation from these South American mean temperatures. + +The question is probably considered too simply--too much to the neglect +of concurrent influences. Until we know, for example, somewhat more of +the comparative radiant powers of different soils, we cannot expect any +very definite result. A change of temperature would certainly be +effected by the plantation of such a marshy district as the Sologne, +because, if nothing else were done, the roots might pierce the +impenetrable subsoil, allow the surface-water to drain itself off, and +thus dry the country. But might not the change be quite different if the +soil planted were a shifting sand, which, _fixed_ by the roots of the +trees, would become gradually covered with a vegetable earth, and be +thus changed from dry to wet? Again, the complication and conflict of +effects arises, not only from the soil, vegetation, and geographical +position of the place of the experiment itself, but from the +distribution of similar or different conditions in its immediate +neighbourhood, and probably to great distances on every side. A forest, +for example, as we know from Herr Rivoli's comparison, would exercise a +perfectly different influence in a cold country subject to warm winds, +and in a warm country subject to cold winds; so that our question might +meet with different solutions even on the east and west coasts of Great +Britain. + +The consideration of such a complexity points more and more to the +plantation of Malta as an occasion of special importance; its insular +position and the unity of its geological structure both tend to simplify +the question. There are certain points about the existing climate, +moreover, which seem specially calculated to throw the influence of +woods into a strong relief. Thus, during four summer months, there is +practically no rainfall. Thus, again, the northerly winds when stormy, +and especially in winter, tend to depress the temperature very suddenly; +and thus, too, the southerly and south-westerly winds, which raise the +temperature during their prevalence to from eighty-eight to ninety-eight +degrees, seldom last longer than a few hours; insomuch that "their +disagreeable heat and dryness may be escaped by carefully closing the +windows and doors of apartments at their onset."[58] Such sudden and +short variations seem just what is wanted to accentuate the differences +in question. Accordingly, the opportunity seems one not lightly to be +lost, and the British Association or this Society itself might take the +matter up and establish a series of observations, to be continued during +the next few years. Such a combination of favourable circumstances may +not occur again for years; and when the whole subject is at a standstill +for want of facts, the present occasion ought not to go past unimproved. + +Such observations might include the following:-- + +The observation of maximum and minimum thermometers in three different +classes of situation--_videlicet_, in the areas selected for plantation +themselves, at places in the immediate neighbourhood of those areas +where the external influence might be expected to reach its maximum, and +at places distant from those areas where the influence might be expected +to be least. + +The observation of rain-gauges and hygrometers at the same three +descriptions of locality. + +In addition to the ordinary hours of observation, special readings of +the thermometers should be made as often as possible at a change of wind +and throughout the course of the short hot breezes alluded to already, +in order to admit of the recognition and extension of Herr Rivoli's +comparison. + +Observation of the periods and forces of the land and sea breezes. + +Gauging of the principal springs, both in the neighbourhood of the areas +of plantation and at places far removed from those areas. + + 1873. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [45] Read before the Royal Society, Edinburgh, 19th May 1873, and + reprinted from the _Proceedings_ R.S.E. + + [46] _Jour. Scot. Met. Soc._, New Ser. xxvi. 35. + + [47] Quoted by Mr. Milne Home. + + [48] _Atlas Météorologique de l'Observatoire Impérial_, 1867. + + [49] _Comptes Rendus de l'Académie_, 29th March 1869. + + [50] Professor Balfour's "Class Book of Botany," Physiology, chap. + xii., p. 670. + + [51] _Comptes Rendus_, 1867 and 1869. + + [52] See his paper. + + [53] _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, xlv., 1830. A more detailed + comparison of the climates in question would be a most interesting + and important contribution to the subject. + + [54] Reviewed in the _Austrian Meteorological Magazine_, vol. iv.; + p. 543. + + [55] _Comptes Rendus_, 28th May 1860. + + [56] _Ibid._, 20th May 1861. + + [57] Becquerel, "Climats," p. 141. + + [58] Scoresby-Jackson's "Medical Climatology." + + + + +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + + + +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + +I + +DAVOS IN WINTER + + +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on the +imagination, but a mountain valley, an Alpine winter, and an invalid's +weakness make up among them a prison of the most effective kind. The +roads indeed are cleared, and at least one footpath dodging up the hill; +but to these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are for him no +cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no unguided rambles +in the wood. His walks are cut and dry. In five or six different +directions he can push as far, and no farther, than his strength +permits; never deviating from the line laid down for him and beholding +at each repetition the same field of wood and snow from the same corner +of the road. This, of itself, would be a little trying to the patience +in the course of months; but to this is added, by the heaped mantle of +the snow, an almost utter absence of detail and an almost unbroken +identity of colour. Snow, it is true, is not merely white. The sun +touches it with roseate and golden lights. Its own crushed infinity of +crystals, its own richness of tiny sculpture, fills it, when regarded +near at hand, with wonderful depths of coloured shadow, and, though +wintrily transformed, it is still water, and has watery tones of blue. +But, when all is said, these fields of white and blots of crude black +forest are but a trite and staring substitute for the infinite variety +and pleasantness of the earth's face. Even a boulder, whose front is too +precipitous to have retained the snow, seems, if you come upon it in +your walk, a perfect gem of colour, reminds you almost painfully of +other places, and brings into your head the delights of more Arcadian +days--the path across the meadow, the hazel dell, the lilies on the +stream, and the scents, the colours, and the whisper of the woods. And +scents here are as rare as colours. Unless you get a gust of kitchen in +passing some hotel, you shall smell nothing all day long but the faint +and choking odour of frost. Sounds, too, are absent: not a bird pipes, +not a bough waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes +by, the sleigh-bells ring, and that is all; you work all winter through +to no other accompaniment but the crunching of your steps upon the +frozen snow. + +It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be each one village from one +end to the other. Go where you please, houses will still be in sight, +before and behind you, and to the right and left. Climb as high as an +invalid is able, and it is only to spy new habitations nested in the +wood. Nor is that all; for about the health resort the walks are +besieged by single people walking rapidly with plaids about their +shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys trying to learn to jödel, and +by German couples silently and, as you venture to fancy, not quite +happily, pursuing love's young dream. You may perhaps be an invalid who +likes to make bad verses as he walks about. Alas! no muse will suffer +this imminence of interruption--and at the second stampede of jödellers +you find your modest inspiration fled. Or you may only have a taste for +solitude; it may try your nerves to have some one always in front whom +you are visibly overtaking, and some one always behind who is audibly +overtaking you, to say nothing of a score or so who brush past you in an +opposite direction. It may annoy you to take your walks and seats in +public view. Alas! there is no help for it among the Alps. There are no +recesses, as in Gorbio Valley by the oil-mill; no sacred solitude of +olive gardens on the Roccabruna-road; no nook upon St. Martin's Cape, +haunted by the voice of breakers, and fragrant with the three-fold +sweetness of the rosemary and the sea-pines and the sea. + +For this publicity there is no cure, and no alleviation; but the storms +of which you will complain so bitterly while they endure, chequer and by +their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-weather scenes. When +sun and storm contend together--when the thick clouds are broken up and +pierced by arrows of golden daylight--there will be startling +rearrangements and transfigurations of the mountain summits. A +sun-dazzling spire of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms +and blackness; or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and appear for the duration of a glance +bright like a constellation, and alone "in the unapparent." You may +think you know the figure of these hills; but when they are thus +revealed, they belong no longer to the things of earth--meteors we +should rather call them, appearances of sun and air that endure but for +a moment and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, as when, +for instance, heavy and wet snow has fallen through some windless hours, +and the thin, spiry mountain pine-trees stand each stock-still and +loaded with a shining burthen. You may drive through a forest so +disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cleft of +the ravine, and all still except the jingle of the sleigh bells, and you +shall fancy yourself in some untrodden northern territory--Lapland, +Labrador, or Alaska. + +Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter down-stairs in +a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer of +one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o'clock +outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh +takes you up and carries you on, and you reach the top of the ascent in +the first hour of the day. To trace the fires of the sunrise as they +pass from peak to peak, to see the unlit tree-tops stand out soberly +against the lighted sky, to be for twenty minutes in a wonderland of +clear, fading shadows, disappearing vapours, solemn blooms of dawn, +hills half glorified already with the day and still half confounded with +the greyness of the western heaven--these will seem to repay you for the +discomforts of that early start; but as the hour proceeds, and these +enchantments vanish, you will find yourself upon the farther side in yet +another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, with such another +long-drawn congeries of hamlets and such another senseless watercourse +bickering along the foot. You have had your moment; but you have not +changed the scene. The mountains are about you like a trap; you cannot +foot it up a hillside and behold the sea as a great plain, but live in +holes and corners, and can change only one for another. + + + + +II + +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS + + +There has come a change in medical opinion, and a change has followed in +the lives of sick folk. A year or two ago and the wounded soldiery of +mankind were all shut up together in some basking angle of the Riviera, +walking a dusty promenade or sitting in dusty olive-yards within earshot +of the interminable and unchanging surf--idle among spiritless idlers +not perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These were +certainly beautiful places to live in, and the climate was wooing in its +softness. Yet there was a later shiver in the sunshine; you were not +certain whether you were being wooed; and these mild shores would +sometimes seem to you to be the shores of death. There was a lack of a +manly element; the air was not reactive; you might write bits of poetry +and practise resignation, but you did not feel that here was a good +spot to repair your tissue or regain your nerve. And it appears, after +all, that there was something just in these appreciations. The invalid +is now asked to lodge on wintry Alps; a ruder air shall medicine him; +the demon of cold is no longer to be fled from, but bearded in his den. +For even Winter has his "dear domestic cave," and in those places where +he may be said to dwell for ever tempers his austerities. + +Any one who has travelled westward by the great transcontinental +railroad of America must remember the joy with which he perceived, after +the tedious prairies of Nebraska and across the vast and dismal +moorlands of Wyoming, a few snowy mountain summits along the southern +sky. It is among these mountains in the new State of Colorado that the +sick man may find, not merely an alleviation of his ailments, but the +possibility of an active life and an honest livelihood. There, no longer +as a lounger in a plaid, but as a working farmer, sweating at his work, +he may prolong and begin anew his life. Instead of the bath-chair, the +spade; instead of the regulated walk, rough journeys in the forest, and +the pure, rare air of the open mountains for the miasma of the +sick-room--these are the changes offered him, with what promise of +pleasure and of self-respect, with what a revolution in all his hopes +and terrors, none but an invalid can know. Resignation, the cowardice +that apes a kind of courage and that lives in the very air of health +resorts, is cast aside at a breath of such a prospect. The man can open +the door; he can be up and doing; he can be a kind of a man after all +and not merely an invalid. + +But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. We cannot all of us go +farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines the +medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of the old. +Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; +again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a great +altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door +and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is +tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to +his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has +wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder at a touch +of chill. He came for that, he looked for it, and he throws it from him +with the thought. + +A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon either hand +that rise higher and higher and shoot up new summits the higher you +climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village of hotels; +a world of black and white--black pine-woods, clinging to the sides of +the valley, and white snow flouring it, and papering it between the +pine-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add a +few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating +on the ice-rinks, possibly to music, or sitting under sunshades by the +door of the hotel--and you have the larger features of a mountain +sanatorium. A certain furious river runs curving down the valley; its +pace never varies, it has not a pool for as far as you can follow it; +and its unchanging, senseless hurry is strangely tedious to witness. It +is a river that a man could grow to hate. Day after day breaks with the +rarest gold upon the mountain spires, and creeps, growing and glowing, +down into the valley. From end to end the snow reverberates the +sunshine; from end to end the air tingles with the light, clear and dry +like crystal. Only along the course of the river, but high above it, +there hangs far into the noon one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard +to fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to +believe that delicate, long-lasting phantom of the atmosphere, a +creature of the incontinent stream whose course it follows. By noon the +sky is arrayed in an unrivalled pomp of colour--mild and pale and +melting in the north, but towards the zenith, dark with an intensity of +purple blue. What with this darkness of heaven and the intolerable +lustre of the snow, space is reduced again to chaos. An English painter, +coming to France late in life, declared with natural anger that "the +values were all wrong." Had he got among the Alps on a bright day he +might have lost his reason. And even to any one who has looked at +landscape with any care, and in any way through the spectacles of +representative art, the scene has a character of insanity. The distant +shining mountain peak is here beside your eye; the neighbouring +dull-coloured house in comparison is miles away; the summit, which is +all of splendid snow, is close at hand; the nigh slopes, which are black +with pine-trees, bear it no relation, and might be in another sphere. +Here there are none of those delicate gradations, those intimate, misty +joinings-on and spreadings-out into the distance, nothing of that art of +air and light by which the face of nature explains and veils itself in +climes which we may be allowed to think more lovely. A glaring piece of +crudity, where everything that is not white is a solecism and defies the +judgment of the eyesight; a scene of blinding definition; a parade of +daylight, almost scenically vulgar, more than scenically trying, and yet +hearty and healthy, making the nerves to tighten and the mouth to smile: +such is the winter daytime in the Alps. With the approach of evening all +is changed. A mountain will suddenly intercept the sun; a shadow fall +upon the valley; in ten minutes the thermometer will drop as many +degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle into ghosts; +and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be rightly characteristic of the +place, the sky fades towards night through a surprising key of colours. +The latest gold leaps from the last mountain. Soon, perhaps, the moon +shall rise, and in her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed and +misted, and here and there a wisp of silver cloud upon a hilltop, and +here and there a warmly glowing window in a house, between fire and +starlight, kind and homely in the fields of snow. + +But the valley is not seated so high among the clouds to be eternally +exempt from changes. The clouds gather, black as ink; the wind bursts +rudely in; day after day the mists drive overhead, the snowflakes +flutter down in blinding disarray; daily the mail comes in later from +the top of the pass; people peer through their windows and foresee no +end but an entire seclusion from Europe, and death by gradual dry-rot, +each in his indifferent inn; and when at last the storm goes and the sun +comes again, behold a world of unpolluted snow, glossy like fur, bright +like daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls of men. +Or perhaps from across storied and malarious Italy, a wind cunningly +winds about the mountains and breaks, warm and unclean, upon our +mountain valley. Every nerve is set ajar; the conscience recognises, at +a gust, a load of sins and negligences hitherto unknown; and the whole +invalid world huddles into its private chambers, and silently recognises +the empire of the Föhn. + + + + +III + +ALPINE DIVERSIONS + + +There will be no lack of diversion in an Alpine sanatorium. The place is +half English, to be sure, the local sheet appearing in double column, +text and translation; but it still remains half German; and hence we +have a band which is able to play, and a company of actors able, as you +will be told, to act. This last you will take on trust, for the players, +unlike the local sheet, confine themselves to German; and though at the +beginning of winter they come with their wig-boxes to each hotel in +turn, long before Christmas they will have given up the English for a +bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; +the German element seeking, in the interest of their actors, to raise a +mysterious item, the _Kur-taxe_, which figures heavily enough already +in the weekly bills, the English element stoutly resisting. Meantime in +the English hotels home-played farces, _tableaux-vivants_, and even +balls enliven the evenings; a charity bazaar sheds genial consternation; +Christmas and New Year are solemnised with Pantagruelian dinners, and +from time to time the young folks carol and revolve untunefully enough +through the figures of a singing quadrille. A magazine club supplies you +with everything, from the _Quarterly_ to the _Sunday at Home_. Grand +tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, billiards, and whist. Once +and again wandering artists drop into our mountain valley, coming you +know not whence, going you cannot imagine whither, and belonging to +every degree in the hierarchy of musical art, from the recognised +performer who announces a concert for the evening, to the comic German +family or solitary long-haired German baritone, who surprises the guests +at dinner-time with songs and a collection. They are all of them good to +see; they, at least, are moving; they bring with them the sentiment of +the open road; yesterday, perhaps, they were in Tyrol, and next week +they will be far in Lombardy, while all we sick folk still simmer in our +mountain prison. Some of them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May +for their own sake; some of them may have a human voice; some may have +that magic which transforms a wooden box into a song-bird, and what we +jeeringly call a fiddle into what we mention with respect as a violin. +From that grinding lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, +accompanies the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, there is surely +a difference rather of kind than of degree to that unearthly voice of +singing that bewails and praises the destiny of man at the touch of the +true virtuoso. Even that you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you +will own it impossible to enjoy it more keenly than here, _im Schnee der +Alpen_. A hyacinth in a pot, a handful of primroses packed in moss, or a +piece of music by some one who knows the way to the heart of a violin, +are things that, in this invariable sameness of the snows and frosty +air, surprise you like an adventure. It is droll, moreover, to compare +the respect with which the invalids attend a concert, and the ready +contempt with which they greet the dinner-time performers. Singing which +they would hear with real enthusiasm--possibly with tears--from a corner +of a drawing-room, is listened to with laughter when it is offered by an +unknown professional and no money has been taken at the door. + +Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a climate the rinks must be +intelligently managed; their mismanagement will lead to many days of +vexation and some petty quarrelling, but when all goes well, it is +certainly curious, and perhaps rather unsafe, for the invalid to skate +under a burning sun, and walk back to his hotel in a sweat, through long +tracts of glare and passages of freezing shadow. But the peculiar +outdoor sport of this district is tobogganing. A Scotsman may remember +the low flat board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which was called a +_hurlie_; he may remember this contrivance, laden with boys, as, +laboriously started, it ran rattling down the brae, and was, now +successfully, now unsuccessfully, steered round the corner at the foot; +he may remember scented summer evenings passed in this diversion, and +many a grazed skin, bloody cockscomb, and neglected lesson. The toboggan +is to the hurlie what the sled is to the carriage; it is a hurlie upon +runners; and if for a grating road you substitute a long declivity of +beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy career of the tobogganist. The +correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit +hindforemost, or dare the descent upon their belly or their back. A few +steer with a pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use the +feet. If the weight be heavy and the track smooth, the toboggan takes +the bit between its teeth; and to steer a couple of full-sized friends +in safety requires not only judgment but desperate exertion. On a very +steep track, with a keen evening frost, you may have moments almost too +appalling to be called enjoyment; the head goes, the world vanishes; +your blind steed bounds below your weight; you reach the foot, with all +the breath knocked out of your body, jarred and bewildered as though you +had just been subjected to a railway accident. Another element of joyful +horror is added by the formation of a train; one toboggan being tied to +another, perhaps to the number of half a dozen, only the first rider +being allowed to steer, and all the rest pledged to put up their feet +and follow their leader, with heart in mouth, down the mad descent. +This, particularly if the track begins with a headlong plunge, is one of +the most exhilarating follies in the world, and the tobogganing invalid +is early reconciled to somersaults. + +There is all manner of variety in the nature of the tracks, some miles +in length, others but a few yards, and yet like some short rivers, +furious in their brevity. All degrees of skill and courage and taste may +be suited in your neighbourhood. But perhaps the true way to toboggan is +alone and at night. First comes the tedious climb, dragging your +instrument behind you. Next a long breathing-space, alone with snow and +pine-woods, cold, silent, and solemn to the heart. Then you push off; +the toboggan fetches away; she begins to feel the hill, to glide, to +swim, to gallop. In a breath you are out from under the pine-trees, and +a whole heavenful of stars reels and flashes overhead. Then comes a +vicious effort; for by this time your wooden steed is speeding like the +wind, and you are spinning round a corner, and the whole glittering +valley and all the lights in all the great hotels lie for a moment at +your feet; and the next you are racing once more in the shadow of the +night with close-shut teeth and beating heart. Yet a little while and +you will be landed on the high-road by the door of your own hotel. This, +in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night made +luminous with stars and snow, and girt with strange white mountains, +teaches the pulse an unaccustomed tune and adds a new excitement to the +life of man upon his planet. + + + + +IV + +THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS + + +To any one who should come from a southern sanatorium to the Alps, the +row of sun-burned faces round the table would present the first +surprise. He would begin by looking for the invalids, and he would lose +his pains, for not one out of five of even the bad cases bears the mark +of sickness on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its strong +reverberation from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the +treatment, which consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the +sickliest to tan, and a tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, +to resemble a tableful of hunters. But although he may be thus surprised +at the first glance, his astonishment will grow greater, as he +experiences the effects of the climate on himself. In many ways it is a +trying business to reside upon the Alps: the stomach is exercised, the +appetite often languishes; the liver may at times rebel; and because you +have come so far from metropolitan advantages, it does not follow that +you shall recover. But one thing is undeniable--that in the rare air, +clear, cold, and blinding light of Alpine winters, a man takes a certain +troubled delight in his existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. +He is perhaps no happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, +perhaps, come out of him in work or exercise, yet he feels an enthusiasm +of the blood unknown in more temperate climates. It may not be health, +but it is fun. + +There is nothing more difficult to communicate on paper than this +baseless ardour, this stimulation of the brain, this sterile joyousness +of spirits. You wake every morning, see the gold upon the snow-peaks, +become filled with courage, and bless God for your prolonged existence. +The valleys are but a stride to you; you cast your shoe over the +hilltops; your ears and your heart sing; in the words of an unverified +quotation from the Scots psalms, you feel yourself fit "on the wings of +all the winds" to "come flying all abroad." Europe and your mind are too +narrow for that flood of energy. Yet it is notable that you are hard to +root out of your bed; that you start forth, singing, indeed, on your +walk, yet are unusually ready to turn home again; that the best of you +is volatile; and that although the restlessness remains till night, the +strength is early at an end. With all these heady jollities, you are +half conscious of an underlying languor in the body; you prove not to be +so well as you had fancied; you weary before you have well begun; and +though you mount at morning with the lark, that is not precisely a +song-bird's heart that you bring back with you when you return with +aching limbs and peevish temper to your inn. + +It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy of Alpine winters is its +own reward. Baseless, in a sense, it is more than worth more permanent +improvements. The dream of health is perfect while it lasts; and if, in +trying to realise it, you speedily wear out the dear hallucination, +still every day, and many times a day, you are conscious of a strength +you scarce possess, and a delight in living as merry as it proves to be +transient. + +The brightness--heaven and earth conspiring to be bright--the levity and +quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence--more stirring than a tumult; +the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all have their part in the +effect and on the memory, "_tous vous tapent sur la tête_"; and yet when +you have enumerated all, you have gone no nearer to explain or even to +qualify the delicate exhilaration that you feel--delicate, you may say, +and yet excessive, greater than can be said in prose, almost greater +than an invalid can bear. There is a certain wine of France known in +England in some gaseous disguise, but when drunk in the land of its +nativity still as a pool, clean as river water, and as heady as verse. +It is more than probable that in its noble natural condition this was +the very wine of Anjou so beloved by Athos in the "Musketeers." Now, if +the reader has ever washed down a liberal second breakfast with the wine +in question, and gone forth, on the back of these dilutions, into a +sultry, sparkling noontide, he will have felt an influence almost as +genial, although strangely grosser, than this fairy titillation of the +nerves among the snow and sunshine of the Alps. That also is a mode, we +need not say of intoxication, but of insobriety. Thus also a man walks +in a strong sunshine of the mind, and follows smiling, insubstantial +meditations. And whether he be really so clever or so strong as he +supposes, in either case he will enjoy his chimera while it lasts. + +The influence of this giddy air displays itself in many secondary ways. +A certain sort of laboured pleasantry has already been recognised, and +may perhaps have been remarked in these papers, as a sort peculiar to +that climate. People utter their judgments with a cannonade of +syllables; a big word is as good as a meal to them; and the turn of a +phrase goes further than humour or wisdom. By the professional writer +many sad vicissitudes have to be undergone. At first he cannot write at +all. The heart, it appears, is unequal to the pressure of business, and +the brain, left without nourishment, goes into a mild decline. Next, +some power of work returns to him, accompanied by jumping headaches. +Last, the spring is opened, and there pours at once from his pen a world +of blatant, hustling polysyllables, and talk so high as, in the old +joke, to be positively offensive in hot weather. He writes it in good +faith and with a sense of inspiration; it is only when he comes to read +what he has written that surprise and disquiet seize upon his mind. What +is he to do, poor man? All his little fishes talk like whales. This +yeasty inflation, this stiff and strutting architecture of the sentence +has come upon him while he slept; and it is not he, it is the Alps, who +are to blame. He is not, perhaps, alone, which somewhat comforts him. +Nor is the ill without a remedy. Some day, when the spring returns, he +shall go down a little lower in this world, and remember quieter +inflections and more modest language. But here, in the meantime, there +seems to swim up some outline of a new cerebral hygiene and a good time +coming, when experienced advisers shall send a man to the proper +measured level for the ode, the biography, or the religious tract; and a +nook may be found between the sea and Chimborazo, where Mr. Swinburne +shall be able to write more continently, and Mr. Browning somewhat +slower. + +Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion of the brain? It is a +sort of congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes well, +to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. It is certainly +congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the chambers of a +many-storied caravanserai, haunted with vociferous nightmares, and many +wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the morning. Upon that +theory the cynic may explain the whole affair--exhilaration, nightmares, +pomp of tongue and all. But, on the other hand, the peculiar blessedness +of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same complaint, for the +two effects are strangely similar; and the frame of mind of the invalid +upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, with periods of +lassitude. The fountain of Juventus does not play steadily in these +parts; but there it plays, and possibly nowhere else. + + + + +STEVENSON AT PLAY + + + + +STEVENSON AT PLAY + +INTRODUCTION BY MR. LLOYD OSBOURNE + + +In an old note-book, soiled and dog-eared by much travelling, yellow and +musty with the long years it had lain hid in a Samoan chest, the present +writer came across the mimic war correspondence here presented to the +public. The stirring story of these tin-soldier campaigns occupies the +greater share of the book, though interspersed with many pages of +scattered verse, not a little Gaelic idiom and verb, a half-made will +and the chaptering of a novel. This game of tin soldiers, an intricate +"Kriegspiel," involving rules innumerable, prolonged arithmetical +calculations, constant measuring with foot-rules, and the throwing of +dice, sprang from the humblest beginnings--a row of soldiers on either +side and a deadly marble. From such a start it grew in size and +complexity until it became mimic war indeed, modelled closely upon real +conditions and actual warfare, requiring, on Stevenson's part, the use +of text-books and long conversations with military invalids; on mine, +all the pocket-money derived from my publishing ventures as well as a +considerable part of my printing stock in trade. + +The abiding spirit of the child in Stevenson was seldom shown in more +lively fashion than during those days of exile at Davos, where he +brought a boy's eagerness, a man's intellect, a novelist's imagination, +into the varied business of my holiday hours; the printing press, the +toy theatre, the tin soldiers, all engaged his attention. Of these, +however, the tin soldiers most took his fancy; and the war game was +constantly improved and elaborated, until from a few hours a "war" took +weeks to play, and the critical operations in the attic monopolised half +our thoughts. This attic was a most chilly and dismal spot, reached by a +crazy ladder, and unlit save for a single frosted window; so low at the +eaves and so dark that we could seldom stand upright, nor see without a +candle. Upon the attic floor a map was roughly drawn in chalks of +different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns, bridges, and roads of +two classes. Here we would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and +stiffening knees, and an intentness, zest, and excitement that I shall +never forget. The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, changed +by measured evolutions from column formation into line, with cavalry +screens in front and massed supports behind, in the most approved +military fashion of to-day. It was war in miniature, even to the making +and destruction of bridges, the entrenching of camps, good and bad +weather, with corresponding influence on the roads, siege and horse +artillery proportionately slow, as compared to the speed of unimpeded +foot and proportionately expensive in the upkeep; and an exacting +commissariat added to the last touch of verisimilitude. Four men formed +the regiment or unit, and our shots were in proportion to our units and +amount of ammunition. The troops carried carts of printers' +"ems"--twenty "ems" to each cart--and for every shot taken an "em" had +to be paid into the base, from which fresh supplies could be slowly +drawn in empty carts returned for the purpose. As a large army often +contained thirty regiments, consuming a cart and a half of ammunition in +every engagement (not to speak of the heavy additional expense of +artillery), it will be seen what an important part the commissariat +played in the game, and how vital to success became the line of +communication to the rear. A single cavalry brigade, if bold and lucky +enough, could break the line at the weakest link, and by cutting off the +sustenance of a vast army could force it to fall back in the full tide +of success. A well-devised flank attack, the plucky destruction of a +bridge, or the stubborn defence of a town, might each become a factor in +changing the face of the war and materially alter the course of +campaigns. + +It must not be supposed that the enemy ever knew your precise strength, +or that it could divine your intentions by the simple expedient of +looking at your side of the attic and counting your regiments. Numerous +numbered cards dotted the country wherever the eye might fall; one, +perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another a solitary +horseman dragging some ammunition, another nothing but a dummy that +might paralyse the efforts of a corps, and overawe it into a ruinous +inactivity. To uncover these cards and unmask the forces for which they +stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements were +governed by an elaborate and most vexatious set of rules. It was +necessary to feel your way amongst these alarming pasteboards to obtain +an inkling of your opponent's plans, and the first dozen moves were +often spent in little less. But even if you were befriended by the dice, +and your cavalry broke the enemy's screen and uncovered his front, you +would learn nothing more than could reasonably be gleaned with a +field-glass. The only result of a daring and costly activity might be +such meagre news as "the road is blocked with artillery and infantry in +column" or "you can perceive light horse-artillery strongly supported." +It was only when the enemy began to take his shots that you would begin +to learn the number of his regiments, and even then he often fired less +than his entitled share in order to maintain the mystery of his +strength. + +If the game possessed a weakness, it was the unshaken courage of our +troops, who faced the most terrific odds and endured defeat upon defeat +with an intrepidity rarely seen on the actual field. An attempt was made +to correct this with the dice, but the innovation was so heart-breaking +to the loser, and so perpetual a menace to the best-laid plans, that it +had perforce to be given up. After two or three dice-box panics our +heroes were permitted to resume their normal and unprecedented devotion +to their cause, and their generals breathed afresh. There was another +defect in our "Kriegspiel": I was so much the better shot that my +marksmanship often frustrated the most admirable strategy and the most +elaborate of military schemes. It was in vain that we--or rather my +opponent--wrestled with the difficulty and tried to find a substitute +for the deadly and discriminating pop-gun. It was all of no use. +Whatever the missile--sleeve-fink, marble, or button--I was invariably +the better shot, and that skill stood me in good stead on many an +ensanguined plain, and helped to counteract the inequality between a boy +of twelve and a man of mature years. A wise discretion ruled with regard +to the _personnel_ of the fighting line. Stevenson possessed a horde of +particularly chubby cavalrymen, who, when marshalled in close formation +at the head of the infantry, could bear unscathed the most accurate and +overwhelming fire, and thus shelter their weaker brethren in the rear. +This was offset by his "Old Guard," whose unfortunate peculiarity of +carrying their weapons at the charge often involved whole regiments in +a common ruin. On my side there was a multitude of flimsy Swiss, for +whom I trembled whenever they were called to action. These Swiss were so +weak upon their legs that the merest breath would mow them down in +columns, and so deficient in stamina that they would often fall before +they were hurt. Their ranks were burdened, too, with a number of +egregious puppets with musical instruments, who never fell without +entangling a few of their comrades. + +Another improvement that was tried and soon again given up was an effort +to match the sickness of actual war. Certain zones were set apart as +unwholesome, especially those near great rivers and lakes, and troops +unfortunate enough to find themselves in these miasmic plains had to +undergo the ordeal of the dice-box. Swiss or Guards, musicians, Arabs, +chubby cavalrymen or thin, all had to pay Death's toll in a new and +frightful form. But we rather overdid the miasma, so it was abolished by +mutual consent. + +The war which forms the subject of the present paper was unusual in no +respect save that its operations were chronicled from day to day in a +public press of Stevenson's imagination, and reported by daring +correspondents on the field. Nothing is more eloquent of the man than +the particularity and care with which this mimic war correspondence was +compiled; the author of the "Child's Garden" had never outgrown his love +for childish things, and it is typical of him that, though he mocks us +at every turn and loses no occasion to deride the puppets in the play, +he is everywhere faithful to the least detail of fact. It must not be +supposed that I was privileged to hear these records daily read and thus +draw my plans against the morrow; on the contrary, they were sometimes +held back until the military news was staled by time or were guardedly +communicated with blanks for names and the dead unnumbered. Potty, +Pipes, and Piffle were very real to me, and lived like actual people in +that dim garret. I can still see them through the mist of years; the +formidable General Stevenson, corpulent with solder, a detachable midget +who could be mounted upon a fresh steed whenever his last had been +trodden under foot, whose frame gave evidence of countless mendings; the +emaciated Delafield, with the folded arms, originally a simple +artilleryman, but destined to reach the highest honours; Napoleon, with +the flaming clothes, whom fate had bound to a very fragile horse; +Green, the simple patriot, who took his name from his coat; and the +redoubtable Lafayette in blue, alas! with no Washington to help him. + +The names of that attic country fall pleasantly upon the ear and +brighten the dark and bloody page of war: Scarlet, Glendarule, Sandusky, +Mar, Tahema, and Savannah; how sweetly they run! I must except my own +(and solitary) contribution to the map, Samuel City, which sounds out of +key with these mouthfuls of melody, though none the less an important +point. Yallobally I shall always recall with bitterness, for it was +there I first felt the thorn of a vindictive press. The reader will see +what little cause I had to love the _Yallobally Record_, a scurrilous +sheet that often made my heart ache, for all I pretended to laugh and +see the humour of its attacks. It was indeed a relief when I learned I +might exert my authority and suppress its publication--and even hang the +editor--which I did, I fear, with unseemly haste. It will be noticed +that the story of the war begins on the tenth day, the earlier moves +being without interest save to the combatants themselves, passed as they +were in uncovering the cards on either side; and in learning, with more +or less success, the forces for which they stood. This was an essential +but scarcely stirring branch of tin-soldiering, and has been accordingly +unreported as too tedious even for the columns of the _Yallobally +Record_. When the veil had been somewhat lifted and the shadowy armies +discerned with some precision, the historian takes his pen and awaits +the clash of arms. + + LLOYD OSBOURNE + + + + +WAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM STEVENSON'S NOTE-BOOK + + +GLENDARULE TIMES.--10th. _Scarlet_.--"The advance of the enemy continues +along three lines, a light column moving from Tahema on Grierson, and +the main body concentrating on Garrard from the Savannah and Yallobally +roads. Garrard and Grierson have both been evacuated. A small force, +without artillery, is alone in the neighbourhood of Cinnabar, and some +of that has fallen back on Glentower by the pass. The brave artillery +remains in front of Scarlet, and was reinforced this morning with some +ammunition. All day infantry has been moving eastward on Sandusky. The +greatest depression prevails." + +_Editorial Comment_.--General Stevenson may, or may not, be a capable +commander. It would be unjust to pronounce in the meantime. Still, the +attempt to seize Mar was disastrously miscalculated, and, as we all +know, the column has fallen back on Sandusky with cruel loss. Nor is it +possible to deny that the attempt to hold Grierson, and keep an army in +the west, was idle. Our correspondent at Scarlet mentions the passage of +troops moving eastward through that place, and the retreat of another +column on Glentower. These are the last wrecks of that Army of the West, +from which great things were once expected. With the exception of the +Yolo column, which is without guns, all our forces are now concentrated +in the province of Sandusky; Blue Mountain Province is particularly +deserted, and nothing has been done to check, even for an hour, the +advance of our numerous and well-appointed foes. + +11th. _Scarlet_.--The horse-artillery returned through Scarlet on the +Glendarule road; hideous confusion reigns; were the enemy to fall upon +us now, the best opinions regard our position as hopeless. Authentic +news has been received of the desertion of Cinnabar. + +_Sandusky_.--The enemy has again appeared, threatening Mar, and the +column moving to the relief of the Yolo column has stopped in its +advance in consequence. General Stevenson moved out a column with +artillery, and crushed a flanking party of the enemy's great centre army +on Scarlet, Garrard, and Savannah road; no loss was sustained on our +side; the enemy's loss is officially calculated at four hundred killed +or wounded. + +_Scarlet_.--At last the moment has arrived. The enemy, with a strong +column of horse and horse-artillery, occupied Grierson this morning. +This, with his Army of the Centre moving steadily forward upon Garrard, +places all the troops in and around this place in imminent danger of +being entirely cut off, or being forced to retreat before overwhelming +forces across the Blue Mountains, a course, according to all military +men, involving the total destruction of General Potty's force. Piffle's +whole corps, with the heavy artillery, continued its descent on the left +bank of the Sandusky river, while Potty, dashing through Scarlet at the +hand-gallop, and among the cheers of the populace, moved off along the +Grierson road, collecting infantry as he moved, and riding himself at +the head of the horse-artillery. + +NOTE.--General Potty was an airy, amiable, affected creature, the very +soul of bravery and levity. He had risen rapidly by virtue of his +pleasing manners; but his application was small, and he lacked +self-reliance at the Council Board. Piffle called him a parrot; he +returned the compliment by calling Piffle "the hundred-weight of +bricks." They were scarce on speaking terms. + +Half an hour after, he had driven the fore-guard of the enemy out of +Grierson without the loss of a trooper on our side; the enemy's loss is +reckoned at 1,600 men. I telegraph at this juncture before returning to +the field. So far the work is done; Potty has behaved nobly. But he +remains isolated by the retreat of Piffle, with a large force in front, +and another large force advancing on his unprotected flank. + +_Editorial Comment_.--We have been successful in two skirmishes, but the +situation is felt to be critical, and is by some supposed to be +desperate. Stevenson's skirmish on the 11th did not check the advance of +the Army of the Centre; it is impossible to predict the result of +Potty's success before Grierson. The Yolo column appears to meet with no +resistance; but it is terribly committed, and is, it must be remembered, +quite helpless for offensive purposes, without the co-operation of +Stevenson from Sandusky. How that can be managed, while the enemy hold +the pass behind Mar, is more than we can see. Some shrewd, but perhaps +too hopeful, critics perceive a deep policy in the inactivity of our +troops about Sandusky, and believe that Stevenson is luring on the +cautious Osbourne to his ruin. We will hope so; but this does not +explain Piffle's senseless counter-marchings around Scarlet, nor the +horribly outflanked and unsupported position of Potty on the line of the +Cinnabar river. If General Osbourne were a child, we might hope for the +best; there is no doubt that he has been careless about Mar and Yolo, +and that he was yesterday only saved from a serious disaster by a fluke, +and the imperfection of our scout system; but the situation to the west +and centre wears a different complexion; there his steady, well-combined +advance, carrying all before him, contrasts most favourably with the +timid and divided counsels of our Stevensons, Piffles, and Pottys. + +[Illustration: _From the original sketch in Stevenson's Note-book_] + +YALLOBALLY RECORD.--"That incompetent shuffler, General Osbourne, has +again put his foot into it. Blundering into Grierson with a lot of +unsupported horse, he has got exactly what he deserved. The whole +command was crushed by that wide-awake fellow, Potty, and a lot of guns +and ammunition lie ignominiously deserted on our own side of the river. +All this through mere chuckle-headed incompetence and the neglect of the +most elementary precautions, within a day's march of two magnificent +armies, either of which, under any sane, soldierly man, is capable of +marching right through to Glendarule. + +"This is the last scandal. Yesterday, it was a whole regiment cut off +between the Garrard road and the Sandusky river, and cut off without +firing or being able to fire a single shot in self-defence. It is an +open secret that the men behind Mar are starving, and that the whole +east and the city of Savannah were within a day of being deserted. How +long is this disorganisation to go on? How long is that bloated +bondholder to go prancing round on horseback, wall-eyed and +muddle-headed, while his men are starved and butchered, and the forces +of this great country are at the mercy of clever rogues like Potty, or +respectable mediocrities like Stevenson?" + +General Piffle's force was, I learn, attacked this morning from across +the river by the whole weight of the enemy's centre. Supports were being +hurried forward. Ammunition was scarce. A feeling of anxiety, not +unmixed with hope, is the rule. + +_Noon_.--I am now back in Scarlet, as being more central to both actions +now raging, one along the line of the Sandusky between General Piffle +and the Army of the Centre, the other toward Grierson between Potty and +the corps of Generals Green and Lafayette. News has come from both +quarters. Piffle, who was at one time thought to be overwhelmed, has +held his ground on the Sandusky highroad; and by last advices his whole +supports had come into line, and he hoped, by a last effort, to carry +the day. His losses have been severe; they are estimated at 2,600 killed +and wounded; but it appears from the reports of captives that the +enemy's losses must amount to 3,000 at least. The fate of the engagement +still trembles in the balance. From the battle at Grierson, the news is +both encouraging and melancholy. The enemy has once more been driven +across the rivers, and even some distance behind the town of Grierson +itself on the Tahema road; he has certainly lost 2,400 men, principally +horse; but he has succeeded in carrying off his guns and ammunition in +the face of our attack, and his immense reserves are close at hand. Both +Green and Lafayette are sent wounded to the rear; it is unknown who now +commands their column. These successes, necessary as they were felt to +be, were somewhat dearly purchased. Two thousand six hundred men are +_hors de combat_; and the chivalrous Potty is himself seriously hurt. +This has cast a shade of anxiety over our triumph; and though the light +column is still pushing its advantage under Lieutenant-General Pipes, it +is felt that nothing but a complete success of the main body under +Piffle can secure us from the danger of complete investment. + +14th. _Scarlet_.--The engagement ended last night by the complete +evacuation of Grierson. Pipes cleared the whole country about that town +in splendid style, and the army encamped on the field of battle; sadly +reduced indeed, but victorious for the moment. The enemy, since their +first appearance at Grierson, have lost 4,400 men, and have been beaten +decisively back. There is now not a man on our side of the Sandusky; and +our loss of 2,600 is serious indeed, but, seeing how much has been +accomplished, not excessive. The enemy's horse was cut to pieces. + +Piffle slept on the ground that he had held all day. In the afternoon he +had once more driven back the head of the enemy's columns, inflicting a +further loss of 3,200 killed and wounded at the lowest computation; but +the enemy's camp-fires can still be plainly made out with a field-glass, +in the same position as the night before. This is scarcely to be called +success, although it is certainly not failure. + +_Sandusky_.--All quiet at Sandusky; the army has fallen back into the +city, and large reserves are still massed behind. + +_Editorial Comment_.--The battle of Grierson is a distinct success; the +enemy, with a heavy loss, have been beaten back to their own side. As to +the vital engagement on the Sandusky and the heavy fighting before Yolo, +it is plain that we must wait for further news of both. In neither case +has any decided advantage crowned our arms, and if we are to judge by +the expressions of the commander-in-chief to our Sandusky correspondent, +the course of the former still leaves room for the most serious +apprehensions. General Potty, we are glad to assure our readers, will be +once more in the saddle before many days. It is an odd coincidence that +all the principal commanders in the battle of Grierson were at one +period or another of the day carried to the rear; and that none of the +three is seriously hurt. Green and Lafayette were shot down, it appears, +within a few moments of each other. It was reported that they had been +having high words as to the reckless advance over the Sandusky, each +charging the blame upon the other; but it seems certain that the fault +was Lafayette's, who was in chief command, and was present in Grierson +itself at the time of the fatal manoeuvre. The result would have been +crushing, had not General Potty been left for some hours utterly without +ammunition; Commissary Scuttlebutt is loudly blamed. To-morrow's news is +everywhere awaited with an eagerness approaching to agony. + +15th. _Scarlet_.--Late last night, orders reached General Pipes to fall +back on this place, where his reserves were diverted to support Piffle, +hard-pressed on the Sandusky. This morning the manoeuvre was effected +in good order, the enemy following us through Grierson and capturing one +hundred prisoners. The battle was resumed on the Sandusky with the same +fury; and it is still raging as I write. The enemy's Army of the Centre +is commanded, as we learn from stragglers, by General Napoleon; they +boast of large supports arriving, both from Savannah and Tahema +directions. The slaughter is something appalling; the whole of Potty's +infantry corps has marched to support Piffle; and as we have now no more +men within a day's ride, it is feared the enemy may yet manage to carry +Garrard and command the line of the river. + +_Sandusky_.--This morning, General Stevenson marched out of town to the +southward on the Savannah and Sandusky road. It was fully expected that +he would have mounted the Sandusky river to support Piffle and engage +the enemy's Army of the Centre on the flank; and the present manoeuvre +is loudly criticised. Not only is the integrity of the line of the +Sandusky ventured, but Stevenson's own force is now engaged in a most +awkward country, with a difficult bridge in front. To add, if possible, +to our anxiety, it is reported that General Delafield, in yesterday's +engagement, lost 3,200 men, killed and wounded. He held his ground, +however, and by the last advices had killed 800 and taken 1,400 +prisoners, with which he had fallen back again on Yolo itself. This +retrogression, it seems, is in accordance with his original orders: he +was either to hold Yolo, or if possible advance on Savannah via Brierly. +This last he judged unwise, so that he was obliged to cling to Yolo +itself. This also is seriously criticised in the best-informed circles. +Osbourne himself is reported to be in Savannah. + +YALLOBALLY RECORD.--"We have never concealed our opinion that Osbourne +was a bummer and a scallywag; but the entire collapse of his campaign +beats the worst that we imagined possible. We have received, at the same +moment, news of Green and Lafayette's column being beaten ignominiously +back again across the Sandusky river and out of Grierson, a place on our +own side; and next of the appearance of a large body of troops at Yolo, +in the very heart of this great land, where they seem to have played the +very devil, taking prisoners by the hundred and marching with arrogant +footsteps on the sacred soil of the province of Savannah. General +Napoleon, the only commander who has not yet disgraced himself, still +fights an uphill battle in the centre, inflicting terrific losses and +upholding the honour of his country single-handed. The infamous Osbourne +is shaking in his spectacles at Savannah. He was roundly taken to task +by a public-spirited reporter, and babbled meaningless excuses; he did +not know, he said, that the force now falling in on us at Yolo was so +large. It was his business to know. What is he paid for? That force has +been ten days at least turning the east of the Mar Mountains, a week at +least on our own side of the frontier. Where were Osbourne's wits? Will +it be believed, the column at Lone Bluff is again short of ammunition? +This old man of the sea, whom all the world knows to be an ass and whom +we can prove to be a coward, is apparently a peculator also. If we were +to die to-morrow, the word Osbourne would be found engraven backside +foremost on our hearts." + +Note. _The Tergiversation of the Army of the West_.--The delay of the +Army of the West, and the timorous counsels of Green and Lafayette, were +the salvation of Potty, Pipes, and Piffle. This is the third time we +hear of this great army crossing the river. It never should have left +hold. Lafayette had an overwhelming force at his back; and with a little +firmness, a little obstinacy even, he might have swallowed up the thin +lines opposed to him. On this day, the 16th, when we hear of his leaving +Grierson for the third time, his headquarters should have been in +Scarlet, and his guns should have enfiladed the weak posts of Piffle. + +_Sandusky. Noon_.--Great gloom here. As everyone predicted, Stevenson +has already lost 600 men in the marshes at the mouth of the Sandusky, +men simply sacrificed. His wilful conduct in not mounting the river, +following on his melancholy defeat before Mar, and his long and fatal +hesitation as to the Armies of the West and Centre, fill up the measure +of his incapacity. His uncontrolled temper and undisguised incivility, +not only to the Press, but to fellow-soldiers of the stamp of Piffle, +have alienated from him even the sympathy that sometimes improperly +consoles demerit. + +_Editorial_.--We leave our correspondents to speak for themselves, +reserving our judgment with a heavy heart. Piffle has the sympathy of +the nation. + +_Scarlet_. 9 P.M.--The attack has ceased. Napoleon is moving off +southward. Our fellows smartly pursued and cut off 1,600 men; in +spreading along the other side of the Sandusky they fell on a flanking +column of the enemy's Army of the West and sent it to the right-about +with a loss of 800 left upon the field. This shows how perilously near +to a junction these two formidable armies were, and should increase our +joy at Napoleon's retreat. That movement is variously explained, but +many suppose it is due to some advance from Sandusky. + +_Sandusky_.8 P.M.--Stevenson this afternoon occupied the angle between +the Glendarule and the Sandusky; his guns command the Garrard and +Savannah highroad, the only line of retreat for General Napoleon's guns, +and he has already hopelessly defeated and scattered a strong body of +supports advancing from Savannah to the aid of that commander. The enemy +lost 1,600 men; it is thought that this success and Stevenson's present +position involve the complete destruction or the surrender of the +enemy's Army of the Centre. The enemy have retired from the passes +behind Mar; but it is thought they have moved too late to save Savannah. +Pleasant news from Colonel Delafield, who, with a loss of 600, has +destroyed thrice that number of the enemy before Yolo. + +17th. _Scarlet_.--The enemy turned last night, inflicting losses on the +combined forces of Generals Pipes and Piffle, amounting together to +1,600 men. But his retreat still continues, harassed by our cavalry and +guns. The rest of the troops out of Cinnabar have arrived, via +Glentower, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Everyone is in high +spirits. Potty has resumed command of his division; I met him half an +hour ago at lunch, when he expressed himself delighted with the +campaign. + +_Sandusky_.--A great victory must be announced. Today Stevenson passed +the Sandusky, and occupied the right bank of the Glendarule and the +country in front of Savannah. General Napoleon, in full retreat upon +that place, found himself cut off, and, after a desperate struggle, in +which 2,600 fell, surrendered with 6,000 men. The wrecks of his army are +scattered far and wide, and his guns are lying deserted on the Garrard +road. At the very moment while Napoleon was surrendering his sword to +General Stevenson, the head of our colours cut off 1,400 men before +Savannah, which was under the fire of our guns, and destroyed a convoy +on the Mar and Savannah highroad. This completes the picture; the enemy +have now only one bridge over the Glendarule not swept by our artillery. +Delafield has had another partial success; with a loss of 1,000 he has +cut off 1,200 and made 400 prisoners, but a strong force ts reported on +the Yolo and Yallobally road, which, by placing him between two fires, +may soon render his hold on the Yolo untenable. + +Note.--General Napoleon. His real name was Clamborough. The son of a +well-known linen-draper in Yolo, he was educated at the military college +of Savannah. His chief fault was an overwhelming vanity, which betrayed +itself in his unfortunate assumption of a pseudonym, and in the gorgeous +Oriental costumes by which he rendered himself conspicuous and absurd. +He received early warning of Stevenson's advance from Sandusky, but +refused to be advised, and did not begin to retreat until his army was +already circumvented. A characteristic anecdote is told of the +surrender. "General," said Napoleon to his captor, "you have to-day +immortalised your name." "Sir," returned Stevenson, whose brutality of +manner was already proverbial, "if you had taken as much trouble to +direct your army as your tailor to make your clothes, our positions +might have been reversed." + +[Illustration: From the original sketch in Stevenson's Note-book] + +_Editorial Comment_.--Unlike many others, we have never lost confidence +in General Stevenson; indeed, as our readers may remember, we have +always upheld him as a capable, even a great commander. Some little +ruffle at Scarlet did occur, but it was, no doubt, chargeable to the +hasty Potty; and now, by one of the finest manoeuvres on record, the +head general of our victorious armies has justified our most hopeful +prophecies and aspirations. There is not, perhaps, an officer in the +army who would not have chosen the obvious and indecisive move up the +Sandusky, which even our correspondent, able as he is, referred to with +apparent approval. Had Stevenson done that, the brave enemy who chooses +to call himself Napoleon might have been defeated twelve hours earlier, +and there would have been less sacrifice of life in the divisions of +Potty and the ignorant Piffle. But the enemy's retreat would not have +been cut off; his general would not now have been a prisoner in our +camp, nor should our cannon, advanced boldly into the country of our +foes, thunder against the gates of Savannah and cut off the supplies +from the army behind Mar. A glance at the map will show the authority of +our position; not a loaf of bread, not an ounce of powder can reach +Savannah or the enemy's Army of the East, but it must run the gauntlet +of our guns. And this is the result produced by the turning movement at +Yolo, General Stevenson's long inactivity in Sandusky, and his advance +at last, the one right movement and in the one possible direction. + +YALLOBALLY RECORD.--"The humbug who had the folly and indecency to pick +up the name of Napoleon second-hand at a sale of old pledges, has been +thrashed and is a prisoner. Except the Army of the West, and the +division on the Mar road, which is commanded by an old woman, we have +nothing on foot but scattered, ragamuffin regiments. Savannah is under +fire; that will teach Osbourne to skulk in cities instead of going to +the front with the poor devils whom he butchers by his ignorance and +starves with his peculations. What we want to know is, when is Osbourne +to be shot?" + +Note.--The _Record_ editor, a man of the name of McGuffog, was +subsequently hanged by order of General Osbourne. Public opinion +endorsed this act of severity. My great-uncle, Mr. Phelim Settle, was +present and saw him with the nightcap on and a file of his journals +around his neck; when he was turned off, the applause, according to Mr. +Settle, was deafening. He was a man, as the extracts prove, not without +a kind of vulgar talent. + +YALLOBALLY EVENING HERALD.--"It would be idle to disguise the fact that +the retreat of our Army of the Centre, and the accidental capture of the +accomplished soldier whose modesty conceals itself under the pseudonym +of Napoleon, have created a slight though baseless feeling of alarm in +this city. Nearer the field the troops are quite steady, the inhabitants +enthusiastic, and the loyal and indefatigable Osbourne multiplies his +bodily presence. The events of yesterday were much exaggerated by some +papers, and the publication of one rowdy sheet, suspected of receiving +pay from the enemy, has been suspended by an order from headquarters. +Our Army of the West still advances triumphantly unresisted into the +heart of the enemy's country; the force at Yolo, which is a mere handful +and quite without artillery, will probably be rooted out to-morrow. +Addresses and congratulations pour in to General Osbourne; subscriptions +to the great testimonial Osbourne statue are received at the _Herald_ +office every day between the hours of 10 and 4." + +ABSTRACT OF SIX DAYS' FIGHTING, FROM THE 19TH TO THE 24TH, FROM THE +GLENDARULE TIMES SATURDAY SPECIAL.--"This week has been, on the whole, +unimportant; there are few changes in the aspect of the field of war, +and perhaps the most striking fact is the collapse of Colonel +Delafield's Yolo column. Fourteen hundred killed and eighteen hundred +prisoners is assuredly a serious consideration for our small army; yet +the good done by that expedition is not wiped away by the present +defeat; large reinforcements of troops and much ammunition have been +directed into the far east, and the city of Savannah and the enemy's +forces in the pass have thus been left without support. Delafield +himself has reached Mar, now in our hands, and the cavalry and stores of +the expedition, all safe, are close behind him. Yolo is a name that will +never be forgotten. Our forces are now thus disposed: Potty, with the +brave artillery, lies behind the south-east shoulder of the Blue +Mountains, on the Sandusky and Samuel City road; Piffle, with the Army +of the Centre, has fallen back into Sandusky itself; while Stevenson +still holds the same position across the Sandusky river, his advance to +which will constitute his chief claim to celebrity. Savannah was +bombarded from the 18th to the 20th, inclusive; 4,000 men fell in its +defence. Osbourne himself, directing operations, was seriously wounded +and sent to Yallobally; and on the evening of the 20th the city +surrendered, only 600 men being found within its walls. A heavy +contribution was raised: but the general himself, fearing to expose his +communications, remains in the same position and has not even occupied +the fallen city. + +"In the meantime the army from the pass has been slowly drawing down to +the support of Savannah, suffering cruelly at every step. Yesterday +(24th) Mar was occupied by a corps of our infantry, who fell on the rear +of the retreating enemy, inflicting heavy loss." + +NOTE.--Retreat of the Mar column. The army which so long and so usefully +held the passes behind Mar, over the neck of Long Bluff, did not begin +to retreat until the enemy had already occupied Mar and begun to engage +their outposts. Supplies had already been cut off by the advanced +position of Stevenson. The men were short of bread. The roads were +heavy; the horses starving. The rear of the column was continually and +disastrously engaged with the enemy pouring after. It is perhaps the +saddest chapter in the history of the war. My grandmother, Mrs. Hankey +(_née_ Pillworthy), then a young girl on a mountain farm on the line of +the retreat, distinctly remembers giving a soda biscuit, which was +greedily received, to Colonel Diggory Jacks, then in command of our +division, and lending him an umbrella, which was never returned. This +incident, trivial as it may be thought, emphatically depicts the +destitution of our brave soldiers. + +In the meantime, in the west, the enemy are slowly passing the rivers +and advancing with their main body on Scarlet, and with a single corps +on Glentower. Cinnabar was occupied on the 21st in the morning, and a +heavy contribution raised. The situation may thus be stated: In the +centre we are the sole arbiters, commanding the roads and holding a +position which can only be described as authoritative. In the east, +Delafield's corps has been destroyed; but the enemy's army of the pass, +on the other hand, is in a critical position and may, in the course of a +few days or so, be forced to lay down its arms. In the west, nothing as +yet is decided, and the movement through the Glentower Pass somewhat +hampers General Potty's position. + +The comparative losses during these days are very encouraging, and +compare pleasingly with the cost of the early part of the campaign. The +enemy have lost 12,800 men, killed, wounded, and prisoners, as against +4,800 on our side. + +YALLOBALLY HERALD.--Interview from General Osbourne with a special +reporter.--"I met the wounded hero some miles out of Yallobally, still +working, even as he walked, and surrounded by messengers from every +quarter. After the usual salutations, he inquired what paper I +represented, and received the name of the _Herald_ with satisfaction. +'It is a decent paper,' he said. 'It does not seek to obstruct a general +in the exercise of his discretion.' He spoke hopefully of the west and +east, and explained that the collapse of our centre was not so serious +as might have been imagined. 'It is unfortunate,' he said, 'but if Green +succeeds in his double advance on Glendarule, and if our army can +continue to keep up even the show of resistance in the province of +Savannah, Stevenson dare not advance upon the capital; that would expose +his communications too seriously for such a cautious and often cowardly +commander. I call him cowardly,' he added, 'even in the face of the +desperate Yolo expedition, for you see he is withdrawing all along the +west, and Green, though now in the heart of his country, encounters no +resistance.' The General hopes soon to recover; his wound, though +annoying, presents no character of gravity." + +NOTE.--General Osbourne's perfect sincerity is doubtful. He must have +known that Green was hopelessly short of ammunition. "Unfortunate," as +an epithet describing the collapse of the Army of the Centre, is perhaps +without parallel in military criticism. It was not unfortunate, it was +ruinous. Stevenson was a man of uneven character, whom his own successes +rendered timid; this timidity it was that delayed the end; but the war +was really over when General Napoleon surrendered his sword on the +afternoon of the 17th. + + + + +THE DAVOS PRESS + + + _In the Reproductions which follow of Moral Emblems, etc., by R. L. + Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, the tint shows the actual size of the + paper on which the pamphlets were printed_ + + + NOTICE. + + Today is published by _S. L. Osbourne & Co._ + + ILLUSTRATED + BLACK CANYON, + + _or_ + + Wild Adventures in the FAR WEST. + + AN + Instructive and amusing TALE written by + _SAMUEL LLOYD OSBOURNE_ + + PRICE 6D. + + +OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. + +Although _Black Canyon_ is rather shorter than ordinary for that kind of +story, it is an excellent work. We cordially recommend it to our +readers. + + _Weekly Messenger._ + + +S. L. Osbourne's new work (_Black Canyon_) is splendidly illustrated. In +the story, the characters are bold and striking. It reflects the highest +honor on its writer. + + _Morning Call._ + + +A very remarkable work. Every page produces an effect. The end is as +singular as the beginning. I never saw such a work before. + + _R. L. Stevenson._ + + + + + BLACK CANYON, + + _or_ + Wild Adventures in the FAR WEST + + A + + Tale of Instruction and Amusement + for the Young. + + _BY_ + + _SAMUEL OSBOURNE_ + + + ILLUSTRATED. + + _Printed by the Author._ + Davos-Platz. + + + + +_Chapter I._ + + +In this forest we see, in a misty morning, a camp fire! Sitting lazily +around it are three men. The oldest is evidently a sailor. The sailor +turns to the fellow next to him and says, "blast my eyes if I know where +we is." "I's rather think we're in the vecenty of tho Rocky Mount'ins." +Remarked the young man. + +Suddenly the bushes parted. 'WHAT!' they all exclaim, '_Not BLACK +EAGLE?_' + +Who is Black Eagle? We shall see. + + + + +_Chapter II._ + + +James P. Drake was a gambler! Not in cards, but _in lost luggage_! In +America, all baggage etc. lost on trains and not reclaimed is put up to +auction _unopened_. + +James was one who always expected to find a fortune in some one of these +bags. + +[Illustration] + +One day he was at the auction house as usual, when a small and +exceedingly light trunk was put up for sale. He bought and opened it. + +_It was empty! NO! A little bit of paper_ was in the bottom with this +written on it. + +IDAHO + +[Illustration: Black Canyon 570 fR0(1)m west 10 £ Beware Indian Black +Eagle] + +Being an intelligent young man he knew that this was _a clue for finding +Hidden TREASURE_! Then after a while he made this: _In Black Canyon, +Idaho, 570 feet west of some mark, 10 feet below a tree Treasure will be +found. Beware of Black Eagle (Indian)._ But he forgot the (1). + + + + +_Chapter III._ + + +James at once took two friends into his secret: an old sailor (Jack), +and a young frontiersman. + +[Illustration] + +They all agreed that they must start for Black Canyon at once. The +frontiersman said he had heard of Black Canyon in Idaho. + +But who could Black Eagle be? + + + + +_Chapter IV._ + + +Lost! Certainly lost! Lost in the Far West! The Frontiersman had lost +them in a large forest. They had travelled for about a month, first by +water (See page 4) then by stage, then by horse. + +[Illustration] + +This was their third day in it. Just after their morning meal the bushes +parted. + +[Illustration] + +_An Indian stood before them! (See 1st Chap.)_ He merely said '_COME_.' +They take up their arms and do so. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + + + + +Chapter V. + + +After following him for four hours, he stopped, turned around and said, +"Rest, eat you fellows." They did so. In about an hour they started +again. After walking ten miles they heard the roaring of an immense +cataract. Suddenly they find themselves face to face _with a long deep +gorge or canyon. 'Black Canyon,'_ they all cry. '_Stop_,' says the +Indian. He pushes a stone aside. It uncovers the mouth of a small cave. +The Indian struck a light with _two sticks_. They follow him into this +cave for about a mile when the cave opens into an immense Grotto. The +Indian whistled, _a bear and dog appeared_. "Bring meat, Nero," said the +Indian. + +The bear at once brought a deer. Which they cooked and ate. Then the +Indian said, _"Show me the Treasure clue." His eyes flashed when he saw +it._ + + + + +_Chapter VI._ + + +[Illustration] + +MIDNIGHT! _The Indian is about to light a fuse to a cask of gunpowder! +But James sees him and shoots him before he is able to light the fuse._ + +[Illustration] + +He ran to the side of the dying Indian who made this confession. "I am +not an Indian. 10 years ago I met G. Gidean, a man who found a quantity +of gold here. Before be died, he sent that clue to a friend _who never +received it_. I knew the gold was here. I have hunted 10 years for it, +your clue showed me where IT was," _(here Black Eagle told it to James.) +Then Black Eagle DIED_. + + + + +_Chapter VII._ + + +20 years have passed! James is the same as ever. Jack is owner of a +yacht. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Frontiersman owns a large cattle and hog ranch. + +[Illustration] + +Finis. + + + + + NOT I, + And Other POEMS, + + _BY_ + + Robert Louis Stevenson, + + Author of + + _The Blue Scalper, Travels + with a Donkey etc._ + PRICE 6d. + + + Dedicated to + + _Messrs. R.& R. CLARKE_ + + by + _S.L.Osbourne_ + Davos + + 1881 + + + + +_Not I._ + + + Some like drink + In a pint pot, + Some like to think; + Some not. + + Strong Dutch Cheese, + Old Kentucky Rye, + Some like these; + Not I. + + Some like Poe + And others like Scott, + Some like Mrs. Stowe; + Some not. + + Some like to laugh, + Some like to cry. + Some like chaff; + Not I. + +[Illustration] + + Here, perfect to a wish, + We offer, not a dish, + But just the platter: + A book that's not a book, + A pamphlet in the look + But not the matter. + + I own in disarray; + As to the flowers of May + The frosts of Winter, + To my poetic rage, + The smallness of the page + And of the printer. + + As seamen on the seas + With song and dance descry + Adown the morning breeze + An islet in the sky: + In Araby the dry, + As o'er the sandy plain + The panting camels cry + To smell the coming rain. + + So all things over earth + A common law obey + And rarity and worth + Pass, arm in arm, away; + And even so, today, + The printer and the bard, + In pressless Davos, pray + Their sixpenny reward. + +[Illustration] + + The pamphlet here presented + Was planned and printed by + A printer unindent-ed, + A bard whom all decry. + + The author and the printer, + With various kinds of skill, + Concocted it in Winter + At Davos on the Hill. + + They burned the nightly taper + But now the work is ripe + Observe the costly paper, + Remark the perfect type! + +[Illustration] + + Begun FEB ended OCT 1881 + + + + + MORAL EMBLEMS + + A + Collection of Cuts and Verses. + + _By_ + _ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + + Author of + + _The Blue Scalper, Travels with a Donkey, + Treasure Island, Not I etc._ + + + Printers: + + S. L. OSBOURNE & COMPANY. + Davos-Platz. + + + + +[Illustration] + + See how the children in the print + Bound on the book to see what's in't! + O, like these pretty babes, may you + Seize and _apply_ this volume too! + And while your eye upon the cuts + With harmless ardour open and shuts, + Reader, may your immortal mind + To their sage lessons not be blind. + +[Illustration] + + Reader, your soul upraise to see, + In yon fair cut designed by me, + The pauper by the highwayside + Vainly soliciting from pride. + Mark how the Beau with easy air + Contemps the anxious rustic's prayer, + And casting a disdainful eye, + Goes gaily gallivanting by. + He from the poor averts his head.... + He will regret it when he's dead. + +[Illustration] + + _A Peak in Darien_. + + Broad gazing on untrodden lands, + See where adventurous Cortez stands; + While in the heavens above his head, + The Eagle seeks its daily bread. + How aptly fact to fact replies: + Heroes and Eagles, hills and skies. + Ye, who contemn the fatted slave, + Look on this emblem and be brave + +[Illustration] + + See in the print, how moved by whim + Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, + Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, + To noose that individual's hat. + The sacred Ibis in the distance + Joys to observe his bold resistance. + +[Illustration] + + Mark, printed on the opposing page, + The unfortunate effects of rage. + A man (who might be you or me) + Hurls another into the sea. + Poor soul, his unreflecting act + His future joys will much contract, + And he will spoil his evening toddy + By dwelling on that mangled body. + + + + + Works recently issued by + + SAMUEL OSBOURNE & CO. DAVOS. + +NOT I and other poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson. + +_A volume of enchanting poetry._ + +BLACK CANYON or wild adventures in the Far West, by S. Osbourne. + +_A beautiful gift-book._ + +_To be obtained from the Publishers and all respectable BOOK-SELLERS._ + + + + +[Illustration] + + Stevenson's Moral Emblems. + + _Edition de Luxe: 5 full-page Illustrations._ + + Price 9 PENCE. + +The above speciman cut, illustrates a new departure in the business of +OSBOURNE & Co. + +Wood engraving, designed and executed by Mr. & Mrs. Stevenson and +printed under the PERSONAL supervision of Mr. Osbourne, now form a +branch of their business. + + + + + Today is published by _S. L. Osbourne & Co._ + + A + Second Collection Of + + MORAL + EMBLEMS. + By + + _ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + +_Edition de Luxe_, tall paper, (extra fine) first impression. Price 10 +pence. + +_Popular Edition_, for the Million, small paper, cuts slightly worn, a +great bargain, 8 pence. + +NOTICE!!! + +A literary curiosity: Part of the M. S. of '_Black Canyon_.' Price 1s. +6d. + +Apply to + +SAMUEL OSBOURNE & C^o + +Buol Chalet (Villa Stein,) Davos. + + + + + MORAL EMBLEMS + + A Second Collection of Cuts and Verses. + + _By_ + _ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + + Author of + + _Latter-day Arabian Nights, Travels + with a Donkey, Not I, &c._ + + Printers: + + S. L. OSBOURNE & COMPANY. + Davos-Platz. + + + + +[Illustration] + + With storms a-weather, rocks a-lee, + The dancing skiff puts forth to sea. + The lone dissenter in the blast + Recoils before the sight aghast. + But she, although the heavens be black, + Holds on upon the starboard tack. + For why? although today she sink + Still safe she sails in printers' ink, + And though today the seamen drown, + My cut shall hand their memory down. + +[Illustration] + + The careful angler chose his nook + At morning by the lilied brook, + And all the noon his rod he plied + By that romantic riverside. + Soon as the evening hours decline + Tranquilly he'll return to dine, + And breathing forth a pious wish, + Will cram his belly full of fish. + +[Illustration] + + The Abbot for a walk went out + A wealthy cleric, very stout, + And Robin has that Abbot stuck + As the red hunter spears the buck. + The djavel or the javelin + Has, you observe, gone bravely in, + And you may hear that weapon whack + Bang through the middle of his back. + _Hence we may learn that abbots should + Never go walking in a wood._ + +[Illustration] + + The frozen peaks he once explored, + But now he's dead and by the board. + How better far at home to have stayed + Attended by the parlour maid, + And warmed his knees before the fire + Until the hour when folks retire! + _So, if you would be spared to friends. + Do nothing but for business ends_. + +[Illustration] + + Industrious pirate! see him sweep + The lonely bosom of the deep, + And daily the horizon scan + From Hatteras or Matapan. + Be sure, before that pirate's old, + He will have made a pot of gold, + And will retire from all his labours + And be respected by his neighbors. + _You also scan your life's horizon + For all that you can clap your eyes on._ + + + + + Works recently issued by + + SAMUEL OSBOURNE & C^o. + DAVOS. + +NOT I and other poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson. + +_A volume of enchanting poetry._ + +BLACK CANYON or wild adventures in the Far West, by S. L. Osbourne. + +_A beautiful gift-book._ + +MORAL EMBLEMS, (first Series.) by Robert Louis Stevenson. + +_Has only to be seen to be admired._ + +_To be obtained from the Publishers and all respectable Book-sellers._ + + + + +A Martial Elegy for some lead Soldiers. + + + For certain soldiers lately dead + Our-reverent dirge shall here be said. + Them, when their martial leader called, + No dread preparative appalled; + But leaden hearted, leaden heeled, + I marked them steadfast in the field + Death grimly sided with the foe, + And smote each leaden hero low. + Proudly they perished one by one: + The dread Pea-cannon's work was done + O not for them the tears we shed, + Consigned to their congenial lead; + But while unmoved their sleep they take, + We mourn for their dear Captain's sake, + For their dear Captain, who shall smart + Both in his pocket and his heart, + Who saw his heros shed their gore + And lacked a shilling to buy more! + Price 1 penny. (1st Edition.) + + + + + Today is published by SAMUEL OSBOURNE & Co. + + THE + GRAVER and the PEN + + OR + Scenes from Nature with Appropriate Verses + + by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON author of the 'EMBLEMS.' + +'The Graver and the Pen' is a most strikingly illustrated little work +and the poetry so pleasing that when it is taken up to be read is +finished before it is set down. + +It contains 5 full-page illustrations (all of the first class) and 11 +pages of poetry finely printed on superb paper (especially obtained from +C. G. Squintani & Co. London) with the title on the cover in red +letters. + +Small 8vo. Granite paper cover with coloured title + +_Price Ninepence per Copy_. + +Splendid chance for an energetic publisher!!! + +For Sale--Copyright of 'Black Canyon' price 1 / 3/4 + +Autograph of Mr. R. L. Stevenson price -/3, ditto of Mr. S. L. Osbourne +price 1/- each. + +If copies of the 'Graver,' 'Emblems,' or 'Black Canyon' are wanted apply +to the publisher, 17 Harlot Row Edinburgh. + + + + +THE GRAVER & THE PEN. + + + + + THE + _GRAVER & THE PEN_, + + or + + Scenes from Nature with + Appropriate Verses + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + author of + +'The New Arabian Nights,' 'Moral Emblems,' 'Not I,' 'Treasure Island,' +etc. + + _Illustrated._ + + EDINBURGH + + _S. L. Osbourne & Company_ + No. 17 HERIOT ROW. + +[It was only by the kindness of Mr. CRERAR of Kingussie that we are able +to issue this little work--having allowed us to print with his own press +when ours was broken.] + + + + +PROEM. + + + Unlike the common run of men, + I wield a double power to please, + And use the GRAVER and the PEN + With equal aptitude and ease. + + I move with that illustrious crew, + The ambidextrous Kings of Art; + And every mortal thing I do + Brings ringing money in the mart. + + Hence, to the morning hour, the mead, + The forest and the stream perceive + Me wandering as the muses lead---- + Or back returning in the eve. + + Two muses like two maiden aunts, + The engraving and the singing muse, + Follow, through all my favorite haunts, + My devious traces in the dews. + + To guide and cheer me, each attends; + Each speeds my rapid task along; + One to my cuts her ardour lends, + One breathes her magic in my song. + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Precarious Mill._ + + + Alone above the stream it stands, + Above the iron hill, + The topsy-turvy, tumble-down, + Yet habitable mill. + + Still as the ringing saws advance + To slice the humming deal, + All day the pallid miller hears + The thunder of the wheel. + + He hears the river plunge and roar + As roars the angry mob; + He feels the solid building quake, + The trusty timbers throb. + + All night beside the fire he cowers: + He hears the rafters jar: + O why is he not in a proper house + As decent people are! + + The floors are all aslant, he sees, + The doors are all a-jam; + And from the hook above his head + All crooked swings the ham. + + "Alas," he cries and shakes his head, + "I see by every sign, + There soon will be the deuce to pay, + With this estate of mine." + +[Illustration] + + + + +The Disputatious Pines. + + + The first pine to the second said: + "My leaves are black, my branches red; + I stand upon this moor of mine, + A hoar, _unconquerable pine_." + + The second sniffed and answered: "Pooh, + I am as good a pine as you." + + "Discourteous tree" the first replied, + "The tempest in my boughs had cried, + The hunter slumbered in my shade, + A hundred years ere you were made." + + The second smiled as he returned: + "I shall be here when you are burned." + + So far dissension ruled the pair, + Each turned on each a frowning air, + When flickering from the bank anigh, + A flight of martens met their eye. + Sometime their course they watched; and then + They nodded off to sleep again. + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Tramps_. + + + Now long enough has day endured, + Or King Apollo Palinured, + Seaward be steers his panting team, + And casts on earth his latest gleam. + + But see! the Tramps with jaded eye + Their destined provinces espy. + Long through the hills their way they took, + Long camped beside the mountain brook; + 'Tis over; now with rising hope + They pause upon the downward slope, + And as their aching bones they rest, + Their anxious captain scans the west. + + So paused Alaric on the Alps + And ciphered up the Roman scalps. + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Foolhardy Geographer._ + + + The howling desert miles around, + The tinkling brook the only sound-- + Wearied with all his toils and feats, + The traveller dines on potted meats; + On potted meats and princely wines, + Not wisely but too well he dines. + + The brindled Tiger loud may roar, + High may the hovering Vulture soar, + Alas! regardless of them all, + Soon shall the empurpled glutton sprawl-- + Soon, in the desert's hushed repose, + Shall trumpet tidings through his nose! + Alack, unwise! that nasal song + Shall be the Ounce's dinner-gong! + + * * * * * + + A blemish in the cut appears; + Alas! it cost both blood and tears. + The glancing graver swerved aside, + Fast flowed the artist's vital tide! + And now the apologetic bard + Demands indulgence for his pard! + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Angler & the Clown._ + + + The echoing bridge you here may see, + The pouring lynn, the waving tree, + The eager angler fresh from town-- + Above, the contumelious clown. + 'The angler plies his line and rod, + The clodpole stands with many a nod,-- + With many a nod and many a grin, + He sees him cast his engine in. + + "What have you caught?" the peasant cries. + + "Nothing as yet," the Fool replies. + + + + +MORAL TALES + + + + +[Illustration] + + Rob and Ben + + or + The PIRATE and the APOTHECARY. + Scene the First. + + + + +[Illustration] + + Rob and Ben + + or + The PIRATE and the APOTHECARY. + Scene the Second. + + + + +[Illustration] + + Rob and Ben + + or + The PIRATE and the APOTHECARY. + Scene the Third. + + + + +ROBIN AND BEN: OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY + + + Come lend me an attentive ear + A startling moral tale to hear, + Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben, + And different destinies of men. + + Deep in the greenest of the vales + That nestle near the coast of Wales, + The heaving main but just in view, + Robin and Ben together grew, + Together worked and played the fool, + Together shunned the Sunday school, + And pulled each other's youthful noses + Around the cots, among the roses. + + Together but unlike they grew; + Robin was rough, and through and through + Bold, inconsiderate, and manly, + Like some historic Bruce or Stanley. + Ben had a mean and servile soul, + He robbed not, though he often stole. + He sang on Sunday in the choir, + And tamely capped the passing Squire. + + At length, intolerant of trammels-- + Wild as the wild Bithynian camels, + Wild as the wild sea-eagles--Bob + His widowed dam contrives to rob, + And thus with great originality + Effectuates his personality. + Thenceforth his terror-haunted flight + He follows through the starry night; + And with the early morning breeze, + Behold him on the azure seas. + The master of a trading dandy + Hires Robin for a go of brandy; + And all the happy hills of home + Vanish beyond the fields of foam. + + Ben, meanwhile, like a tin reflector, + Attended on the worthy rector; + Opened his eyes and held his breath, + And flattered to the point of death; + And was at last, by that good fairy, + Apprenticed to the Apothecary. + + So Ben, while Robin chose to roam, + A rising chemist was at home, + Tended his shop with learnéd air, + Watered his drugs and oiled his hair, + And gave advice to the unwary, + Like any sleek apothecary. + + Meanwhile upon the deep afar + Robin the brave was waging war, + With other tarry desperadoes + About the latitude of Barbadoes. + He knew no touch of craven fear; + His voice was thunder in the cheer; + First, from the main-to'-gallan' high, + The skulking merchantman to spy-- + The first to bound upon the deck, + The last to leave the sinking wreck. + His hand was steel, his word was law, + His mates regarded him with awe. + No pirate in the whole profession + Held a more honourable position. + + At length, from years of anxious toil, + Bold Robin seeks his native soil; + Wisely arranges his affairs, + And to his native dale repairs. + The Bristol _Swallow_ sets him down + Beside the well-remembered town. + He sighs, he spits, he marks the scene, + Proudly he treads the village green; + And free from pettiness and rancour, + Takes lodgings at the 'Crown and Anchor.' + + Strange when a man so great and good, + Once more in his home-country stood, + Strange that the sordid clowns should show + A dull desire to have him go. + + His clinging breeks, his tarry hat, + The way he swore, the way he spat, + A certain quality of manner, + Alarming like the pirate's banner-- + Something that did not seem to suit all-- + Something, O call it bluff, not brutal-- + Something at least, howe'er it's called, + Made Robin generally black-balled. + + His soul was wounded; proud and glum, + Alone he sat and swigged his rum, + And took a great distaste to men + Till he encountered Chemist Ben. + Bright was the hour and bright the day, + That threw them in each other's way; + Glad were their mutual salutations, + Long their respective revelations. + Before the inn in sultry weather + They talked of this and that together; + Ben told the tale of his indentures, + And Rob narrated his adventures. + Last, as the point of greatest weight, + The pair contrasted their estate, + And Robin, like a boastful sailor, + Despised the other for a tailor. + + 'See,' he remarked, 'with envy, see + A man with such a fist as me! + Bearded and ringed, and big, and brown, + I sit and toss the stingo down. + Hear the gold jingle in my bag-- + All won beneath the Jolly Flag!' + + Ben moralised and shook his head: + 'You wanderers earn and eat your bread. + The foe is found, beats or is beaten, + And either how, the wage is eaten. + And after all your pully-hauly + Your proceeds look uncommon small-ly. + You had done better here to tarry + Apprentice to the Apothecary. + The silent pirates of the shore + Eat and sleep soft, and pocket more + Than any red, robustious ranger + Who picks his farthings hot from danger. + You clank your guineas on the board; + Mine are with several bankers stored. + You reckon riches on your digits, + You dash in chase of Sals and Bridgets, + You drink and risk delirium tremens, + Your whole estate a common seaman's! + Regard your friend and school companion, + Soon to be wed to Miss Trevanion + (Smooth, honourable, fat and flowery, + With Heaven knows how much land in dowry) + Look at me--am I in good case? + Look at my hands, look at my face; + Look at the cloth of my apparel; + Try me and test me, lock and barrel; + And own, to give the devil his due, + I have made more of life than you. + Yet I nor sought nor risked a life; + I shudder at an open knife; + The perilous seas I still avoided + And stuck to land whate'er betided. + I had no gold, no marble quarry, + I was a poor apothecary, + Yet here I stand, at thirty-eight, + A man of an assured estate.' + + 'Well,' answered Robin--'well, and how?' + + The smiling chemist tapped his brow. + 'Rob,' he replied,'this throbbing brain + Still worked and hankered after gain. + By day and night, to work my will, + It pounded like a powder mill; + And marking how the world went round + A theory of theft it found. + Here is the key to right and wrong: + _Steal little but steal all day long_; + And this invaluable plan + Marks what is called the Honest Man. + When first I served with Doctor Pill, + My hand was ever in the till. + Now that I am myself a master + My gains come softer still and faster. + As thus: on Wednesday, a maid + Came to me in the way of trade. + Her mother, an old farmer's wife, + Required a drug to save her life. + 'At once, my dear, at once,' I said, + Patted the child upon the head, + Bade her be still a loving daughter, + And filled the bottle up with water. + + 'Well, and the mother?' Robin cried. + + 'O she!' said Ben, 'I think she died.' + + 'Battle and blood, death and disease, + Upon the tainted Tropic seas-- + The attendant sharks that chew the cud-- + The abhorred scuppers spouting blood-- + The untended dead, the Tropic sun-- + The thunder of the murderous gun-- + The cut-throat crew--the Captain's curse-- + The tempest blustering worse and worse-- + These have I known and these can stand, + But you, I settle out of hand!' + + Out flashed the cutlass, down went Ben + Dead and rotten, there and then. + + + + +THE BUILDER'S DOOM + + + In eighteen twenty Deacon Thin + Feu'd the land and fenced it in, + And laid his broad foundations down + About a furlong out of town. + + Early and late the work went on. + The carts were toiling ere the dawn; + The mason whistled, the hodman sang; + Early and late the trowels rang; + And Thin himself came day by day + To push the work in every way. + An artful builder, patent king + Of all the local building ring, + Who was there like him in the quarter + For mortifying brick and mortar, + Or pocketing the odd piastre + By substituting lath and plaster? + With plan and two-foot rule in hand, + He by the foreman took his stand, + With boisterous voice, with eagle glance + To stamp upon extravagance. + Far thrift of bricks and greed of guilders, + He was the Buonaparte of Builders. + + The foreman, a desponding creature, + Demurred to here and there a feature: + 'For surely, sir--with your permeession-- + Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion...' + The builder goggled, gulped and stared, + The foreman's services were spared. + Thin would not count among his minions + A man of Wesleyan opinions. + + 'Money is money,' so he said. + 'Crescents are crescents, trade is trade. + Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons + Built, I believe, for different reasons-- + Charity, glory, piety, pride-- + To pay the men, to please a bride, + To use their stone, to spite their neighbours, + Not for a profit on their labours. + They built to edify or bewilder; + I build because I am a builder. + Crescent and street and square I build, + Plaster and paint and carve and gild. + Around the city see them stand, + These triumphs of my shaping hand, + With bulging walls, with sinking floors, + With shut, impracticable doors, + Fickle and frail in every part, + And rotten to their inmost heart. + There shall the simple tenant find + Death in the falling window-blind, + Death in the pipe, death in the faucit, + Death in the deadly water-closet! + A day is set for all to die: + _Caveat emptor!_ what care I?' + + As to Amphion's tuneful kit + Troy rose, with towers encircling it; + As to the Mage's brandished wand + A spiry palace clove the sand; + To Thin's indomitable financing, + That phantom crescent kept advancing. + When first the brazen bells of churches + Called clerk and parson to their perches, + The worshippers of every sect + Already viewed it with respect; + A second Sunday had not gone + Before the roof was rattled on: + And when the fourth was there, behold + The crescent finished, painted, sold! + + The stars proceeded in their courses, + Nature with her subversive forces, + Time, too, the iron-toothed and sinewed; + And the edacious years continued. + Thrones rose and fell; and still the crescent, + Unsanative and now senescent, + A plastered skeleton of lath, + Looked forward to a day of wrath. + In the dead night, the groaning timber + Would jar upon the ear of slumber, + And, like Dodona's talking oak, + Of oracles and judgments spoke. + When to the music fingered well + The feet of children lightly fell, + The sire, who dozed by the decanters, + Started, and dreamed of misadventures. + The rotten brick decayed to dust; + The iron was consumed by rust; + Each tabid and perverted mansion + Hung in the article of declension. + + So forty, fifty, sixty passed; + Until, when seventy came at last, + The occupant of number three + Called friends to hold a jubilee. + Wild was the night; the charging rack + Had forced the moon upon her back; + The wind piped up a naval ditty; + And the lamps winked through all the city. + Before that house, where lights were shining, + Corpulent feeders, grossly dining, + And jolly clamour, hum and rattle, + Fairly outvoiced the tempest's battle. + As still his moistened lip he fingered, + The envious policeman lingered; + While far the infernal tempest sped, + And shook the country folks in bed, + And tore the trees and tossed the ships, + He lingered and he licked his lips. + Lo, from within, a hush! the host + Briefly expressed the evening's toast; + And lo, before the lips were dry, + The Deacon rising to reply! + 'Here in this house which once I built, + Papered and painted, carved and gilt, + And out of which, to my content, + I netted seventy-five per cent.; + Here at this board of jolly neighbours, + I reap the credit of my labours. + These were the days--I will say more-- + These were the grand old days of yore! + The builder laboured day and night; + He watched that every brick was right; + The decent men their utmost did; + And the house rose--a pyramid! + These were the days, our provost knows, + When forty streets and crescents rose, + The fruits of my creative noddle, + All more or less upon a model, + Neat and commodious, cheap and dry, + A perfect pleasure to the eye! + I found this quite a country quarter; + I leave it solid lath and mortar. + In all, I was the single actor-- + And am this city's benefactor! + Since then, alas! both thing and name, + Shoddy across the ocean came-- + Shoddy that can the eye bewilder + And makes me blush to meet a builder! + Had this good house, in frame or fixture, + Been tempered by the least admixture + Of that discreditable shoddy, + Should we to-day compound our toddy, + Or gaily marry song and laughter + Below its sempiternal rafter? + Not so!' the Deacon cried. + + The mansion + Had marked his fatuous expansion. + The years were full, the house was fated, + The rotten structure crepitated! + + A moment, and the silent guests + Sat pallid as their dinner vests. + A moment more, and root and branch, + That mansion fell in avalanche, + Story on story, floor on floor, + Roof, wall and window, joist and door, + Dead weight of damnable disaster, + A cataclysm of lath and plaster. + + _Siloam did not choose a sinner-- + All were not builders at the dinner._ + + + + +[Illustration: LORD NELSON AND HIS TAR.] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: (_Facsimile of Letter addressed by R. L. Stevenson, in +his Tenth Year, to his Aunt Miss Balfour._)] + + + + + PRINTED BY + CASSELL & CO., LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, + LONDON, E.C. + + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +The following typographical errors were corrected: + + Page 159: "The hunting still goes on, and at any moment", 'moment' + amended from 'monent'. + + Footnote 46: "Jour. Scot. Met. Soc., New Ser. xxvi." 'Scot.' + amended from 'Sbot.' + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON +- SWANSTON EDITION VOL. XXII (OF 25)*** + + +******* This file should be named 31291-8.txt or 31291-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/2/9/31291 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/31291-8.zip b/31291-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57ba2 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-8.zip diff --git a/31291-h.zip b/31291-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ebe3b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h.zip diff --git a/31291-h/31291-h.htm b/31291-h/31291-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a647563 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/31291-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12863 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson</title> + <style type="text/css"> + + body { margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%; text-align: justify; line-height: 1.4em;} + p { margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 1em; } + p.noind { margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 0; } + p.nind { text-indent: -2em; margin-left: 2em; } + + h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align: center; } + hr { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; width: 70%; height: 5px; background-color: #dcdcdc; border:none; } + hr.art { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 40%; height: 5px; background-color: #657383; + margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 6em } + hr.foot {text-align: left; margin-left: 2em; width: 16%; background-color: black; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0; height: 1px; } + hr.short {height: 1px; width: 20%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; } + hr.short1 {height: 1px; width: 30%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + + .f90 { font-size: 90% } + .f80 { font-size: 80% } + .f70 { font-size: 70% } + .f130 { font-size: 130% } + .f150 { font-size: 150% } + .f200 { font-size: 200% } + .f250 { font-size: 250% } + .cn {font-family: 'Courier New'} + .vr {font-family: 'Verdana'} + .ar {font-family: 'Arial'} + .mar20 {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + .mar30 {margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%;} + div.noind p {text-indent: 0;} + + table.reg { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both; } + table.nobctr { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } + table p { text-indent: -2em; margin-left: 2em; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; } + + td.tc1 { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;} + td.tc2 { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} + td.tc2b { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + td.tc3 { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: left; } + td.tc3a { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0.5em; text-align: left; } + .bl {border-left: 1px solid black;} + .bb {border-bottom: 1px solid black;} + + .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + .center1 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;} + + a:link, a:visited, link {text-decoration:none} + + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + .scs {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 75%; } + .bo {font-weight: bold; font-size: 80%; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 5%; text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; + background-color: #f5f5f5; color: #778899; text-indent: 0; + padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em; font-style: normal; } + div.note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 0.9em; line-height: 1.4em;} + + span.correction {border-bottom: 1px dashed red;} + + .figcenter1 {text-align: center; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; } + .figcenter {padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 2em; text-align: center;} + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; + text-align: center; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding: 0; width: auto;} + .figright {float: right; clear: right; + text-align: center; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0; + margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding: 0; width: auto;} + + div.poemr {margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; font-size: 90%} + div.poemr p {margin-left: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; } + div.poemr p.i05 { margin-left: 0.4em; } + div.poemr p.i1 { margin-left: 1em; } + div.poemr p.i2 { margin-left: 2em; } + div.poemr p.i3 { margin-left: 3em; } + div.poemr p.i4 { margin-left: 4em; } + div.poemr p.i9 { margin-left: 9em; } + div.poemr p.s { margin-top: 1.5em; } + + div.quote { margin-left: 2em; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.4em; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em; } + div.quote p { margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; } + + .border1 {background-color: #dcdcdc; color: #696969;} + + .sp {position: relative; bottom: 0.5em; font-size: 0.7em;} + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 0.9em; } + .fn { position: absolute; left: 12%; text-align: left; background-color: #f5f5f5; + text-indent: 0; padding-left: 0.2em; padding-right: 0.2em; } + + .pt1 { padding-top: 1em; } + .pt2 { padding-top: 2em; } + .pt3 { padding-top: 3em; } + .pt05 { padding-top: 0.5em; } + + .rt { text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; } + div.list p {text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 2em;} + + h1 { text-align: center; + line-height: 1em;} + div.pg { text-align: left; + line-height: 1em;} + hr.pg { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div class="pg"> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - +Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25)</p> +<p> Juvenilia and Other Papers; The Pentland Rising; Sketches; College Papers; Notes and Essays Chiefly of the Road; Criticisms; An Appeal to the Clergy of the Church Of Scotland; The Charity Bazaar; The Light-Keeper; On a New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses; On the Thermal Influence of Forests; Essays of Travel; War Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-Book</p> +<p>Author: Robert Louis Stevenson</p> +<p>Release Date: February 16, 2010 [eBook #31291]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON - SWANSTON EDITION VOL. XXII (OF 25)***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +</div> +<p> </p> +<table class="border1" border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="TN"> +<tr> +<td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top"> +Transcriber's notes: +</td> +<td> +(1) A few typographical errors have been corrected. They +appear in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the +explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked +passage. +<br /><br /> +(2) Page numbering is interrupted at page 263 in the original. +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<h4>THE WORKS OF</h4> + +<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3> + +<h4>SWANSTON EDITION</h4> + +<h5>VOLUME XXII</h5> +<div class="pt3"> </div> + +<p class="noind center"><i>Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five<br /> +Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS<br /> +STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies<br /> +have been printed, of which only Two Thousand<br /> +Copies are for sale.</i></p> + +<p class="noind center"><i>This is No. <span style="font-size: 60%;">............</span></i></p> + +<div class="figcenter1"> +<img style="border:0; width:620px; height:381px" + src="images/img1.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f70">R. L. S. SPEARING FISH IN THE BOW OF THE SCHOONER “EQUATOR”</p> +</div> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<h3>THE WORKS OF</h3> +<h2>ROBERT LOUIS</h2> +<h2>STEVENSON</h2> + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<h5>VOLUME TWENTY-TWO</h5> +<div class="pt3"> </div> + +<h5>LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND<br /> +WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL<br /> +AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM<br /> +HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN<br /> +AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII</h5> + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<h6>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h6> + +<hr class="art" /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h4>JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS</h4></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>THE PENTLAND RISING</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> <td class="tc2"> </td> + <td> </td> + <td class="tc2">PAGE</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Causes of the Revolt</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page3">3</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Beginning</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page6">6</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The March of the Rebels</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page8">8</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Rullion Green</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page13">13</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">V.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">A Record of Blood</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page17">17</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>SKETCHES</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Satirist</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page25">25</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Nuits Blanches</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page27">27</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Wreath of Immortelles</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page30">30</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Nurses</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page34">34</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">V.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">A Character</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page37">37</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>COLLEGE PAPERS</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Edinburgh Students in 1824</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page41">41</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Modern Student considered generally</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page45">45</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Debating Societies</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page53">53</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Philosophy of Umbrellas</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page58">58</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">V.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Philosophy of Nomenclature</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page63">63</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">A Retrospect</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page71">71</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Cockermouth and Keswick</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page80">80</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Roads</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page90">90</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Notes on the Movements of Young Children</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page97">97</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">V.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page103">103</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">VI.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">An Autumn Effect</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page112">112</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">VII.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">A Winter’s Walk in Carrick and Galloway</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page132">132</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">VIII.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Forest Notes</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page142">142</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>CRITICISMS</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Lord Lytton’s “Fables in Song”</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page171">171</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Salvini’s Macbeth</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page180">180</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Bagster’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page186">186</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 bo" colspan="2">AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page199">199</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 bo" colspan="2">THE CHARITY BAZAAR</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page213">213</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 bo" colspan="2">THE LIGHT-KEEPER</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page217">217</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 bo" colspan="2">ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page220">220</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 bo" colspan="2">ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page225">225</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>ESSAYS OF TRAVEL</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Davos in Winter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page241">241</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Health and Mountains</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page244">244</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">Alpine Diversions</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page248">248</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td> + <td class="scs tc3">The Stimulation of the Alps</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page252">252</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>STEVENSON AT PLAY</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Introduction by Lloyd Osbourne</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page259">259</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">War Correspondence From Stevenson’s Note-Book</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page263">263</a></td> </tr> + + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>THE DAVOS PRESS</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1 f80" colspan="3">MORAL EMBLEMS, ETC.: FACSIMILES</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Advertisement of Black Canyon</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page283">283</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Black Canyon, or Wild Adventures in the Far West</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page285">285</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Not I, and Other Poems</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page293">293</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Moral Emblems</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page301">301</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Advertisement of Moral Emblems: Edition de Luxe</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page312">312</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Advertisement of Moral Emblems: Second Collection</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page315">315</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Moral Emblems: Second Collection</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page317">317</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">A Martial Elegy for Some Lead Soldiers</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page329">329</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Advertisement of the Graver and the Pen</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page331">331</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">The Graver and the Pen</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page333">333</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="3"><h5>MORAL TALES</h5></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">Robin and Ben; or, The Pirate and the Apothecary</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page367">367</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">The Builder’s Doom</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page375">375</a></td> </tr> + +</table> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>JUVENILIA</h2> + +<h2>AND OTHER PAPERS</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1"></a>1</span></p> + +<div style="border: 1px solid black; font-family: 'Courier New'; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%"> + +<h2>THE PENTLAND RISING</h2> + +<h4>A PAGE OF HISTORY</h4> +<div class="pt05"> </div> +<h4>1666</h4> + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>A cloud of witnesses ly here,</p> +<p>Who for Christ’s interest did appear.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Inscription on Battle-field at Rullion Green.</i></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> +<div class="pt3"> </div> + +<h4>EDINBURGH</h4> + +<h4>ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 PRINCES STREET</h4> + +<h4>1866</h4> +</div> + +<p class="center f70"><i>Facsimile of original Title-page</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page2"></a>2</span></p> +<div class="pt05"> </div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page3"></a>3</span></p> +<h2>THE PENTLAND RISING</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>I</h5> + +<h3>THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT</h3> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost see,</p> +<p class="i05">This tomb doth show for what some men did die.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt f90"><i>Monument, Greyfriars’ Churchyard, Edinburgh,</i> +1661-1668.<a name="FnAnchor_1" id="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><span class="sp">1</span></a></p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Two</span> hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, +the memory whereof has been in great measure lost or +obscured by the deep tragedies which followed it. It is, +as it were, the evening of the night of persecution—a sort +of twilight, dark indeed to us, but light as the noonday +when compared with the midnight gloom which followed. +This fact, of its being the very threshold of persecution, +lends it, however, an additional interest.</p> + +<p>The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were +“out of measure increased,” says Bishop Burnet, “by the +new incumbents who were put in the places of the ejected +preachers, and were generally very mean and despicable in +all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard; +they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were +openly vicious. They ... were indeed the dreg and +refuse of the northern parts. Those of them who arose +above contempt or scandal were men of such violent +tempers that they were as much hated as the others were +despised.”<a name="FnAnchor_2" id="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><span class="sp">2</span></a> It was little to be wondered at, from this +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page4"></a>4</span> +account, that the country-folk refused to go to the parish +church, and chose rather to listen to outed ministers in the +fields. But this was not to be allowed, and their persecutors +at last fell on the method of calling a roll of the parishioners’ +names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of twenty shillings +Scots to the name of each absenter. In this way very large +debts were incurred by persons altogether unable to pay. +Besides this, landlords were fined for their tenants’ +absences, tenants for their landlords’, masters for their +servants’, servants for their masters’, even though they +themselves were perfectly regular in their attendance. +And as the curates were allowed to fine with the +sanction of any common soldier, it may be imagined +that often the pretexts were neither very sufficient nor +well proven.</p> + +<p>When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, +and household utensils were seized upon, or a number of +soldiers, proportionate to his wealth, were quartered on the +offender. The coarse and drunken privates filled the +houses with woe; snatched the bread from the children +to feed their dogs; shocked the principles, scorned the +scruples, and blasphemed the religion of their humble +hosts; and when they had reduced them to destitution, +sold the furniture, and burned down the roof-tree which +was consecrated to the peasants by the name of Home. +For all this attention each of these soldiers received from +his unwilling landlord a certain sum of money per day—three +shillings sterling, according to <i>Naphtali.</i> And +frequently they were forced to pay quartering money for +more men than were in reality “cessed on them.” At that +time it was no strange thing to behold a strong man begging +for money to pay his fines, and many others who were deep +in arrears, or who had attracted attention in some other +way, were forced to flee from their homes, and take refuge +from arrest and imprisonment among the wild mosses of +the uplands.<a name="FnAnchor_3" id="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><span class="sp">3</span></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5"></a>5</span></p> + +<p>One example in particular we may cite:</p> + +<p>John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was, +unfortunately for himself, a Nonconformist. First he was +fined in four hundred pounds Scots, and then through +cessing he lost nineteen hundred and ninety-three pounds +Scots. He was next obliged to leave his house and flee +from place to place, during which wanderings he lost his +horse. His wife and children were turned out of doors, +and then his tenants were fined till they too were almost +ruined. As a final stroke, they drove away all his cattle +to Glasgow and sold them.<a name="FnAnchor_4" id="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><span class="sp">4</span></a> Surely it was time that +something were done to alleviate so much sorrow, to +overthrow such tyranny.</p> + +<p>About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person +calling himself Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the +people to revolt. He displayed some documents purporting +to be from the northern Covenanters, and stating that they +were prepared to join in any enterprise commenced by their +southern brethren. The leader of the persecutors was Sir +James Turner, an officer afterwards degraded for his share +in the matter. “He was naturally fierce, but was mad +when he was drunk, and that was very often,” said Bishop +Burnet. “He was a learned man, but had always been +in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders. He +told me he had no regard to any law, but acted, as he was +commanded, in a military way.”<a name="FnAnchor_5" id="FnAnchor_5" href="#Footnote_5"><span class="sp">5</span></a></p> + +<p>This was the state of matters, when an outrage was +committed which gave spirit and determination to the +oppressed countrymen, lit the flame of insubordination, +and for the time at least recoiled on those who perpetrated +it with redoubled force.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1"><span class="fn">1</span></a> “Theater of Mortality,” p. 10; Edin. 1713.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2"><span class="fn">2</span></a> “History of My Own Times,” beginning 1660, by Bishop Gilbert +Burnet, p. 158.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3"><span class="fn">3</span></a> Wodrow’s “Church History,” Book II. chap. i. sect. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4"><span class="fn">4</span></a> Crookshank’s “Church History,” 1751, second ed. p. 202.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5" href="#FnAnchor_5"><span class="fn">5</span></a> Burnet, p. 348.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page6"></a>6</span></p> +<h5>II</h5> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING</h3> + + +<table class="nobctr f90" width="70%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr> <td class="tc3">I love no warres,</td> + <td class="tc3">If it must be</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3">I love no jarres,</td> + <td class="tc3">Warre we must see</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 2em;"> Nor strife’s fire.</td> + <td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 2em;"> (So fates conspire),</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3">May discord cease,</td> + <td class="tc3">May we not feel</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3">Let’s live in peace:</td> + <td class="tc3">The force of steel:</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 2em;"> This I desire.</td> + <td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 2em;"> This I desire.</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3"> </td> + <td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 4em;"><span class="sc">T. Jackson</span>, 1651.<a name="FnAnchor_6" id="FnAnchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"><span class="sp">6</span></a></td> </tr> +</table> + +<p> </p> +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Upon</span> Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George +Deanes and three other soldiers set upon an old man in +the clachan of Dairy and demanded the payment of his +fines. On the old man’s refusing to pay, they forced a large +party of his neighbours to go with them and thresh his corn. +The field was a certain distance out of the clachan, and four +persons, disguised as countrymen, who had been out on +the moors all night, met this mournful drove of slaves, +compelled by the four soldiers to work for the ruin of their +friend. However, chilled to the bone by their night on +the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded +to the village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly some +people rushed into the room where they were sitting, and +told them that the soldiers were about to roast the old +man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too much for +them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene +of this gross outrage, and at first merely requested that +the captive should be released. On the refusal of the two +soldiers who were in the front room, high words were given +and taken on both sides, and the other two rushed forth +from an adjoining chamber and made at the countrymen +with drawn swords. One of the latter, John M’Lellan of +Barscob, drew a pistol and shot the corporal in the body. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page7"></a>7</span> +The pieces of tobacco-pipe with which it was loaded, to the +number of ten at least, entered him, and he was so much +disturbed that he never appears to have recovered, for we +find long afterwards a petition to the Privy Council requesting +a pension for him. The other soldiers then laid +down their arms, the old man was rescued, and the rebellion +was commenced.<a name="FnAnchor_7" id="FnAnchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"><span class="sp">7</span></a></p> + +<p>And now we must turn to Sir James Turner’s memoirs +of himself; for, strange to say, this extraordinary man was +remarkably fond of literary composition, and wrote, besides +the amusing account of his own adventures just mentioned, +a large number of essays and short biographies, and a work +on war, entitled “Pallas Armata.” The following are some +of the shorter pieces: “Magick,” “Friendship,” “Imprisonment,” +“Anger,” “Revenge,” “Duells,” “Cruelty,” +“A Defence of some of the Ceremonies of the English +Liturgie—to wit—Bowing at the Name of Jesus, The +frequent repetition of the Lord’s Prayer and Good Lord +deliver us, Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets, +Cannonicall Coats,” etc. From what we know of his +character we should expect “Anger” and “Cruelty” to +be very full and instructive. But what earthly right he +had to meddle with ecclesiastical subjects it is hard to see.</p> + +<p>Upon the 12th of the month he had received some information +concerning Gray’s proceedings, but as it was +excessively indefinite in its character, he paid no attention +to it. On the evening of the 14th, Corporal Deanes was +brought into Dumfries, who affirmed stoutly that he had +been shot while refusing to sign the Covenant—a story +rendered singularly unlikely by the after conduct of the +rebels. Sir James instantly despatched orders to the +cessed soldiers either to come to Dumfries or meet him +on the way to Dairy, and commanded the thirteen or +fourteen men in the town with him to come at nine next +morning to his lodging for supplies.</p> + +<p>On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8"></a>8</span> +Dumfries with 50 horse and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, +and Gray, who commanded, with a considerable troop, +entered the town, and surrounded Sir James Turner’s +lodging. Though it was between eight and nine o’clock, +that worthy, being unwell, was still in bed, but rose at +once and went to the window.</p> + +<p>Neilson and some others cried, “You may have fair +quarter.”</p> + +<p>“I need no quarter,” replied Sir James; “nor can I +be a prisoner, seeing there is no war declared.” On being +told, however, that he must either be a prisoner or die, he +came down, and went into the street in his night-shirt. +Here Gray showed himself very desirous of killing him, but +he was overruled by Corsack. However, he was taken +away a prisoner, Captain Gray mounting him on his own +horse, though, as Turner naïvely remarks, “there was good +reason for it, for he mounted himself on a farre better one +of mine.” A large coffer containing his clothes and money, +together with all his papers, were taken away by the rebels. +They robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian minister +of Dumfries, of his horse, drank the King’s health at the +market cross, and then left Dumfries.<a name="FnAnchor_8" id="FnAnchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"><span class="sp">8</span></a></p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6" href="#FnAnchor_6"><span class="fn">6</span></a> Fuller’s “Historie of the Holy Warre,” fourth ed. 1651.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7" href="#FnAnchor_7"><span class="fn">7</span></a> Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 17.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8" href="#FnAnchor_8"><span class="fn">8</span></a> Sir J. Turner’s “Memoirs,” pp. 148-50.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<h3>THE MARCH OF THE REBELS</h3> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads,</p> +<p class="i05">At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads;</p> +<p class="i05">Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want,</p> +<p class="i05">Because with them we signed the Covenant.”</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 7em;"><i>Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton.</i><a name="FnAnchor_9" id="FnAnchor_9" href="#Footnote_9"><span class="sp">9</span></a></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p> +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">On</span> Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the +Council at Edinburgh, and gave information concerning +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9"></a>9</span> +this “horrid rebellion.” In the absence of Rothes, Sharpe +presided—much to the wrath of some members; and as he +imagined his own safety endangered, his measures were +most energetic. Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the +guards round the city were doubled, officers and soldiers +were forced to take the oath of allegiance, and all lodgers +were commanded to give in their names. Sharpe, surrounded +with all these guards and precautions, trembled—trembled +as he trembled when the avengers of blood drew +him from his chariot on Magus Muir,—for he knew how he +had sold his trust, how he had betrayed his charge, and he +felt that against him must their chiefest hatred be directed, +against him their direst thunderbolts be forged. But even +in his fear the apostate Presbyterian was unrelenting, unpityingly +harsh; he published in his manifesto no promise +of pardon, no inducement to submission. He said, “If +you submit not you must die,” but never added, “If you +submit you may live!”<a name="FnAnchor_10" id="FnAnchor_10" href="#Footnote_10"><span class="sp">10</span></a></p> + +<p>Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At +Carsphairn they were deserted by Captain Gray, who, +doubtless in a fit of oblivion, neglected to leave behind him +the coffer containing Sir James’s money. Who he was is +a mystery, unsolved by any historian; his papers were +evidently forgeries—that, and his final flight, appear to +indicate that he was an agent of the Royalists, for either +the King or the Duke of York was heard to say, “That, +if he might have his wish, he would have them all turn +rebels and go to arms.”<a name="FnAnchor_11" id="FnAnchor_11" href="#Footnote_11"><span class="sp">11</span></a></p> + +<p>Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn +and marched onwards.</p> + +<p>Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn, +frequently at the best of which their halting-place could +boast. Here many visits were paid to him by the ministers +and officers of the insurgent force. In his description of +these interviews he displays a vein of satiric severity, +admitting any kindness that was done to him with some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10"></a>10</span> +qualifying souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over +any injury, mistake, or folly, which it was his chance +to suffer or to hear. He appears, notwithstanding all +this, to have been on pretty good terms with his cruel +“phanaticks,” as the following extract sufficiently proves:</p> + +<p>“Most of the foot were lodged about the church or +churchyard, and order given to ring bells next morning for +a sermon to be preached by Mr. Welch. Maxwell of Morith, +and Major M’Cullough invited me to heare ‘that phanatick +sermon’ (for soe they merrilie called it). They said that +preaching might prove an effectual meane to turne me, +which they heartilie wished. I answered to them that I +was under guards, and that if they intended to heare that +sermon, it was probable I might likewise, for it was not like +my guards wold goe to church and leave me alone at my +lodgeings. Bot to what they said of my conversion, I said +it wold be hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I founde +them in a merrie humour, I said, if I did not come to heare +Mr. Welch preach, then they might fine me in fortie shillings +Scots, which was double the suome of what I had exacted +from the phanatics.”<a name="FnAnchor_12" id="FnAnchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"><span class="sp">12</span></a></p> + +<p>This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the +month. The following is recounted by this personage with +malicious glee, and certainly, if authentic, it is a sad proof +of how chaff is mixed with wheat, and how ignorant, almost +impious, persons were engaged in this movement; nevertheless +we give it, for we wish to present with impartiality +all the alleged facts to the reader:</p> + +<p>“Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank +gaue me a visite; I called for some ale purposelie to +heare one of them blesse it. It fell Mr. Robinsone to seeke +the blessing, who said one of the most bombastick graces +that ever I heard in my life. He summoned God Almightie +very imperiouslie to be their secondarie (for that was his +language). ‘And if,’ said he, ‘thou wilt not be our +Secondarie, we will not fight for thee at all, for it is not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11"></a>11</span> +our cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt not fight for our +cause and thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to fight +for it. They say,’ said he, ‘that Dukes, Earles, and Lords +are coming with the King’s General against us, bot they +shall be nothing bot a threshing to us.’ This grace did +more fullie satisfie me of the folly and injustice of their +cause, then the ale did quench my thirst.”<a name="FnAnchor_13" id="FnAnchor_13" href="#Footnote_13"><span class="sp">13</span></a></p> + +<p>Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside +alehouse, or in some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, +who had now taken the command, would review the horse +and foot, during which time Turner was sent either into +the alehouse or round the shoulder of the hill, to prevent +him from seeing the disorders which were likely to arise. +He was, at last, on the 25th day of the month, between +Douglas and Lanark, permitted to behold their evolutions. +“I found their horse did consist of four hundreth and fortie, +and the foot of five hundreth and upwards.... The +horsemen were armed for most part with suord and pistoll, +some onlie with suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith +(scythe), forke, and suord; and some with suords great +and long.” He admired much the proficiency of their +cavalry, and marvelled how they had attained to it in so +short a time.<a name="FnAnchor_14" id="FnAnchor_14" href="#Footnote_14"><span class="sp">14</span></a></p> + +<p>At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of +this great wapinshaw, they were charged—awful picture +of depravity!—with the theft of a silver spoon and a nightgown. +Could it be expected that while the whole country +swarmed with robbers of every description, such a rare +opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues—that +among a thousand men, even though fighting for religion, +there should not be one Achan in the camp? At Lanark a +declaration was drawn up and signed by the chief rebels. +In it occurs the following:</p> + +<p>“The just sense whereof”—the sufferings of the +country—“made us choose, rather to betake ourselves to +the fields for self-defence, than to stay at home, burdened +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"></a>12</span> +daily with the calamities of others, and tortured with the +fears of our own approaching misery.”<a name="FnAnchor_15" id="FnAnchor_15" href="#Footnote_15"><span class="sp">15</span></a></p> + +<p>The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony +the epitaph at the head of this chapter seems to refer.</p> + +<p>A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from +Lanark to Bathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the +26th, the wearied army stopped. But at twelve o’clock +the cry, which served them for a trumpet, of “Horse! +horse!” and “Mount the prisoner!” resounded through +the night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from +their well-earned rest to toil onwards in their march. The +wind howled fiercely over the moorland; a close, thick, +wetting rain descended. Chilled to the bone, worn out +with long fatigue, sinking to the knees in mire, onward +they marched to destruction. One by one the weary +peasants fell off from their ranks to sleep, and die in the +rain-soaked moor, or to seek some house by the wayside +wherein to hide till daybreak. One by one at first, then +in gradually increasing numbers, at every shelter that was +seen, whole troops left the waning squadrons, and rushed +to hide themselves from the ferocity of the tempest. To +right and left nought could be descried but the broad +expanse of the moor, and the figures of their fellow-rebels +seen dimly through the murky night, plodding onwards +through the sinking moss. Those who kept together—a +miserable few—often halted to rest themselves, and to +allow their lagging comrades to overtake them. Then +onward they went again, still hoping for assistance, reinforcement, +and supplies; onward again, through the +wind, and the rain, and the darkness—onward to their +defeat at Pentland, and their scaffold at Edinburgh. It +was calculated that they lost one half of their army on +that disastrous night-march.</p> + +<p>Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four +miles from Edinburgh, where they halted for the last time.<a name="FnAnchor_16" id="FnAnchor_16" href="#Footnote_16"><span class="sp">16</span></a></p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9" href="#FnAnchor_9"><span class="fn">9</span></a> “A Cloud of Witnesses,” p. 376.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10" href="#FnAnchor_10"><span class="fn">10</span></a> Wodrow, pp. 19, 20.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11" href="#FnAnchor_11"><span class="fn">11</span></a> “A Hind Let Loose,” p. 123.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12" href="#FnAnchor_12"><span class="fn">12</span></a> Turner, p. 163.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13" href="#FnAnchor_13"><span class="fn">13</span></a> Turner, p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14" href="#FnAnchor_14"><span class="fn">14</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 167.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15" href="#FnAnchor_15"><span class="fn">15</span></a> Wodrow, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16" href="#FnAnchor_16"><span class="fn">16</span></a> Turner, Wodrow, and “Church History” by James Kirkton, an +outed minister of the period.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"></a>13</span></p> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<h3>RULLION GREEN</h3> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“From Covenanters with uplifted hands,</p> +<p class="i05">From Remonstrators with associate bands,</p> +<p class="i3">Good Lord, deliver us!”</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>Royalist Rhyme</i>, <span class="sc">Kirkton,</span> p. 127.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Late</span> on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four +days before Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, +merchants in Haddington, beheld four men, clad like West-country +Whigamores, standing round some object on the +ground. It was at the two-mile cross, and within that +distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they +discovered that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, +swathed in a blood-stained winding-sheet.<a name="FnAnchor_17" id="FnAnchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"><span class="sp">17</span></a> Many thought +that this apparition was a portent of the deaths connected +with the Pentland Rising.</p> + +<p>On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November +1666, they left Colinton and marched to Rullion Green. +There they arrived about sunset. The position was a +strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of +the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between them lies a +narrow band of flat marshy ground. On the highest of +the two mounds—that nearest the Pentlands, and on the +left hand of the main body—was the greater part of the +cavalry, under Major Learmont; on the other Barscob and +the Galloway gentlemen; and in the centre Colonel Wallace +and the weak, half-armed infantry. Their position was +further strengthened by the depth of the valley below, and +the deep chasm-like course of the Rullion Burn.</p> + +<p>The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden +lights and blue shadows on their snow-clad summits, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"></a>14</span> +slanted obliquely into the rich plain before them, bathing +with rosy splendour the leafless, snow-sprinkled trees, and +fading gradually into shadow in the distance. To the +south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of +heather and bracken; the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, +winding about at the foot of its gorge; the broad, brown +expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into blue indistinctness +in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire hills. In sooth, +that scene was fair, and many a yearning glance was cast +over that peaceful evening scene from the spot where the +rebels awaited their defeat; and when the fight was over, +many a noble fellow lifted his head from the blood-stained +heather to strive with darkening eyeballs to behold that +landscape, over which, as over his life and his cause, the +shadows of night and of gloom were falling and thickening.</p> + +<p>It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring +cry was raised: “The enemy! Here come the enemy!”</p> + +<p>Unwilling to believe their own doom—for our insurgents +still hoped for success in some negotiations for peace which +had been carried on at Colinton—they called out, “They +are some of our own.”</p> + +<p>“They are too blacke” (<i>i.e.</i> numerous), “fie! fie! for +ground to draw up on,” cried Wallace, fully realising the +want of space for his men, and proving that it was not till +after this time that his forces were finally arranged.<a name="FnAnchor_18" id="FnAnchor_18" href="#Footnote_18"><span class="sp">18</span></a></p> + +<p>First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist +horse sent obliquely across the hill to attack the left wing +of the rebels. An equal number of Learmont’s men met +them, and, after a struggle, drove them back. The course +of the Rullion Burn prevented almost all pursuit, and +Wallace, on perceiving it, despatched a body of foot to +occupy both the burn and some ruined sheep walls on the +farther side.</p> + +<p>Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at +the foot of the hill, on the top of which were his foes. He +then despatched a mingled body of infantry and cavalry +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15"></a>15</span> +to attack Wallace’s outpost, but they also were driven +back. A third charge produced a still more disastrous +effect, for Dalzell had to check the pursuit of his men by +a reinforcement.</p> + +<p>These repeated checks bred a panic in the Lieutenant-General’s +ranks, for several of his men flung down their +arms. Urged by such fatal symptoms, and by the approaching +night, he deployed his men, and closed in overwhelming +numbers on the centre and right flank of the insurgent +army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches of +the firelocks, shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, +lent to the approaching army a picturesque effect, like a +huge, many-armed giant breathing flame into the darkness.</p> + +<p>Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried +aloud, “The God of Jacob! The God of Jacob!” and +prayed with uplifted hands for victory.<a name="FnAnchor_19" id="FnAnchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"><span class="sp">19</span></a></p> + +<p>But still the Royalist troops closed in.</p> + +<p>Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined +to capture him with his own hands. Accordingly +he charged forward, presenting his pistols. Paton fired, +but the balls hopped off Dalzell’s buff coat and fell into +his boot. With the superstition peculiar to his age, the +Nonconformist concluded that his adversary was rendered +bullet-proof by enchantment, and, pulling some small silver +coins from his pocket, charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell, +seeing this, and supposing, it is likely, that Paton was +putting in larger balls, hid behind his servant, who was +killed.<a name="FnAnchor_20" id="FnAnchor_20" href="#Footnote_20"><span class="sp">20</span></a></p> + +<p>Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of +Wallace was enveloped in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor—tightening, +closing, crushing every semblance +of life from the victim enclosed in his toils. The flanking +parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and though, +as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a +general flight was the result.</p> + +<p>But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16"></a>16</span> +or wail the death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed +themselves for the peace, the liberty, and the religion of their +fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in the field of death for +long, and when at last they were buried by charity, the +peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their graves, and +cast them once more upon the open heath for the sorry +value of their winding-sheets!</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center f90"><i>Inscription on stone at Rullion Green</i></p> + + <p class="center scs">HERE<br /> + AND NEAR TO<br /> + THIS PLACE LYES THE</p> +<p class="noind scs" style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;"> + REVEREND M<span class="sp">R</span> JOHN CROOKSHANK + AND M<span class="sp">R</span> ANDREW M<span class="sp">C</span>CORMICK + MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL AND + ABOUT FIFTY OTHER TRUE COVENANTED + PRESBYTERIANS WHO WERE + KILLED IN THIS PLACE IN THEIR OWN + INOCENT SELF DEFENCE AND DEFFENCE + OF THE COVENANTED + WORK OF REFORMATION BY + THOMAS DALZEEL OF BINS + UPON THE 28 OF NOVEMBER + 1666. REV. 12. 11. ERECTED + SEPT. 28 1738.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center f90"><i>Back of stone</i>:</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here,</p> +<p>Who for Christ’s Interest did appear,</p> +<p>For to restore true Liberty,</p> +<p>O’erturned then by tyranny.</p> +<p>And by proud Prelats who did Rage</p> +<p>Against the Lord’s own heritage.</p> +<p>They sacrificed were for the laws</p> +<p>Of Christ their king, his noble cause.</p> +<p>These heroes fought with great renown</p> +<p>By falling got the Martyr’s crown.<a name="FnAnchor_21" id="FnAnchor_21" href="#Footnote_21"><span class="sp">21</span></a></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17" href="#FnAnchor_17"><span class="fn">17</span></a> Kirkton, p. 244.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18" href="#FnAnchor_18"><span class="fn">18</span></a> Kirkton.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19" href="#FnAnchor_19"><span class="fn">19</span></a> Turner.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20" href="#FnAnchor_20"><span class="fn">20</span></a> Kirkton.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21" href="#FnAnchor_21"><span class="fn">21</span></a> Kirkton.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"></a>17</span></p> +<h5>V</h5> + +<h3>A RECORD OF BLOOD</h3> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“They cut his hands ere he was dead,</p> +<p class="i05">And after that struck off his head.</p> +<p class="i05">His blood under the altar cries</p> +<p class="i05">For vengeance on Christ’s enemies.”</p> + +<p class="i4"><i>Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of Clermont.</i><a name="FnAnchor_22" id="FnAnchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"><span class="sp">22</span></a></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Master Andrew Murray</span>, an outed minister, residing in +the Potterrow, on the morning after the defeat, heard the +sounds of cheering and the march of many feet beneath his +window. He gazed out. With colours flying, and with +music sounding, Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. +But his banners were dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners +were marched within his ranks. The old man knew it all. +That martial and triumphant strain was the death-knell +of his friends and of their cause, the rust-hued spots upon +the flags were the tokens of their courage and their death, +and the prisoners were the miserable remnant spared from +death in battle to die upon the scaffold. Poor old man! +he had outlived all joy. Had he lived longer he would have +seen increasing torment and increasing woe; he would +have seen the clouds, then but gathering in mist, cast a +more than midnight darkness over his native hills, and +have fallen a victim to those bloody persecutions which, +later, sent their red memorials to the sea by many a burn. +By a merciful Providence all this was spared to him—he +fell beneath the first blow; and ere four days had passed +since Rullion Green, the aged minister of God was gathered +to his fathers.<a name="FnAnchor_23" id="FnAnchor_23" href="#Footnote_23"><span class="sp">23</span></a></p> + +<p>When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to +Sir Alexander Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"></a>18</span> +his house. Disliking their occupation, the soldiers gave +him an ugly time of it. All the night through they kept +up a continuous series of “alarms and incursions,” “cries +of ‘Stand!’ ‘Give fire!’” etc., which forced the prelate +to flee to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find +the rest which was denied him at home.<a name="FnAnchor_24" id="FnAnchor_24" href="#Footnote_24"><span class="sp">24</span></a> Now, however, +when all danger to himself was past, Sharpe came out in +his true colours, and scant was the justice likely to be +shown to the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate +was by. The prisoners were lodged in Haddo’s Hole, a +part of St. Giles’ Cathedral, where, by the kindness of +Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it spoken, they were amply +supplied with food.<a name="FnAnchor_25" id="FnAnchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"><span class="sp">25</span></a></p> + +<p>Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of +quarter which had been given on the field of battle should +protect the lives of the miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, +the greatest lawyer, gave no opinion—certainly a suggestive +circumstance,—but Lord Lee declared that this would not +interfere with their legal trial; “so to bloody executions +they went.”<a name="FnAnchor_26" id="FnAnchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"><span class="sp">26</span></a> To the number of thirty they were condemned +and executed; while two of them, Hugh M’Kail, +a young minister, and Neilson of Corsack, were tortured +with the boots.</p> + +<p>The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and +their bodies were dismembered and distributed to different +parts of the country; “the heads of Major M’Culloch and +the two Gordons,” it was resolved, says Kirkton, “should +be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two Hamiltons +and Strong’s head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain +Arnot’s sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh. The +armes of all the ten, because they hade with uplifted hands +renewed the Covenant at Lanark, were sent to the people +of that town to expiate that crime, by placing these arms +on the top of the prison.”<a name="FnAnchor_27" id="FnAnchor_27" href="#Footnote_27"><span class="sp">27</span></a> Among these was John Neilson, +the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner’s life at Dumfries; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"></a>19</span> +in return for which service Sir James attempted, though +without success, to get the poor man reprieved. One of +the condemned died of his wounds between the day of condemnation +and the day of execution. “None of them,” +says Kirkton, “would save their life by taking the declaration +and renouncing the Covenant, though it was offered +to them.... But never men died in Scotland so much +lamented by the people, not only spectators, but those in +the country. When Knockbreck and his brother were +turned over, they clasped each other in their armes, and so +endured the pangs of death. When Humphrey Colquhoun +died, he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, but like a +heavenly minister, relating his comfortable Christian experiences, +and called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded +arm, and read John iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration +of all. But most of all, when Mr. M’Kail died, there +was such a lamentation as was never known in Scotland +before; not one dry cheek upon all the street, or in all +the numberless windows in the mercate place.” <a name="FnAnchor_28" id="FnAnchor_28" href="#Footnote_28"><span class="sp">28</span></a></p> + +<p>The following passage from this speech speaks for itself +and its author:</p> + +<p>“Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor +think on the world’s consolations. Farewell to all my +friends, whose company hath been refreshful to me in my +pilgrimage. I have done with the light of the sun and the +moon; welcome eternal light, eternal life, everlasting love, +everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that +sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the +Lord, O my soul, that hath pardoned all my iniquities in +the blood of His Son, and healed all my diseases. Bless +Him, O all ye His angels that excel in strength, ye ministers +of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!” <a name="FnAnchor_29" id="FnAnchor_29" href="#Footnote_29"><span class="sp">29</span></a></p> + +<p>After having ascended the gallows ladder he again +broke forth in the following words of touching eloquence:</p> + +<p>“And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, +and begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"></a>20</span> +broken off. Farewell father and mother, friends and relations! +Farewell the world and all delights! Farewell +meat and drink! Farewell sun, moon, and stars!—Welcome +God and Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the +Mediator of the new covenant! Welcome blessed Spirit +of grace and God of all consolation! Welcome glory! +Welcome eternal life! Welcome Death!”<a name="FnAnchor_30" id="FnAnchor_30" href="#Footnote_30"><span class="sp">30</span></a></p> + +<p>At Glasgow too, where some were executed, they +caused the soldiers to beat the drums and blow the trumpets +on their closing ears. Hideous refinement of revenge! +Even the last words which drop from the lips of a dying +man—words surely the most sincere and the most unbiassed +which mortal mouth can utter—even these were looked +upon as poisoned and as poisonous. “Drown their last +accents,” was the cry, “lest they should lead the crowd to +take their part, or at the least to mourn their doom!”<a name="FnAnchor_31" id="FnAnchor_31" href="#Footnote_31"><span class="sp">31</span></a> +But, after all, perhaps it was more merciful than one would +think—unintentionally so, of course; perhaps the storm +of harsh and fiercely jubilant noises, the clanging of trumpets, +the rattling of drums, and the hootings and jeerings of +an unfeeling mob, which were the last they heard on earth, +might, when the mortal fight was over, when the river of +death was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of +the angels, tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they +had reached.</p> + +<p>Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some +even of the peasantry, though these were confined to the +shire of Mid-Lothian, pursued, captured, plundered, and +murdered the miserable fugitives who fell in their way. +One strange story have we of these times of blood and persecution: +Kirkton the historian and popular tradition tell +us alike of a flame which often would arise from the grave, +in a moss near Carnwath, of some of those poor rebels: +of how it crept along the ground; of how it covered the +house of their murderer; and of how it scared him with +its lurid glare. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"></a>21</span></p> + +<p>Hear Daniel Defoe:<a name="FnAnchor_32" id="FnAnchor_32" href="#Footnote_32"><span class="sp">32</span></a></p> + +<p>“If the poor people were by these insupportable violences +made desperate, and driven to all the extremities of +a wild despair, who can justly reflect on them when they +read in the Word of God ‘That oppression makes a wise +man mad’? And therefore were there no other original +of the insurrection known by the name of the Rising of +Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions +of those times might have justified to all the world, +nature having dictated to all people a right of defence +when illegally and arbitrarily attacked in a manner not +justifiable either by laws of nature, the laws of God, or the +laws of the country.”</p> + +<p>Bear this remonstrance of Defoe’s in mind, and though +it is the fashion of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate +and to contemn, the noble band of Covenanters,—though +the bitter laugh at their old-world religious views, the curl +of the lip at their merits, and the chilling silence on their +bravery and their determination, are but too rife through +all society,—be charitable to what was evil and honest to +what was good about the Pentland insurgents, who fought +for life and liberty, for country and religion, on the 28th +of November 1666, now just two hundred years ago.</p> + +<p class="f90 pt1"><span class="sc">Edinburgh</span>, 28<i>th November</i> 1866.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22" href="#FnAnchor_22"><span class="fn">22</span></a> “Cloud of Witnesses,” p. 389; Edin. 1765.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23" href="#FnAnchor_23"><span class="fn">23</span></a> Kirkton, p. 247.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24" href="#FnAnchor_24"><span class="fn">24</span></a> Kirkton, p. 254.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25" href="#FnAnchor_25"><span class="fn">25</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 247.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26" href="#FnAnchor_26"><span class="fn">26</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 247, 248.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27" href="#FnAnchor_27"><span class="fn">27</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 248.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28" href="#FnAnchor_28"><span class="fn">28</span></a> Kirkton, p. 249.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29" href="#FnAnchor_29"><span class="fn">29</span></a> “Naphtali,” p. 205; Glasgow, 1721.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30" href="#FnAnchor_30"><span class="fn">30</span></a> Wodrow, p. 59.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31" href="#FnAnchor_31"><span class="fn">31</span></a> Kirkton, p. 246.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32" href="#FnAnchor_32"><span class="fn">32</span></a> Defoe’s “History of the Church of Scotland.”</p> +</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"></a>22</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"></a>23</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>SKETCHES</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"></a>24</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"></a>25</span></p> +<hr class="art" /> +<h2>SKETCHES</h2> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<h3>THE SATIRIST</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">My</span> companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. +He was by habit and repute a satirist. If he did +occasionally condemn anything or anybody who richly +deserved it, and whose demerits had hitherto escaped, it +was simply because he condemned everything and everybody. +While I was with him he disposed of St. Paul with +an epigram, shook my reverence for Shakespeare in a neat +antithesis, and fell foul of the Almighty Himself, on the +score of one or two out of the ten commandments. Nothing +escaped his blighting censure. At every sentence he overthrew +an idol, or lowered my estimation of a friend. I saw +everything with new eyes, and could only marvel at my +former blindness. How was it possible that I had not before +observed A’s false hair, B’s selfishness, or C’s boorish +manners? I and my companion, methought, walked the +streets like a couple of gods among a swarm of vermin; +for every one we saw seemed to bear openly upon his brow +the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I half expected that +these miserable beings, like the people of Lystra, would +recognise their betters and force us to the altar; in which +case, warned by the fate of Paul and Barnabas, I do not +know that my modesty would have prevailed upon me to +decline. But there was no need for such churlish virtue. +More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no +divinity in our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"></a>26</span> +more in the way of observing than healing their infirmities, +we were content to pass them by in scorn.</p> + +<p>I could not leave my companion, not from regard or +even from interest, but from a very natural feeling, inseparable +from the case. To understand it, let us take a +simile. Suppose yourself walking down the street with a +man who continues to sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of +vitriol. You would be much diverted with the grimaces +and contortions of his victims; and at the same time you +would fear to leave his arm until his bottle was empty, +knowing that, when once among the crowd, you would +run a good chance yourself of baptism with his biting liquor. +Now my companion’s vitriol was inexhaustible.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge +that I was being anointed already out of the vials of his +wrath, that made me fall to criticising the critic, whenever +we had parted.</p> + +<p>After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough +into his neighbours to find that the outside is false, without +caring to go farther and discover what is really true. He +is content to find that things are not what they seem, and +broadly generalises from it that they do not exist at all. +He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they are; +and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession of +virtue altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no +man is wholly good; but he has not even suspected that +there is another equally true, to wit, that no man is wholly +bad. Like the inmate of a coloured star, he has eyes for +one colour alone. He has a keen scent after evil, but his +nostrils are plugged against all good, as people plugged +their nostrils before going about the streets of the plague-struck +city.</p> + +<p>Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee +the knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, +and batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. +This was my first thought; but my second was not +like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"></a>27</span> +his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want +light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not +wish to see the good, because he is happier without it. +I recollect that when I walked with him, I was in a state +of divine exaltation, such as Adam and Eve must have +enjoyed when the savour of the fruit was still unfaded +between their lips; and I recognise that this must be the +man’s habitual state. He has the forbidden fruit in his +waistcoat pocket, and can make himself a god as often +and as long as he likes. He has raised himself upon a +glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the +summit of ambition; and he envies neither King nor +Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest, content in an elevation as high +as theirs, and much more easily attained. Yes, certes, +much more easily attained. He has not risen by climbing +himself, but by pushing others down. He has grown +great in his own estimation, not by blowing himself out, +and risking the fate of Æsop’s frog, but simply by the +habitual use of a diminishing glass on everybody else. And +I think altogether that his is a better, a safer, and a surer +recipe than most others.</p> + +<p>After all, however, looking back on what I have written, +I detect a spirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I +have been comparing myself with our satirist, and all +through, I have had the best of the comparison. Well, +well, contagion is as often mental as physical; and I do +not think my readers, who have all been under his +lash, will blame me very much for giving the headsman +a mouthful of his own sawdust.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<h3>NUITS BLANCHES</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">If</span> any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless +night, it should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"></a>28</span> +child that woke from his few hours’ slumber with the sweat +of a nightmare on his brow, to lie awake and listen and +long for the first signs of life among the silent streets. +These nights of pain and weariness are graven on my +mind; and so when the same thing happened to me again, +everything that I heard or saw was rather a recollection +than a discovery.</p> + +<p>Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, +I listened eagerly for anything to break the sepulchral +quiet. But nothing came, save, perhaps, an emphatic +crack from the old cabinet that was made by Deacon +Brodie, or the dry rustle of the coals on the extinguished +fire. It was a calm; or I know that I should have heard +in the roar and clatter of the storm, as I have not heard +it for so many years, the wild career of a horseman, always +scouring up from the distance and passing swiftly below +the window; yet always returning again from the place +whence first he came, as though, baffled by some higher +power, he had retraced his steps to gain impetus for +another and another attempt.</p> + +<p>As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the +rumbling of a carriage a very great way off, that drew near, +and passed within a few streets of the house, and died +away as gradually as it had arisen. This, too, was as a +reminiscence.</p> + +<p>I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black +belt of the garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with +here and there a lighted window. How often before had +my nurse lifted me out of bed and pointed them out to me, +while we wondered together if, there also, there were children +that could not sleep, and if these lighted oblongs were signs +of those that waited like us for the morning.</p> + +<p>I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the +great deep well of the staircase. For what cause I know +not, just as it used to be in the old days that the feverish +child might be the better served, a peep of gas illuminated a +narrow circle far below me. But where I was, all was darkness +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"></a>29</span> +and silence, save the dry monotonous ticking of the +clock that came ceaselessly up to my ear.</p> + +<p>The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of reproduction +on the pictures of my memory, was the arrival +of that time for which, all night through, I waited and +longed of old. It was my custom, as the hours dragged on, +to repeat the question, “When will the carts come in?” +and repeat it again and again until at last those sounds arose +in the street that I have heard once more this morning. +The road before our house is a great thoroughfare for early +carts. I know not, and I never have known, what they +carry, whence they come, or whither they go. But I +know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they +stream continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking +of wheels and the same clink of horses’ feet. It was not +for nothing that they made the burthen of my wishes all +night through. They are really the first throbbings of life, +the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to hear +them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again +to grasp a hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable +solitude. They have the freshness of the daylight life +about them. You can hear the carters cracking their +whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one another; +and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter +comes up to you through the darkness. There is now an +end of mystery and fear. Like the knocking at the door +in <i>Macbeth</i>,<a name="FnAnchor_33" id="FnAnchor_33" href="#Footnote_33"><span class="sp">33</span></a> or the cry of the watchman in the <i>Tour de +Nesle</i>, they show that the horrible cæsura is over and the +nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking +and the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir itself +among the streets.</p> + +<p>In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by +the officious knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve +years older than I had dreamed myself all night.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33" href="#FnAnchor_33"><span class="fn">33</span></a> See a short essay of De Quincey’s.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"></a>30</span></p> +<h5>III</h5> + +<h3>THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">It</span> is all very well to talk of death as “a pleasant potion +of immortality”; but the most of us, I suspect, are of +“queasy stomachs,” and find it none of the sweetest.<a name="FnAnchor_34" id="FnAnchor_34" href="#Footnote_34"><span class="sp">34</span></a> The +graveyard may be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must +admit that it is a very ugly and offensive vestibule in itself, +however fair may be the life to which it leads. And though +Enoch and Elias went into the temple through a gate which +certainly may be called Beautiful, the rest of us have to +find our way to it through Ezekiel’s low-bowed door and +the vault full of creeping things and all manner of abominable +beasts. Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of +mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least +an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere +else. It was in obedience to this wise regulation that the +other morning found me lighting my pipe at the entrance +to Old Greyfriars’, thoroughly sick of the town, the country, +and myself.</p> + +<p>Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them +carrying a spade in hands still crusted with the soil of +graves. Their very aspect was delightful to me; and I +crept nearer to them, thinking to pick up some snatch of +sexton gossip, some “talk fit for a charnel,”<a name="FnAnchor_35" id="FnAnchor_35" href="#Footnote_35"><span class="sp">35</span></a> something, +in fine, worthy of that fastidious logician, that adept in +coroner’s law, who has come down to us as the patron of +Yaughan’s liquor, and the very prince of gravediggers. +Scots people in general are so much wrapped up in their +profession that I had a good chance of overhearing such +conversation: the talk of fishmongers running usually on +stockfish and haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I could +repeat stories and speeches that positively smell of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"></a>31</span> +graveyard. But on this occasion I was doomed to disappointment. +My two friends were far into the region of +generalities. Their profession was forgotten in their +electorship. Politics had engulfed the narrower economy +of gravedigging. “Na, na,” said the one, “ye’re a’ +wrang.” “The English and Irish Churches,” answered +the other, in a tone as if he had made the remark +before, and it had been called in question—“The +English and Irish Churches have <i>impoverished</i> the +country.”</p> + +<p>“Such are the results of education,” thought I as I +passed beside them and came fairly among the tombs. +Here, at least, there were no commonplace politics, no +diluted this-morning’s leader, to distract or offend me. +The old shabby church showed, as usual, its quaint extent +of roofage and the relievo skeleton on one gable, still +blackened with the fire of thirty years ago. A chill dank +mist lay over all. The Old Greyfriars’ churchyard was +in perfection that morning, and one could go round and +reckon up the associations with no fear of vulgar interruption. +On this stone the Covenant was signed. In that +vault, as the story goes, John Knox took hiding in some +Reformation broil. From that window Burke the murderer +looked out many a time across the tombs, and perhaps o’ +nights let himself down over the sill to rob some new-made +grave. Certainly he would have a selection here. The +very walks have been carried over forgotten resting-places; +and the whole ground is uneven, because (as I was once +quaintly told) “when the wood rots it stands to reason the +soil should fall in,” which, from the law of gravitation, is +certainly beyond denial. But it is round the boundary +that there are the finest tombs. The whole irregular space +is, as it were, fringed with quaint old monuments, rich in +death’s-heads and scythes and hour-glasses, and doubly +rich in pious epitaphs and Latin mottoes—rich in them +to such an extent that their proper space has run over, and +they have crawled end-long up the shafts of columns and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"></a>32</span> +ensconced themselves in all sorts of odd corners among +the sculpture. These tombs raise their backs against the +rabble of squalid dwelling-houses, and every here and there +a clothes-pole projects between two monuments its fluttering +trophy of white and yellow and red. With a grim +irony they recall the banners in the Invalides, banners as +appropriate perhaps over the sepulchres of tailors and +weavers as these others above the dust of armies. Why +they put things out to dry on that particular morning it +was hard to imagine. The grass was grey with drops of +rain, the headstones black with moisture. Yet, in despite +of weather and common-sense, there they hung between +the tombs; and beyond them I could see through open +windows into miserable rooms where whole families were +born and fed, and slept and died. At one a girl sat singing +merrily with her back to the graveyard; and from another +came the shrill tones of a scolding woman. Every here +and there was a town garden full of sickly flowers, or a pile +of crockery inside upon the window-seat. But you do not +grasp the full connection between these houses of the dead +and the living, the unnatural marriage of stately sepulchres +and squalid houses, till, lower down, where the road has +sunk far below the surface of the cemetery, and the very +roofs are scarcely on a level with its wall, you observe that +a proprietor has taken advantage of a tall monument and +trained a chimney-stack against its back. It startles you +to see the red, modern pots peering over the shoulder +of the tomb.</p> + +<p>A man was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away +the drift of bones that permeates the thin brown soil; but +my first disappointment had taught me to expect little +from Greyfriars’ sextons, and I passed him by in silence. +A slater on the slope of a neighbouring roof eyed me +curiously. A lean black cat, looking as if it had battened +on strange meats, slipped past me. A little boy at a +window put his finger to his nose in so offensive a manner +that I was put upon my dignity, and turned grandly off +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33"></a>33</span> +to read old epitaphs and peer through the gratings into the +shadow of vaults.</p> + +<p>Just then I saw two women coming down a path, one +of them old, and the other younger, with a child in her arms. +Both had faces eaten with famine and hardened with sin, +and both had reached that stage of degradation, much +lower in a woman than a man, when all care for dress is +lost. As they came down they neared a grave, where some +pious friend or relative had laid a wreath of immortelles, +and put a bell glass over it, as is the custom. The effect +of that ring of dull yellow among so many blackened and +dusty sculptures was more pleasant than it is in modern +cemeteries, where every second mound can boast a similar +coronal; and here, where it was the exception and not the +rule, I could even fancy the drops of moisture that dimmed +the covering were the tears of those who laid it where it +was. As the two women came up to it, one of them kneeled +down on the wet grass and looked long and silently through +the clouded shade, while the second stood above her, gently +oscillating to and fro to lull the muling baby. I was +struck a great way off with something religious in the +attitude of these two unkempt and haggard women; and +I drew near faster, but still cautiously, to hear what they +were saying. Surely on them the spirit of death and decay +had descended; I had no education to dread here: should +I not have a chance of seeing nature? Alas! a pawnbroker +could not have been more practical and commonplace, +for this was what the kneeling woman said to the +woman upright—this and nothing more: “Eh, what extravagance!”</p> + +<p>O nineteenth century, wonderful art thou indeed—wonderful, +but wearisome in thy stale and deadly uniformity. +Thy men are more like numerals than men. They must +bear their idiosyncrasies or their professions written on a +placard about their neck, like the scenery in Shakespeare’s +theatre. The precepts of economy have pierced into the +lowest ranks of life; and there is now a decorum in vice, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34"></a>34</span> +a respectability among the disreputable, a pure spirit of +Philistinism among the waifs and strays of thy Bohemia. +For lo! thy very gravediggers talk politics; and thy castaways +kneel upon new graves, to discuss the cost of the +monument and grumble at the improvidence of love.</p> + +<p>Such was the elegant apostrophe that I made as I +went out of the gates again, happily satisfied in myself, +and feeling that I alone of all whom I had seen was able +to profit by the silent poem of these green mounds and +blackened headstones.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34" href="#FnAnchor_34"><span class="fn">34</span></a> “Religio Medici,” Part ii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35" href="#FnAnchor_35"><span class="fn">35</span></a> “Duchess of Malfi.”</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<h3>NURSES</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I knew</span> one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she +waited for death. It was pleasant enough, high up above +the lane, and looking forth upon a hill-side, covered all day +with sheets and yellow blankets, and with long lines of +underclothing fluttering between the battered posts. +There were any number of cheap prints, and a drawing by +one of “her children,” and there were flowers in the window, +and a sickly canary withered into consumption in an +ornamental cage. The bed, with its checked coverlid, +was in a closet. A great Bible lay on the table; and her +drawers were full of “scones,” which it was her pleasure +to give to young visitors such as I was then.</p> + +<p>You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the +canary, and the cat, and the white mouse that she had for +a while, and that died, were all indications of the want that +ate into her heart. I think I know a little of what that +old woman felt; and I am as sure as if I had seen her, +that she sat many an hour in silent tears, with the big +Bible open before her clouded eyes.</p> + +<p>If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"></a>35</span> +chain that had linked her to one child after another, sometimes +to be wrenched suddenly through, and sometimes, +which is infinitely worse, to be torn gradually off through +years of growing neglect, or perhaps growing dislike! +She had, like the mother, overcome that natural repugnance—repugnance +which no man can conquer—towards the +infirm and helpless mass of putty of the earlier stage. She +had spent her best and happiest years in tending, watching, +and learning to love like a mother this child, with which she +has no connection and to which she has no tie. Perhaps she +refused some sweetheart (such things have been), or put him +off and off, until he lost heart and turned to some one else, all +for fear of leaving this creature that had wound itself about +her heart. And the end of it all,—her month’s warning, +and a present perhaps, and the rest of the life to vain regret. +Or, worse still, to see the child gradually forgetting and +forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect on the plea +of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat her +as a servant whom he had treated a few years before as +a mother. She sees the Bible or the Psalm-book, which +with gladness and love unutterable in her heart she had +bought for him years ago out of her slender savings, +neglected for some newer gift of his father, lying in dust +in the lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and +the act applauded for its unfeeling charity. Little wonder +if she becomes hurt and angry, and attempts to tyrannise +and to grasp her old power back again. We are not all +patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us +human beings with feelings and tempers of our own.</p> + +<p>And so in the end, behold her in the room that I described. +Very likely and very naturally, in some fling of +feverish misery or recoil of thwarted love, she has quarrelled +with her old employers and the children are forbidden to +see her or to speak to her; or at best she gets her rent paid +and a little to herself, and now and then her late charges +are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) to pay her a +short visit. How bright these visits seem as she looks +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36"></a>36</span> +forward to them on her lonely bed! How unsatisfactory +their realisation, when the forgetful child, half wondering, +checks with every word and action the outpouring of her +maternal love! How bitter and restless the memories that +they leave behind! And for the rest, what else has she?—to +watch them with eager eyes as they go to school, to +sit in church where she can see them every Sunday, to be +passed some day unnoticed in the street, or deliberately +cut because the great man or the great woman are with +friends before whom they are ashamed to recognise the +old woman that loved them.</p> + +<p>When she goes home that night, how lonely will the +room appear to her! Perhaps the neighbours may hear +her sobbing to herself in the dark, with the fire burnt out +for want of fuel, and the candle still unlit upon the table.</p> + +<p>And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers—mothers +in everything but the travail and the thanks. +It is for this that they have remained virtuous in youth, +living the dull life of a household servant. It is for this +that they refused the old sweetheart, and have no fireside +or offspring of their own.</p> + +<p>I believe in a better state of things, that there will be +no more nurses, and that every mother will nurse her own +offspring; for what can be more hardening and demoralising +than to call forth the tenderest feelings of a woman’s +heart and cherish them yourself as long as you need them, +as long as your children require a nurse to love them, and +then to blight and thwart and destroy them, whenever +your own use for them is at an end? This may be Utopian; +but it is always a little thing if one mother or two mothers +can be brought to feel more tenderly to those who share +their toil and have no part in their reward.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page37"></a>37</span></p> +<h5>V</h5> + +<h3>A CHARACTER</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short +and squat. So far there is nothing in him to notice, but +when you see his eyes, you can read in these hard and +shallow orbs a depravity beyond measure depraved, a thirst +after wickedness, the pure, disinterested love of Hell for +its own sake. The other night, in the street, I was watching +an omnibus passing with lit-up windows, when I heard +some one coughing at my side as though he would cough +his soul out; and turning round, I saw him stopping under +a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him and +his whole face convulsed. It seemed as if he could not live +long; and so the sight set my mind upon a train of thought, +as I finished my cigar up and down the lighted streets.</p> + +<p>He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched +his thirst for evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in +wickedness. He is dumb; but he will not let that hinder +his foul trade, or perhaps I should say, his yet fouler +amusement, and he has pressed a slate into the service of +corruption. Look at him, and he will sign to you with his +bloated head, and when you go to him in answer to the +sign, thinking perhaps that the poor dumb man has lost +his way, you will see what he writes upon his slate. He +haunts the doors of schools, and shows such inscriptions +as these to the innocent children that come out. He hangs +about picture-galleries, and makes the noblest pictures +the text for some silent homily of vice. His industry is a +lesson to ourselves. Is it not wonderful how he can triumph +over his infirmities and do such an amount of harm without +a tongue? Wonderful industry—strange, fruitless, pleasureless +toil? Must not the very devil feel a soft emotion +to see his disinterested and laborious service? Ah, but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38"></a>38</span> +the devil knows better than this: he knows that this man +is penetrated with the love of evil and that all his pleasure +is shut up in wickedness: he recognises him, perhaps, as +a fit type for mankind of his satanic self, and watches over +his effigy as we might watch over a favourite likeness. +As the business man comes to love the toil, which he only +looked upon at first as a ladder towards other desires and +less unnatural gratifications, so the dumb man has felt the +charm of his trade and fallen captivated before the eyes of +sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is +hideous and loathsome; for even vice has her Hörsel and +her devotees, who love her for her own sake.</p> + + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page39"></a>39</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>COLLEGE PAPERS</h2> +<hr class="full" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page40"></a>40</span></p> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page41"></a>41</span></p> + +<hr class="art" /> +<h2>COLLEGE PAPERS</h2> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<h3>EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">On</span> the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of +the <i>Lapsus Linguæ; or, the College Tatler;</i> and on the 7th +the first number appeared. On Friday the 2nd of April +“<i>Mr. Tatler</i> became speechless.” Its history was not all +one success; for the editor (who applies to himself the +words of Iago, “I am nothing if I am not critical”) over-stepped +the bounds of caution, and found himself seriously +embroiled with the powers that were. There appeared in +No. <span class="sc">xvi</span>. a most bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie, in which +he was compared to Falstaff, charged with puffing himself, +and very prettily censured for publishing only the first +volume of a class-book, and making all purchasers pay for +both. Sir John Leslie took up the matter angrily, visited +Carfrae the publisher, and threatened him with an action, +till he was forced to turn the hapless <i>Lapsus</i> out of doors. +The maltreated periodical found shelter in the shop of +Huie, Infirmary Street; and <span class="sc">No. xvii</span>. was duly issued +from the new office. <span class="sc">No. xvii</span>. beheld <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> humiliation, +in which, with fulsome apology and not very credible +assurances of respect and admiration, he disclaims the +article in question, and advertises a new issue of <span class="sc">No. xvi</span>. +with all objectionable matter omitted. This, with pleasing +euphemism, he terms in a later advertisement, “a new +and improved edition.” This was the only remarkable +adventure of <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> brief existence; unless we consider +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42"></a>42</span> +as such a silly Chaldee manuscript in imitation of +<i>Blackwood</i>, and a letter of reproof from a divinity student +on the impiety of the same dull effusion. He laments the +near approach of his end in pathetic terms. “How shall +we summon up sufficient courage,” says he, “to look for +the last time on our beloved little devil and his inestimable +proof-sheet? How shall we be able to pass No. 14 Infirmary +Street and feel that all its attractions are over? +How shall we bid farewell for ever to that excellent man, +with the long greatcoat, wooden leg and wooden board, who +acts as our representative at the gate of <i>Alma Mater?</i>” +But alas! he had no choice: <i>Mr. Tatler</i>, whose career, he +says himself, had been successful, passed peacefully away, +and has ever since dumbly implored “the bringing home +of bell and burial.”</p> + +<p><i>Alter et idem</i>. A very different affair was the <i>Lapsus +Linguæ</i> from the <i>Edinburgh University Magazine</i>. The +two prospectuses alone, laid side by side, would indicate +the march of luxury and the repeal of the paper duty. +The penny bi-weekly broadside of session 1823-4 was +almost wholly dedicated to Momus. Epigrams, pointless +letters, amorous verses, and University grievances are the +continual burthen of the song. But <i>Mr. Tatler</i> was not +without a vein of hearty humour; and his pages afford +what is much better: to wit, a good picture of student +life as it then was. The students of those polite days +insisted on retaining their hats in the class-room. There +was a cab-stance in front of the College; and “Carriage +Entrance” was posted above the main arch, on what the +writer pleases to call “coarse, unclassic boards.” The +benches of the “Speculative” then, as now, were red; but +all other Societies (the “Dialectic” is the only survivor) +met downstairs, in some rooms of which it is pointedly said +that “nothing else could conveniently be made of them.” +However horrible these dungeons may have been, it is +certain that they were paid for, and that far too heavily +for the taste of session 1823-4, which found enough calls +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"></a>43</span> +upon its purse for porter and toasted cheese at Ambrose’s, +or cranberry tarts and ginger-wine at Doull’s. Duelling +was still a possibility; so much so that when two medicals +fell to fisticuffs in Adam Square, it was seriously hinted that +single combat would be the result. Last and most wonderful +of all, Gall and Spurzheim were in every one’s mouth; +and the Law student, after having exhausted Byron’s +poetry and Scott’s novels, informed the ladies of his +belief in phrenology. In the present day he would +dilate on “Red as a rose is she,” and then mention +that he attends Old Greyfriars’, as a tacit claim to +intellectual superiority. I do not know that the advance +is much.</p> + +<p>But <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> best performances were three short +papers in which he hit off pretty smartly the idiosyncrasies +of the “<i>Divinity</i>,” the “<i>Medical</i>,” and the “<i>Law</i>” of +session 1823-4. The fact that there was no notice of the +“<i>Arts</i>“ seems to suggest that they stood in the same +intermediate position as they do now—the epitome of +student-kind. <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, +and has not grown superannuated in <i>all</i> its +limbs. His descriptions may limp at some points, but there +are certain broad traits that apply equally well to session +1870-71. He shows us the <i>Divinity</i> of the period—tall, +pale, and slender—his collar greasy, and his coat bare +about the seams—“his white neckcloth serving four days, +and regularly turned the third,”—“the rim of his hat +deficient in wool,”—and “a weighty volume of theology +under his arm.” He was the man to buy cheap “a snuff-box, +or a dozen of pencils, or a six-bladed knife, or a quarter +of a hundred quills,” at any of the public sale-rooms. He +was noted for cheap purchases, and for exceeding the legal +tender in halfpence. He haunted “the darkest and +remotest corner of the Theatre Gallery.” He was to be +seen issuing from “aerial lodging-houses.” Withal, says +mine author, “there were many good points about him: +he paid his landlady’s bill, read his Bible, went twice to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44"></a>44</span> +church on Sunday, seldom swore, was not often tipsy, and +bought the <i>Lapsus Linguæ</i>.”</p> + +<p>The <i>Medical</i>, again, “wore a white greatcoat, and consequently +talked loud”—(there is something very delicious +in that <i>consequently</i>). He wore his hat on one side. He +was active, volatile, and went to the top of Arthur’s Seat +on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating +society as he was loud in the streets. He was reckless and +imprudent: yesterday he insisted on your sharing a bottle +of claret with him (and claret was claret then, before the +cheap-and-nasty treaty), and to-morrow he asks you for +the loan of a penny to buy the last number of the <i>Lapsus</i>.</p> + +<p>The student of <i>Law</i>, again, was a learned man. “He +had turned over the leaves of Justinian’s ‘Institutes,’ and +knew that they were written in Latin. He was well +acquainted with the title-page of ‘Blackstone’s Commentaries,’ +and <i>argal</i> (as the gravedigger in <i>Hamlet</i> says) he +was not a person to be laughed at.” He attended the +Parliament House in the character of a critic, and could +give you stale sneers at all the celebrated speakers. He +was the terror of essayists at the Speculative or the Forensic. +In social qualities he seems to have stood unrivalled. +Even in the police-office we find him shining with undiminished +lustre. “If a <i>Charlie</i> should find him rather +noisy at an untimely hour, and venture to take him into +custody, he appears next morning like a Daniel come to +judgment. He opens his mouth to speak, and the divine +precepts of unchanging justice and Scots law flow from his +tongue. The magistrate listens in amazement, and fines +him only a couple of guineas.”</p> + +<p>Such then were our predecessors and their College +Magazine. Barclay, Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson +were to them what the Café, the Rainbow, and Rutherford’s +are to us. An hour’s reading in these old pages absolutely +confuses us, there is so much that is similar and so much +that is different; the follies and amusements are so like +our own, and the manner of frolicking and enjoying are so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45"></a>45</span> +changed, that one pauses and looks about him in philosophic +judgment. The muddy quadrangle is thick with living +students; but in our eyes it swarms also with the phantasmal +white greatcoats and tilted hats of 1824. Two races +meet: races alike and diverse. Two performances are +played before our eyes; but the change seems merely of +impersonators, of scenery, of costume. Plot and passion +are the same. It is the fall of the spun shilling whether +seventy-one or twenty-four has the best of it.</p> + +<p>In a future number we hope to give a glance at the +individualities of the present, and see whether the cast +shall be head or tail—whether we or the readers of the +<i>Lapsus</i> stand higher in the balance.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<h3>THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED +GENERALLY</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">We</span> have now reached the difficult portion of our task. +<i>Mr. Tatler</i>, for all that we care, may have been as virulent +as he liked about the students of a former day; but for +the iron to touch our sacred selves, for a brother of the +Guild to betray its most privy infirmities, let such a Judas +look to himself as he passes on his way to the Scots Law +or the Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp at the corner of +the dark quadrangle. We confess that this idea alarms +us. We enter a protest. We bind ourselves over verbally +to keep the peace. We hope, moreover, that having thus +made you secret to our misgivings, you will excuse us if +we be dull, and set that down to caution which you might +before have charged to the account of stupidity.</p> + +<p>The natural tendency of civilisation is to obliterate +those distinctions which are the best salt of life. All the +fine old professional flavour in language has evaporated. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page46"></a>46</span> +Your very gravedigger has forgotten his avocation in his +electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over +Ophelia’s grave, instead of more appropriately discussing +the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, +from this gradual attrition of life, in which everything +pointed and characteristic is being rubbed down, till the +whole world begins to slip between our fingers in smooth +undistinguishable sands, from this, we say, it follows that +we must not attempt to join <i>Mr. Tatler</i> in his simple +division of students into <i>Law</i>, <i>Divinity</i>, and <i>Medical</i>. +Nowadays the Faculties may shake hands over their follies; +and, like Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight (in <i>Love for Love</i>) +they may stand in the doors of opposite class-rooms, crying: +“Sister, Sister—Sister everyway!” A few restrictions, +indeed, remain to influence the followers of individual +branches of study. The <i>Divinity</i>, for example, must be an +avowed believer; and as this, in the present day, is unhappily +considered by many as a confession of weakness, +he is fain to choose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful +orthodox bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; +for it is even a credit to believe in God on the +evidence of some crack-jaw philosopher, although it is a +decided slur to believe in Him on His own authority. +Others again (and this we think the worst method), finding +German grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own +little heresy as a proof of independence; and deny one +of the cardinal doctrines that they may hold the others +without being laughed at.</p> + +<p>Besides, however, such influences as these, there is little +more distinction between the faculties than the traditionary +ideal, handed down through a long sequence of students, +and getting rounder and more featureless at each successive +session. The plague of uniformity has descended on the +College. Students (and indeed all sorts and conditions of +men) now require their faculty and character hung round +their neck on a placard, like the scenes in Shakespeare’s +theatre. And in the midst of all this weary sameness, not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47"></a>47</span> +the least common feature is the gravity of every face. +No more does the merry medical run eagerly in the clear +winter morning up the rugged sides of Arthur’s Seat, and +hear the church bells begin and thicken and die away below +him among the gathered smoke of the city. He will not +break Sunday to so little purpose. He no longer finds +pleasure in the mere output of his surplus energy. He +husbands his strength, and lays out walks, and reading, and +amusement with deep consideration, so that he may get as +much work and pleasure out of his body as he can, and +waste none of his energy on mere impulse, or such flat +enjoyment as an excursion in the country.</p> + +<p>See the quadrangle in the interregnum of classes, in those +two or three minutes when it is full of passing students, and +we think you will admit that, if we have not made it “an +habitation of dragons,” we have at least transformed it into +“a court for owls.” Solemnity broods heavily over the +enclosure; and wherever you seek it, you will find a dearth +of merriment, an absence of real youthful enjoyment. You +might as well try</p> + +<p class="center1">“To move wild laughter in the throat of death”</p> + +<p class="noind">as to excite any healthy stir among the bulk of this staid +company.</p> + +<p>The studious congregate about the doors of the different +classes, debating the matter of the lecture, or comparing +note-books. A reserved rivalry sunders them. Here are +some deep in Greek particles: there, others are already +inhabitants of that land</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Where entity and quiddity,</p> +<p class="i05">Like ghosts of defunct bodies fly—</p> +<p class="i05">Where Truth in person does appear</p> +<p class="i05">Like words congealed in northern air.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">But none of them seem to find any relish for their studies—no +pedantic love of this subject or that lights up their +eyes—science and learning are only means for a livelihood, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48"></a>48</span> +which they have considerately embraced and which they +solemnly pursue. “Labour’s pale priests,” their lips seem +incapable of laughter, except in the way of polite recognition +of professorial wit. The stains of ink are chronic on their +meagre fingers. They walk like Saul among the asses.</p> + +<p>The dandies are not less subdued. In 1824 there was +a noisy dapper dandyism abroad. Vulgar, as we should +now think, but yet genial—a matter of white greatcoats and +loud voices—strangely different from the stately frippery +that is rife at present. These men are out of their element +in the quadrangle. Even the small remains of boisterous +humour, which still clings to any collection of young men, +jars painfully on their morbid sensibilities; and they beat +a hasty retreat to resume their perfunctory march along +Princes Street. Flirtation is to them a great social duty, +a painful obligation, which they perform on every occasion +in the same chill official manner, and with the same commonplace +advances, the same dogged observance of traditional +behaviour. The shape of their raiment is a burden almost +greater than they can bear, and they halt in their walk to +preserve the due adjustment of their trouser-knees, till one +would fancy he had mixed in a procession of Jacobs. We +speak, of course, for ourselves; but we would as soon +associate with a herd of sprightly apes as with these gloomy +modern beaux. Alas, that our Mirabels, our Valentines, +even our Brummels, should have left their mantles upon +nothing more amusing!</p> + +<p>Nor are the fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even +in dissipation, is the order of the day; and they go to the +devil with a perverse seriousness, a systematic rationalism +of wickedness that would have surprised the simpler sinners +of old. Some of these men whom we see gravely conversing +on the steps have but a slender acquaintance with each +other. Their intercourse consists principally of mutual +bulletins of depravity; and, week after week, as they meet +they reckon up their items of transgression, and give an +abstract of their downward progress for approval and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49"></a>49</span> +encouragement. These folk form a freemasonry of their +own. An oath is the shibboleth of their sinister fellowship. +Once they hear a man swear, it is wonderful how their +tongues loosen and their bashful spirits take enlargement +under the consciousness of brotherhood. There is no +folly, no pardoning warmth of temper about them; they +are as steady-going and systematic in their own way as +the studious in theirs.</p> + +<p>Not that we are without merry men. No. We shall +not be ungrateful to those, whose grimaces, whose ironical +laughter, whose active feet in the “College Anthem” have +beguiled so many weary hours and added a pleasant variety +to the strain of close attention. But even these are too +evidently professional in their antics. They go about +cogitating puns and inventing tricks. It is their vocation, +Hal. They are the gratuitous jesters of the class-room; +and, like the clown when he leaves the stage, their merriment +too often sinks as the bell rings the hour of liberty, +and they pass forth by the Post-Office, grave and sedate, +and meditating fresh gambols for the morrow.</p> + +<p>This is the impression left on the mind of any observing +student by too many of his fellows. They seem all frigid +old men; and one pauses to think how such an unnatural +state of matters is produced. We feel inclined to blame +for it the unfortunate absence of <i>University feeling</i> which is +so marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students. +Academical interests are so few and far between—students, +as students, have so little in common, except a peevish +rivalry—there is such an entire want of broad college +sympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy +that no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. +Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he +was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and +cudgels his memory for anecdotes about him when he +becomes the great so-and-so. Let there be an end of this +shy, proud reserve on the one hand, and this shuddering +fine ladyism on the other; and we think we shall find both +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50"></a>50</span> +ourselves and the College bettered. Let it be a sufficient +reason for intercourse that two men sit together on the same +benches. Let the great A be held excused for nodding to +the shabby B in Princes Street, if he can say, “That fellow +is a student.” Once this could be brought about, we think +you would find the whole heart of the University beat faster. +We think you would find a fusion among the students, a +growth of common feelings, an increasing sympathy between +class and class, whose influence (in such a heterogeneous +company as ours) might be of incalculable value in all +branches of politics and social progress. It would do +more than this. If we could find some method of making +the University a real mother to her sons—something beyond +a building of class-rooms, a Senatus and a lottery of somewhat +shabby prizes—we should strike a death-blow at the +constrained and unnatural attitude of our Society. At +present we are not a united body, but a loose gathering +of individuals, whose inherent attraction is allowed to +condense them into little knots and coteries. Our last +snowball riot read us a plain lesson on our condition. There +was no party spirit—no unity of interests. A few, who +were mischievously inclined, marched off to the College of +Surgeons in a pretentious file; but even before they reached +their destination the feeble inspiration had died out in +many, and their numbers were sadly thinned. Some +followed strange gods in the direction of Drummond Street, +and others slunk back to meek good-boyism at the feet of +the Professors. The same is visible in better things. As +you send a man to an English University that he may have +his prejudices rubbed off, you might send him to Edinburgh +that he may have them ingrained—rendered indelible—fostered +by sympathy into living principles of his +spirit. And the reason of it is quite plain. From this +absence of University feeling it comes that a man’s friendships +are always the direct and immediate results of these +very prejudices. A common weakness is the best master +of ceremonies in our quadrangle: a mutual vice is the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51"></a>51</span> +readiest introduction. The studious associate with the +studious alone—the dandies with the dandies. There is +nothing to force them to rub shoulders with the others; +and so they grow day by day more wedded to their own +original opinions and affections. They see through the +same spectacles continually. All broad sentiments, all +real catholic humanity expires; and the mind gets gradually +stiffened into one position—becomes so habituated to a +contracted atmosphere, that it shudders and withers under +the least draught of the free air that circulates in the +general field of mankind.</p> + +<p>Specialism in Society then, is, we think, one cause of +our present state. Specialism in study is another. We +doubt whether this has ever been a good thing since the +world began; but we are sure it is much worse now than +it was. Formerly, when a man became a specialist, it was +out of affection for his subject. With a somewhat grand +devotion he left all the world of Science to follow his true +love; and he contrived to find that strange pedantic +interest which inspired the man who</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Settled <i>Hoti’s</i> business—let it be—</p> + <p class="i2">Properly based <i>Oun</i>—</p> +<p class="i05">Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic <i>D</i></p> + <p class="i2">Dead from the waist down.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even +the saving clause of Enthusiasm. The election is now +matter of necessity and not of choice. Knowledge is now +too broad a field for your Jack-of-all-Trades; and, from +beautifully utilitarian reasons, he makes his choice, draws +his pen through a dozen branches of study, and behold—John +the Specialist. That this is the way to be wealthy +we shall not deny; but we hold that it is <i>not</i> the way to +be healthy or wise. The whole mind becomes narrowed +and circumscribed to one “punctual spot” of knowledge. +A rank unhealthy soil breeds a harvest of prejudices. +Feeling himself above others in his one little branch—in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52"></a>52</span> +the classification of toadstools, or Carthaginian history—he +waxes great in his own eyes and looks down on others. +Having all his sympathies educated in one way, they die +out in every other; and he is apt to remain a peevish, +narrow, and intolerant bigot. Dilettante is now a term +of reproach; but there is a certain form of dilettantism +to which no one can object. It is this that we want among +our students. We wish them to abandon no subject until +they have seen and felt its merit—to act under a general +interest in all branches of knowledge, not a commercial +eagerness to excel in one.</p> + +<p>In both these directions our sympathies are constipated. +We are apostles of our own caste and our own subject of +study, instead of being, as we should, true men and <i>loving</i> +students. Of course both of these could be corrected by +the students themselves; but this is nothing to the purpose: +it is more important to ask whether the Senatus or the body +of alumni could do nothing towards the growth of better +feeling and wider sentiments. Perhaps in another paper +we may say something upon this head.</p> + +<p>One other word, however, before we have done. What +shall we be when we grow really old? Of yore, a man was +thought to lay on restrictions and acquire new deadweight +of mournful experience with every year, till he looked back +on his youth as the very summer of impulse and freedom. +We please ourselves with thinking that it cannot be so +with us. We would fain hope that, as we have begun in +one way, we may end in another; and that when we <i>are</i> +in fact the octogenarians that we <i>seem</i> at present, there +shall be no merrier men on earth. It is pleasant to picture +us, sunning ourselves in Princes Street of a morning, or +chirping over our evening cups, with all the merriment +that we wanted in youth.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page53"></a>53</span></p> +<h5>III</h5> + +<h3>DEBATING SOCIETIES</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">A debating</span> society is at first somewhat of a disappointment. +You do not often find the youthful Demosthenes +chewing his pebbles in the same room with you; or, even +if you do, you will probably think the performance little +to be admired. As a general rule, the members speak +shamefully ill. The subjects of debate are heavy; and +so are the fines. The Ballot Question—oldest of dialectic +nightmares—is often found astride of a somnolent sederunt. +The Greeks and Romans, too, are reserved as sort of <i>general-utility</i> +men, to do all the dirty work of illustration; and +they fill as many functions as the famous waterfall scene +at the “Princess’s,” which I found doing duty on one +evening as a gorge in Peru, a haunt of German robbers, and +a peaceful vale in the Scottish borders. There is a sad +absence of striking argument or real lively discussion. +Indeed, you feel a growing contempt for your fellow-members; +and it is not until you rise yourself to hawk +and hesitate and sit shamefully down again, amid eleemosynary +applause, that you begin to find your level and +value others rightly. Even then, even when failure has +damped your critical ardour, you will see many things +to be laughed at in the deportment of your rivals.</p> + +<p>Most laughable, perhaps, are your indefatigable strivers +after eloquence. They are of those who “pursue with +eagerness the phantoms of hope,” and who, since they +expect that “the deficiencies of last sentence will be supplied +by the next,” have been recommended by Dr. Samuel +Johnson to “attend to the History of Rasselas, Prince of +Abyssinia.” They are characterised by a hectic hopefulness. +Nothing damps them. They rise from the ruins of +one abortive sentence, to launch forth into another with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54"></a>54</span> +unabated vigour. They have all the manner of an orator. +From the tone of their voice, you would expect a splendid +period—and lo! a string of broken-backed, disjointed +clauses, eked out with stammerings and throat-clearings. +They possess the art (learned from the pulpit) of rounding +an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a single syllable—of +striking a balance in a top-heavy period by lengthening +out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, they never +cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhausted +all their ideas, even after the would-be peroration +has finally refused to perorate, they remain upon their feet +with their mouths open, waiting for some further inspiration, +like Chaucer’s widow’s son in the dung-hole, after</p> + +<p class="center1 f90">“His throat was kit unto the nekké bone,”</p> + +<p class="noind">in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon +his tongue, and give him renewed and clearer utterance.</p> + +<p>These men may have something to say, if they could +only say it—indeed they generally have; but the next +class are people who, having nothing to say, are cursed with +a facility and an unhappy command of words, that makes +them the prime nuisances of the society they affect. They +try to cover their absence of matter by an unwholesome +vitality of delivery. They look triumphantly round the +room, as if courting applause, after a torrent of diluted +truism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same dull +round of argument, and returning again and again to the +same remark with the same sprightliness, the same irritating +appearance of novelty.</p> + +<p>After this set, any one is tolerable; so we shall merely +hint at a few other varieties. There is your man who is +pre-eminently conscientious, whose face beams with sincerity +as he opens on the negative, and who votes on the affirmative +at the end, looking round the room with an air of +chastened pride. There is also the irrelevant speaker, +who rises, emits a joke or two, and then sits down again, +without ever attempting to tackle the subject of debate. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"></a>55</span> +Again, we have men who ride pick-a-back on their family +reputation, or, if their family have none, identify themselves +with some well-known statesman, use his opinions, +and lend him their patronage on all occasions. This is a +dangerous plan, and serves oftener, I am afraid, to point +a difference than to adorn a speech.</p> + +<p>But alas! a striking failure may be reached without +tempting Providence by any of these ambitious tricks. +Our own stature will be found high enough for shame. +The success of three simple sentences lures us into a fatal +parenthesis in the fourth, from whose shut brackets we +may never disentangle the thread of our discourse. A +momentary flush tempts us into a quotation; and we may +be left helpless in the middle of one of Pope’s couplets, a +white film gathering before our eyes, and our kind friends +charitably trying to cover our disgrace by a feeble round +of applause. <i>Amis lecteurs</i>, this is a painful topic. It is +possible that we too, we, the “potent, grave, and reverend” +editor, may have suffered these things, and drunk as deep +as any of the cup of shameful failure. Let us dwell no +longer on so delicate a subject.</p> + +<p>In spite, however, of these disagreeables, I should +recommend any student to suffer them with Spartan +courage, as the benefits he receives should repay him an +hundredfold for them all. The life of the debating society +is a handy antidote to the life of the class-room and quadrangle. +Nothing could be conceived more excellent as a +weapon against many of those <i>peccant humours</i> that we +have been railing against in the jeremiad of our last “College +Paper”—particularly in the field of intellect. It is a sad +sight to see our heather-scented students, our boys of +seventeen, coming up to College with determined views—<i>roués</i> +in speculation—having gauged the vanity of philosophy +or learned to shun it as the middle-man of heresy—a company +of determined, deliberate opinionists, not to be moved +by all the sleights of logic. What have such men to do +with study? If their minds are made up irrevocably, why +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"></a>56</span> +burn the “studious lamp” in search of further confirmation? +Every set opinion I hear a student deliver I feel a +certain lowering of my regard. He who studies, he who +is yet employed in groping for his premises, should keep +his mind fluent and sensitive, keen to mark flaws, and +willing to surrender untenable positions. He should keep +himself teachable, or cease the expensive farce of being +taught. It is to further this docile spirit that we desire to +press the claims of debating societies. It is as a means +of melting down this museum of premature petrifactions +into living and impressionable soul that we insist on their +utility. If we could once prevail on our students to feel +no shame in avowing an uncertain attitude towards any +subject, if we could teach them that it was unnecessary for +every lad to have his <i>opinionette</i> on every topic, we should +have gone a far way towards bracing the intellectual tone +of the coming race of thinkers; and this it is which debating +societies are so well fitted to perform.</p> + +<p>We there meet people of every shade of opinion, and +make friends with them. We are taught to rail against a +man the whole session through, and then hob-a-nob with +him at the concluding entertainment. We find men of +talent far exceeding our own, whose conclusions are widely +different from ours; and we are thus taught to distrust +ourselves. But the best means of all towards catholicity +is that wholesome rule which some folk are most inclined +to condemn,—I mean the law of <i>obliged speeches</i>. Your +senior member commands; and you must take the affirmative +or the negative, just as suits his best convenience. +This tends to the most perfect liberality. It is no good +hearing the arguments of an opponent, for in good verity +you rarely follow them; and even if you do take the trouble +to listen, it is merely in a captious search for weaknesses. +This is proved, I fear, in every debate; when you hear each +speaker arguing out his own prepared <i>spécialité</i> (he never +intended speaking, of course, until some remarks of, etc.), +arguing out, I say, his own <i>coached-up</i> subject without the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"></a>57</span> +least attention to what has gone before, as utterly at sea +about the drift of his adversary’s speech as Panurge when +he argued with Thaumaste, and merely linking his own +prelection to the last by a few flippant criticisms. Now, +as the rule stands, you are saddled with the side you disapprove, +and so you are forced, by regard for your own +fame, to argue out, to feel with, to elaborate completely, +the case as it stands against yourself; and what a fund of +wisdom do you not turn up in this idle digging of the vineyard! +How many new difficulties take form before your +eyes? how many superannuated arguments cripple finally +into limbo, under the glance of your enforced eclecticism!</p> + +<p>Nor is this the only merit of Debating Societies. They +tend also to foster taste, and to promote friendship between +University men. This last, as we have had occasion before +to say, is the great requirement of our student life; and it +will therefore be no waste of time if we devote a paragraph +to this subject in its connection with Debating Societies. +At present they partake too much of the nature of a <i>clique.</i> +Friends propose friends, and mutual friends second them, +until the society degenerates into a sort of family party. +You may confirm old acquaintances, but you can rarely +make new ones. You find yourself in the atmosphere of +your own daily intercourse. Now, this is an unfortunate circumstance, +which it seems to me might readily be rectified. +Our Principal has shown himself so friendly towards all +College improvements that I cherish the hope of seeing +shortly realised a certain suggestion, which is not a new one +with me, and which must often have been proposed and +canvassed heretofore—I mean, a real <i>University Debating +Society</i>, patronised by the Senatus, presided over by the +Professors, to which every one might gain ready admittance +on sight of his matriculation ticket, where it would be a +favour and not a necessity to speak, and where the obscure +student might have another object for attendance besides +the mere desire to save his fines: to wit, the chance of +drawing on himself the favourable consideration of his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58"></a>58</span> +teachers. This would be merely following in the good +tendency, which has been so noticeable during all this +session, to increase and multiply student societies and clubs +of every sort. Nor would it be a matter of much difficulty. +The united societies would form a nucleus: one of the +class-rooms at first, and perhaps afterwards the great hall +above the library, might be the place of meeting. There +would be no want of attendance or enthusiasm, I am sure; +for it is a very different thing to speak under the bushel of +a private club on the one hand, and, on the other, in a +public place, where a happy period or a subtle argument +may do the speaker permanent service in after life. Such +a club might end, perhaps, by rivalling the “Union” at +Cambridge or the “Union” at Oxford.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<h3>THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS<a name="FnAnchor_36" id="FnAnchor_36" href="#Footnote_36"><span class="sp">36</span></a></h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">It</span> is wonderful to think what a turn has been given to +our whole Society by the fact that we live under the sign +of Aquarius,—that our climate is essentially wet. A mere +arbitrary distinction, like the walking-swords of yore, +might have remained the symbol of foresight and respectability, +had not the raw mists and dropping showers of +our island pointed the inclination of Society to another exponent +of those virtues. A ribbon of the Legion of Honour +or a string of medals may prove a person’s courage; a +title may prove his birth; a professorial chair his study and +acquirement; but it is the habitual carriage of the umbrella +that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has +become the acknowledged index of social position. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59"></a>59</span></p> + +<p>Robinson Crusoe presents us with a touching instance +of the hankering after them inherent in the civilised and +educated mind. To the superficial, the hot suns of Juan +Fernandez may sufficiently account for his quaint choice +of a luxury; but surely one who had borne the hard labour +of a seaman under the tropics for all these years could have +supported an excursion after goats or a peaceful <i>constitutional</i> +arm in arm with the nude Friday. No, it was not this: +the memory of a vanished respectability called for some +outward manifestation, and the result was—an umbrella. +A pious castaway might have rigged up a belfry and solaced +his Sunday mornings with the mimicry of church-bells; +but Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his +leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilised mind +striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as +we have ever met with.</p> + +<p>It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has +become the very foremost badge of modern civilisation—the +Urim and Thummim of respectability. Its pregnant +symbolism has taken its rise in the most natural manner. +Consider, for a moment, when umbrellas were first introduced +into this country, what manner of men would use them, and +what class would adhere to the useless but ornamental cane. +The first, without doubt, would be the hypochondriacal, +out of solicitude for their health, or the frugal, out of care +for their raiment; the second, it is equally plain, would +include the fop, the fool, and the Bobadil. Any one +acquainted with the growth of Society, and knowing out +of what small seeds of cause are produced great revolutions, +and wholly new conditions of intercourse, sees from this +simple thought how the carriage of an umbrella came to +indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily welfare, and +scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all +those homely and solid virtues implied in the term <span class="sc">RESPECTABILITY</span>. +Not that the umbrella’s costliness has +nothing to do with its great influence. Its possession, +besides symbolising (as we have already indicated) the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60"></a>60</span> +change from wild Esau to plain Jacob dwelling in tents, +implies a certain comfortable provision of fortune. It is +not every one that can expose twenty-six shillings’ worth +of property to so many chances of loss and theft. So +strongly do we feel on this point, indeed, that we are almost +inclined to consider all who possess really well-conditioned +umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They have a qualification +standing in their lobbies; they carry a sufficient +stake in the common-weal below their arm. One who +bears with him an umbrella—such a complicated structure +of whalebone, of silk, and of cane, that it becomes a very +microcosm of modern industry—is necessarily a man of +peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an offender’s +head on a very moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty +shilling silk is a possession too precious to be +adventured in the shock of war.</p> + +<p>These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the +general) came to their present high estate. But the true +Umbrella-Philosopher meets with far stranger applications +as he goes about the streets.</p> + +<p>Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with +the individual who carries them: indeed, they are far +more capable of betraying his trust; for whereas a face +is given to us so far ready made, and all our power over it +is in frowning, and laughing, and grimacing, during the +first three or four decades of life, each umbrella is selected +from a whole shopful, as being most consonant to the purchaser’s +disposition. An undoubted power of diagnosis +rests with the practised Umbrella-Philosopher. O you who +lisp, and amble, and change the fashion of your countenances—you +who conceal all these, how little do you think that +you left a proof of your weakness in our umbrella-stand—that +even now, as you shake out the folds to meet the +thickening snow, we read in its ivory handle the outward +and visible sign of your snobbery, or from the exposed +gingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat, +the hidden hypocrisy of the “<i>dickey</i>”! But alas! even +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61"></a>61</span> +the umbrella is no certain criterion. The falsity and the +folly of the human race have degraded that graceful symbol +to the ends of dishonesty; and while some umbrellas, from +carelessness in selection, are not strikingly characteristic +(for it is only in what a man loves that he displays his real +nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen +directly opposite to the person’s disposition. A mendacious +umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy +naturally shelters itself below a silk; while the fast youth +goes to visit his religious friends armed with the decent and +reputable gingham. May it not be said of the bearers of +these inappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets +“with a lie in their right hand”?</p> + +<p>The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated +social scale of umbrellas (which was a good thing), +prevented the great bulk of their subjects from having any +at all, which was certainly a bad thing. We should be sorry +to believe that this Eastern legislator was a fool—the +idea of an aristocracy of umbrellas is too philosophic to +have originated in a nobody,—and we have accordingly +taken exceeding pains to find out the reason of this harsh +restriction. We think we have succeeded; but, while +admiring the principle at which he aimed, and while +cordially recognising in the Siamese potentate the only man +before ourselves who had taken a real grasp of the umbrella, +we must be allowed to point out how unphilosophically the +great man acted in this particular. His object, plainly, +was to prevent any unworthy persons from bearing the +sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We cannot excuse his +limiting these virtues to the circle of his court. We must +only remember that such was the feeling of the age in which +he lived. Liberalism had not yet raised the war-cry of +the working classes. But here was his mistake: it was a +needless regulation. Except in a very few cases of hypocrisy +joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature <i>umbrellarians</i>, +have tried again and again to become so by art, +and yet have failed—have expended their patrimony in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62"></a>62</span> +the purchase of umbrella after umbrella, and yet have +systematically lost them, and have finally, with contrite +spirits and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, +and relied on theft and borrowing for the remainder of their +lives. This is the most remarkable fact that we have had +occasion to notice; and yet we challenge the candid reader +to call it in question. Now, as there cannot be any <i>moral +selection</i> in a mere dead piece of furniture—as the umbrella +cannot be supposed to have an affinity for individual men +equal and reciprocal to that which men certainly feel toward +individual umbrellas,—we took the trouble of consulting +a scientific friend as to whether there was any possible +physical explanation of the phenomenon. He was unable +to supply a plausible theory, or even hypothesis; but we +extract from his letter the following interesting passage +relative to the physical peculiarities of umbrellas: “Not +the least important, and by far the most curious property +of the umbrella, is the energy which it displays in affecting +the atmospheric strata. There is no fact in meteorology +better established—indeed, it is almost the only one on +which meteorologists are agreed—than that the carriage +of an umbrella produces desiccation of the air; while if it +be left at home, aqueous vapour is largely produced, and +is soon deposited in the form of rain. No theory,” my +friend continues, “competent to explain this hygrometric +law has been given (as far as I am aware) by Herschel, +Dove, Glaisher, Tait, Buchan, or any other writer; nor do I +pretend to supply the defect. I venture, however, to throw +out the conjecture that it will be ultimately found to belong +to the same class of natural laws as that agreeable to which +a slice of toast always descends with the buttered surface +downwards.”</p> + +<p>But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate +much longer upon this topic, but want of space constrains +us to leave unfinished these few desultory remarks—slender +contributions towards a subject which has fallen sadly backward, +and which, we grieve to say, was better understood +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63"></a>63</span> +by the king of Siam in 1686 than by all the philosophers of +to-day. If, however, we have awakened in any rational +mind an interest in the symbolism of umbrellas—in any +generous heart a more complete sympathy with the dumb +companion of his daily walk,—or in any grasping spirit a +pure notion of respectability strong enough to make him +expend his six-and-twenty shillings—we shall have deserved +well of the world, to say nothing of the many industrious +persons employed in the manufacture of the article.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36" href="#FnAnchor_36"><span class="fn">36</span></a> “This paper was written in collaboration with James Walter +Ferrier, and if reprinted this is to be stated, though his principal +collaboration was to lie back in an easy-chair and laugh.”—[R. L. S., +<i>Oct</i>. 25, 1894.]</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>V</h5> + +<h3>THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE</h3> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“How many Cæsars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the +names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many are +there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not +their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus’d +into nothing?”—“Tristram Shandy,” vol. i. chap. xix.</p> +</div> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Such</span> were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., +Turkey merchant. To the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy +is the first who fairly pointed out the incalculable influence +of nomenclature upon the whole life—who seems first to +have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic appellation, +soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, +like the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down +by sheer weight of name into the abysses of social failure. +Solomon possibly had his eye on some such theory when +he said that “a good name is better than precious ointment”; +and perhaps we may trace a similar spirit in the compilers +of the English Catechism, and the affectionate interest with +which they linger round the catechumen’s name at the very +threshold of their work. But, be these as they may, I +think no one can censure me for appending, in pursuance +of the expressed wish of his son, the Turkey merchant’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64"></a>64</span> +name to his system, and pronouncing, without further +preface, a short epitome of the “Shandean Philosophy of +Nomenclature.”</p> + +<p>To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself +felt from the very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the +pride with which I hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and +Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and the feeling of +sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I found a +freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single +one of my numerous <i>prænomina</i>. Look at the delight with +which two children find they have the same name. They +are friends from that moment forth; they have a bond of +union stronger than exchange of nuts and sweetmeats. +This feeling, I own, wears off in later life. Our names +lose their freshness and interest, become trite and +indifferent. But this, dear reader, is merely one of +the sad effects of those “shades of the prison-house” +which come gradually betwixt us and nature with +advancing years; it affords no weapon against the +philosophy of names.</p> + +<p>In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that +name which careless godfathers lightly applied to your +unconscious infancy will have been moulding your character, +and influencing with irresistible power the whole +course of your earthly fortunes. But the last name, overlooked +by Mr. Shandy, is no whit less important as a condition +of success. Family names, we must recollect, are +but inherited nicknames; and if the <i>sobriquet</i> were applicable +to the ancestor, it is most likely applicable to the +descendant also. You would not expect to find Mr. +M’Phun acting as a mute, or Mr. M’Lumpha excelling as a +professor of dancing. Therefore, in what follows, we shall +consider names, independent of whether they are first or +last. And to begin with, look what a pull <i>Cromwell</i> had +over <i>Pym</i>—the one name full of a resonant imperialism, the +other, mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a degree. Who +would expect eloquence from <i>Pym</i>—who would read poems +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65"></a>65</span> +by <i>Pym</i>—who would bow to the opinion of <i>Pym</i>? He +might have been a dentist, but he should never have aspired +to be a statesman. I can only wonder that he succeeded +as he did. Pym and Habakkuk stand first upon the roll of +men who have triumphed, by sheer force of genius, over +the most unfavourable appellations. But even these have +suffered; and, had they been more fitly named, the one +might have been Lord Protector, and the other have shared +the laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must not forget +that all our great poets have borne great names. Chaucer, +Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley—what +a constellation of lordly words! Not a single +common-place name among them—not a Brown, not a +Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that one would +stop and look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if <i>Pepys</i> +had tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, +what a blot would that word have made upon the list! +The thing was impossible. In the first place a certain +natural consciousness that men would have held him down +to the level of his name, would have prevented him from +rising above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld +him altogether from attempting verse. Next, the book-sellers +would refuse to publish, and the world to read them, +on the mere evidence of the fatal appellation. And now, +before I close this section, I must say one word as to +<i>punnable</i> names, names that stand alone, that have a +significance and life apart from him that bears them. +These are the bitterest of all. One friend of mine goes +bowed and humbled through life under the weight +of this misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a +man’s name is a joke, when he cannot be mentioned +without exciting merriment, and when even the intimation +of his death bids fair to carry laughter into many +a home.</p> + +<p>So much for people who are badly named. Now for +people who are <i>too</i> well named, who go top-heavy from the +font, who are baptized into a false position, and find themselves +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66"></a>66</span> +beginning life eclipsed under the fame of some of the +great ones of the past. A man, for instance, called William +Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He is thrown +into too humbling an apposition with the author of <i>Hamlet.</i> +His own name coming after is such an anti-climax. “The +plays of William Shakespeare”? says the reader—“O no! +The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill,” and he throws +the book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John +Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us in this +favoured town, has never attempted to write an epic, but +has chosen a new path, and has excelled upon the tight-rope. +A marked example of triumph over this is the case of Mr. +Dante Gabriel Rossetti. On the face of the matter, I +should have advised him to imitate the pleasing modesty +of the last-named gentleman, and confine his ambition +to the sawdust. But Mr. Rossetti has triumphed. +He has even dared to translate from his mighty name-father; +and the voice of fame supports him in his +boldness.</p> + +<p>Dear readers, one might write a year upon this matter. +A lifetime of comparison and research could scarce suffice +for its elucidation. So here, if it please you, we shall let +it rest. Slight as these notes have been, I would that the +great founder of the system had been alive to see them. +How he had warmed and brightened, how his persuasive +eloquence would have fallen on the ears of Toby; and +what a letter of praise and sympathy would not the editor +have received before the month was out! Alas, the thing +was not to be. Walter Shandy died and was duly buried, +while yet his theory lay forgotten and neglected by his +fellow-countrymen. But, reader, the day will come, I +hope, when a paternal government will stamp out, as seeds +of national weakness, all depressing patronymics, and when +godfathers and godmothers will soberly and earnestly +debate the interest of the nameless one, and not rush +blindfold to the christening. In these days there shall be +written a “Godfather’s Assistant,” in shape of a dictionary +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"></a>67</span> +of names, with their concomitant virtues and vices; and +this book shall be scattered broadcast through the land, +and shall be on the table of every one eligible for god-fathership, +until such a thing as a vicious or untoward +appellation shall have ceased from off the face of the +earth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page68"></a>68</span></p> + + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page69"></a>69</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>NOTES AND ESSAYS</h2> +<h3>CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD</h3> +<hr class="full" /> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page70"></a>70</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71"></a>71</span></p> +<hr class="art" /> +<h2>NOTES AND ESSAYS</h2> +<h3>CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD</h3> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<h3>A RETROSPECT</h3> + +<p class="center1">(<i>A Fragment: written at Dunoon, 1870</i>)</p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">If</span> there is anything that delights me in Hazlitt, beyond +the charm of style and the unconscious portrait of a vain +and powerful spirit, which his works present, it is the loving +and tender way in which he returns again to the memory of +the past. These little recollections of bygone happiness +were too much a part of the man to be carelessly or poorly +told. The imaginary landscapes and visions of the most +ecstatic dreamer can never rival such recollections, told +simply perhaps, but still told (as they could not fail to be) +with precision, delicacy, and evident delight. They are too +much loved by the author not to be palated by the reader. +But beyond the mere felicity of pencil, the nature of the +piece could never fail to move my heart. When I read his +essay “On the Past and Future,” every word seemed to be +something I had said myself. I could have thought he +had been eavesdropping at the doors of my heart, so entire +was the coincidence between his writing and my thought. +It is a sign perhaps of a somewhat vain disposition. The +future is nothing; but the past is myself, my own history, +the seed of my present thoughts, the mould of my present +disposition. It is not in vain that I return to the nothings +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72"></a>72</span> +of my childhood; for every one of them has left some stamp +upon me or put some fetter on my boasted free-will. In +the past is my present fate; and in the past also is my real +life. It is not the past only, but the past that has been +many years in that tense. The doings and actions of last +year are as uninteresting and vague to me as the blank gulf +of the future, the <i>tabula rasa</i> that may never be anything +else. I remember a confused hotch-potch of unconnected +events, a “chaos without form, and void”; but nothing +salient or striking rises from the dead level of “flat, stale, +and unprofitable” generality. When we are looking at a +landscape we think ourselves pleased; but it is only when +it comes back upon us by the fire o’ nights that we can disentangle +the main charm from the thick of particulars. +It is just so with what is lately past. It is too much loaded +with detail to be distinct; and the canvas is too large for +the eye to encompass. But this is no more the case when +our recollections have been strained long enough through +the hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen +of so much thought, the charm and comfort of so many a +vigil. All that is worthless has been sieved and sifted out +of them. Nothing remains but the brightest lights and the +darkest shadows. When we see a mountain country near +at hand, the spurs and haunches crowd up in eager rivalry, +and the whole range seems to have shrugged its shoulders +to its ears, till we cannot tell the higher from the lower: +but when we are far off, these lesser prominences are melted +back into the bosom of the rest, or have set behind the +round horizon of the plain, and the highest peaks stand +forth in lone and sovereign dignity against the sky. It is +just the same with our recollections. We require to draw +back and shade our eyes before the picture dawns upon us +in full breadth and outline. Late years are still in limbo +to us; but the more distant past is all that we possess in +life, the corn already harvested and stored for ever in the +grange of memory. The doings of to-day at some future +time will gain the required offing; I shall learn to love the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73"></a>73</span> +things of my adolescence, as Hazlitt loved them, and as +I love already the recollections of my childhood. They will +gather interest with every year. They will ripen in forgotten +corners of my memory; and some day I shall +waken and find them vested with new glory and new +pleasantness.</p> + +<p>It is for stirring the chords of memory, then, that I love +Hazlitt’s essays, and for the same reason (I remember) he +himself threw in his allegiance to Rousseau, saying of him, +what was so true of his own writings: “He seems to gather +up the past moments of his being like drops of honey-dew +to distil some precious liquor from them; his alternate +pleasures and pains are the bead-roll that he tells over and +piously worships; he makes a rosary of the flowers of hope +and fancy that strewed his earliest years.” How true are +these words when applied to himself! and how much I +thank him that it was so! All my childhood is a golden +age to me. I have no recollection of bad weather. Except +one or two storms where grandeur had impressed itself on +my mind, the whole time seems steeped in sunshine. +“<i>Et ego in Arcadia vixi</i>” would be no empty boast upon +my grave. If I desire to live long, it is that I may have +the more to look back upon. Even to one, like the unhappy +Duchess,</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p class="i4">“Acquainted with sad misery</p> +<p>As the tamed galley-slave is with his oar,”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">and seeing over the night of troubles no “lily-wristed +morn” of hope appear, a retrospect of even chequered and +doubtful happiness in the past may sweeten the bitterness +of present tears. And here I may be excused if I quote a +passage from an unpublished drama (the unpublished is +perennial, I fancy) which the author believed was not all +devoid of the flavour of our elder dramatists. However +this may be, it expresses better than I could some further +thoughts on this same subject. The heroine is taken by +a minister to the grave, where already some have been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74"></a>74</span> +recently buried, and where her sister’s lover is destined to +rejoin them on the following day.<a name="FnAnchor_37" id="FnAnchor_37" href="#Footnote_37"><span class="sp">37</span></a></p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing: 3em; font-size: 150%;">......</p> + +<p>What led me to the consideration of this subject, and +what has made me take up my pen to-night, is the rather +strange coincidence of two very different accidents—a +prophecy of my future and a return into my past. No later +than yesterday, seated in the coffee-room here, there came +into the tap of the hotel a poor mad Highland woman. +The noise of her strained, thin voice brought me out to see +her. I could conceive that she had been pretty once, but +that was many years ago. She was now withered and +fallen-looking. Her hair was thin and straggling, her dress +poor and scanty. Her moods changed as rapidly as a +weathercock before a thunderstorm. One moment she +said her “mutch” was the only thing that gave her comfort, +and the next she slackened the strings and let it back upon +her neck, in a passion at it for making her too hot. Her talk +was a wild, somewhat weird, farrago of utterly meaningless +balderdash, mere inarticulate gabble, snatches of old +Jacobite ballads and exaggerated phrases from the drama, to +which she suited equally exaggerated action. She “babbled +of green fields” and Highland glens; she prophesied +“the drawing of the claymore,” with a lofty disregard of +cause or common-sense; and she broke out suddenly, with +uplifted hands and eyes, into ecstatic “Heaven bless +hims!” and “Heaven forgive hims!” She had been a +camp-follower in her younger days, and she was never +tired of expatiating on the gallantry, the fame, and the +beauty of the 42nd Highlanders. Her patriotism knew no +bounds, and her prolixity was much on the same scale. +This Witch of Endor offered to tell my fortune, with much +dignity and proper oracular enunciation. But on my +holding forth my hand a somewhat ludicrous incident +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page75"></a>75</span> +occurred. “Na, na,” she said; “wait till I have a draw +of my pipe.” Down she sat in the corner, puffing vigorously +and regaling the lady behind the counter with conversation +more remarkable for stinging satire than prophetic dignity. +The person in question had “mair weeg than hair on her +head” (did not the chignon plead guilty at these words?)—“wad +be better if she had less tongue”—and would +come at last to the grave, a goal which, in a few words, she +invested with “warning circumstance” enough to make a +Stoic shudder. Suddenly, in the midst of this, she rose +up and beckoned me to approach. The oracles of my +Highland sorceress had no claim to consideration except +in the matter of obscurity. In “question hard and sentence +intricate” she beat the priests of Delphi; in bold, unvarnished +falsity (as regards the past) even spirit-rapping +was a child to her. All that I could gather may be thus +summed up shortly: that I was to visit America, that I +was to be very happy, and that I was to be much upon the +sea, predictions which, in consideration of an uneasy +stomach, I can scarcely think agreeable with one another. +Two incidents alone relieved the dead level of idiocy and +incomprehensible gabble. The first was the comical +announcement that “when I drew fish to the Marquis of +Bute, I should take care of my sweetheart,” from which +I deduce the fact that at some period of my life I shall drive +a fishmonger’s cart. The second, in the middle of such +nonsense, had a touch of the tragic. She suddenly looked +at me with an eager glance, and dropped my hand saying, +in what were tones of misery or a very good affectation of +them, “Black eyes!” A moment after she was at work +again. It is as well to mention that I have not black +eyes.<a name="FnAnchor_38" id="FnAnchor_38" href="#Footnote_38"><span class="sp">38</span></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76"></a>76</span></p> + +<p>This incident, strangely blended of the pathetic and +the ludicrous, set my mind at work upon the future; but +I could find little interest in the study. Even the predictions +of my sibyl failed to allure me, nor could life’s prospect +charm and detain my attention like its retrospect.</p> + +<p>Not far from Dunoon is Rosemore, a house in which I +had spent a week or so in my very distant childhood, how +distant I have no idea; and one may easily conceive how +I looked forward to revisiting this place and so renewing +contact with my former self. I was under necessity to be +early up, and under necessity also, in the teeth of a bitter +spring north-easter, to clothe myself warmly on the morning +of my long-promised excursion. The day was as bright as +it was cold. Vast irregular masses of white and purple +cumulus drifted rapidly over the sky. The great hills, +brown with the bloomless heather, were here and there +buried in blue shadows, and streaked here and there with +sharp stripes of sun. The new-fired larches were green in +the glens; and “pale primroses” hid themselves in mossy +hollows and under hawthorn roots. All these things were +new to me; for I had noticed none of these beauties in +my younger days, neither the larch woods, nor the winding +road edged in between field and flood, nor the broad, +ruffled bosom of the hill-surrounded loch. It was, above +all, the height of these hills that astonished me. I remembered +the existence of hills, certainly, but the picture in +my memory was low, featureless, and uninteresting. They +seemed to have kept pace with me in my growth, but to a +gigantic scale; and the villas that I remembered as half-way +up the slope seemed to have been left behind like +myself, and now only ringed their mighty feet, white +among the newly kindled woods. As I felt myself on the +road at last that I had been dreaming for these many days +before, a perfect intoxication of joy took hold upon me; +and I was so pleased at my own happiness that I could let +none past me till I had taken them into my confidence. +I asked my way from every one, and took good care to let +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77"></a>77</span> +them all know, before they left me, what my object was, +and how many years had elapsed since my last visit. I +wonder what the good folk thought of me and my communications.</p> + +<p>At last, however, after much inquiry, I arrive at the +place, make my peace with the gardener, and enter. My +disillusion dates from the opening of the garden door. +I repine, I find a reluctation of spirit against believing that +this is the place. What, is this kailyard that inexhaustible +paradise of a garden in which M—— and I found “elbow-room,” +and expatiated together without sensible constraint? +Is that little turfed slope the huge and perilous green bank +down which I counted it a feat, and the gardener a sin, to +run? Are these two squares of stone, some two feet high, +the pedestals on which I walked with such a penetrating +sense of dizzy elevation, and which I had expected to find +on a level with my eyes? Ay, the place is no more like +what I expected than this bleak April day is like the +glorious September with which it is incorporated in my +memory. I look at the gardener, disappointment in my +face, and tell him that the place seems sorrily shrunken +from the high estate that it had held in my remembrance, +and he returns, with quiet laughter, by asking me how long +it is since I was there. I tell him, and he remembers me. +Ah! I say, I was a great nuisance, I believe. But no, my +good gardener will plead guilty to having kept no record +of my evil-doings, and I find myself much softened toward +the place and willing to take a kinder view and pardon its +shortcomings for the sake of the gardener and his pretended +recollection of myself. And it is just at this stage (to +complete my re-establishment) that I see a little boy—the +gardener’s grandchild—just about the same age and the +same height that I must have been in the days when I was +here last. My first feeling is one of almost anger, to see +him playing on the gravel where I had played before, as +if he had usurped something of my identity; but next +moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78"></a>78</span> +of the throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye +balls. I hastily join conversation with the child, and +inwardly felicitate myself that the gardener is opportunely +gone for the key of the house. But the child is a sort of +homily to me. He is perfectly quiet and resigned, an +unconscious hermit. I ask him jocularly if he gets as +much abused as I used to do for running down the bank; +but the child’s perfect seriousness of answer staggers me—“O +no, grandpapa doesn’t allow it—why should he?” +I feel caught: I stand abashed at the reproof; I must +not expose my childishness again to this youthful disciplinarian, +and so I ask him very stately what he is going +to be—a good serious practical question, out of delicacy +for his parts. He answers that he is going to be a missionary +to China, and tells me how a missionary once took him on +his knee and told him about missionary work, and asked +him if he, too, would not like to become one, to which the +child had simply answered in the affirmative. The child is +altogether so different from what I have been, is so absolutely +complementary to what I now am, that I turn away +not a little abashed from the conversation, for there is +always something painful in sudden contact with the good +qualities that we do not possess. Just then the grandfather +returns; and I go with him to the summer-house, where +I used to learn my Catechism, to the wall on which M—— +and I thought it no small exploit to walk upon, and all the +other places that I remembered.</p> + +<p>In fine, the matter being ended, I turn and go my way +home to the hotel, where, in the cold afternoon, I write +these notes with the table and chair drawn as near the fire +as the rug and the French polish will permit.</p> + +<p>One other thing I may as well make a note of, and that +is how there arises that strange contradiction of the hills +being higher than I had expected and everything near at +hand being so ridiculously smaller. This is a question I +think easily answered: the very terms of the problem +suggest the solution. To everything near at hand I applied +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79"></a>79</span> +my own stature, as a sort of natural unit of measurement, +so that I had no actual image of their dimensions but their +ratio to myself; so, of course, as one term of the proportion +changed, the other changed likewise, and as my own height +increased my notion of things near at hand became equally +expanded. But the hills, mark you, were out of my reach: +I could not apply myself to them: I had an actual, instead +of a proportional eidolon of their magnitude; so that, of +course (my eye being larger and flatter nowadays, and so +the image presented to me then being in sober earnest +smaller than the image presented to me now), I found the +hills nearly as much too great as I had found the other +things too small.</p> + +<p class="pt2">[<i>Added the next morning</i>.]—He who indulges habitually +in the intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for the very +reason that he reaps a greater pleasure than others, must +resign himself to a keener pain, a more intolerable and +utter prostration. It is quite possible, and even comparatively +easy, so to enfold oneself in pleasant fancies that +the realities of life may seem but as the white snow-shower +in the street, that only gives a relish to the swept hearth +and lively fire within. By such means I have forgotten +hunger, I have sometimes eased pain, and I have invariably +changed into the most pleasant hours of the day those very +vacant and idle seasons which would otherwise have hung +most heavily upon my hand. But all this is attained by +the undue prominence of purely imaginative joys, and consequently +the weakening and almost the destruction of +reality. This is buying at too great a price. There are +seasons when the imagination becomes somehow tranced +and surfeited, as it is with me this morning; and then +upon what can we fall back? The very faculty that we +have fostered and trusted has failed us in the hour of trial; +and we have so blunted and enfeebled our appetite for the +others that they are subjectively dead to us. It is just as +though a farmer should plant all his fields in potatoes, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80"></a>80</span> +instead of varying them with grain and pasture; and so, +when the disease comes, lose all his harvest, while his +neighbours, perhaps, may balance the profit and the loss. +Do not suppose that I am exaggerating when I talk about +all pleasures seeming stale. To me, at least, the edge of +almost everything is put on by imagination; and even +nature, in these days when the fancy is drugged and useless, +wants half the charm it has in better moments. I can no +longer see satyrs in the thicket, or picture a highwayman +riding down the lane. The fiat of indifference has gone +forth: I am vacant, unprofitable: a leaf on a river with +no volition and no aim: a mental drunkard the morning +after an intellectual debauch. Yes, I have a more subtle +opium in my own mind than any apothecary’s drug; but +it has a sting of its own, and leaves me as flat and +helpless as does the other.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37" href="#FnAnchor_37"><span class="fn">37</span></a> The quotation here promised from one of the author’s own early +dramatic efforts (a tragedy of Semiramis) is not supplied in the MS.—[<span class="sc">Sir +Sidney Colvin’s Note</span>.]</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38" href="#FnAnchor_38"><span class="fn">38</span></a> “The old pythoness was right,” adds the author in a note +appended to his MS. in 1887; “I have been happy: I did go to +America (am even going again—unless——): and I have been twice +and once upon the deep.” The seafaring part of the prophecy +remained to be fulfilled on a far more extended scale in his Pacific +voyages of 1888-90.—[<span class="sc">Sir Sidney Colvin’s Note.</span>]</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<h3>COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK</h3> + +<p class="center1">(<i>A Fragment</i>: 1871)</p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Very</span> much as a painter half closes his eyes so that some +salient unity may disengage itself from among the crowd +of details, and what he sees may thus form itself into a +whole; very much on the same principle, I may say, I +allow a considerable lapse of time to intervene between any +of my little journeyings and the attempt to chronicle them. +I cannot describe a thing that is before me at the moment, +or that has been before me only a very little while before; +I must allow my recollections to get thoroughly strained +free from all chaff till nothing be except the pure gold; +allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable +by a process of natural selection; and I piously believe +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81"></a>81</span> +that in this way I ensure the Survival of the Fittest. If +I make notes for future use, or if I am obliged to write +letters during the course of my little excursion, I so interfere +with the process that I can never again find out what is +worthy of being preserved, or what should be given in full +length, what in torso, or what merely in profile. This +process of incubation may be unreasonably prolonged; and +I am somewhat afraid that I have made this mistake with +the present journey. Like a bad daguerreotype, great part +of it has been entirely lost; I can tell you nothing about +the beginning and nothing about the end; but the doings +of some fifty or sixty hours about the middle remain quite +distinct and definite, like a little patch of sunshine on a +long, shadowy plain, or the one spot on an old picture that +has been restored by the dexterous hand of the cleaner. +I remember a tale of an old Scots minister, called upon +suddenly to preach, who had hastily snatched an old +sermon out of his study and found himself in the pulpit +before he noticed that the rats had been making free with +his manuscript and eaten the first two or three pages away; +he gravely explained to the congregation how he found +himself situated; “And now,” said he, “let us just begin +where the rats have left off.” I must follow the divine’s +example, and take up the thread of my discourse where it +first distinctly issues from the limbo of forgetfulness.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>COCKERMOUTH</h5> + +<p>I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at +Cockermouth, and did not raise my head until I was fairly +in the street. When I did so, it flashed upon me that I +was in England; the evening sunlight lit up English +houses, English faces, an English conformation of street,—as +it were, an English atmosphere blew against my face. +There is nothing perhaps more puzzling (if one thing in +sociology can ever really be more unaccountable than +another) than the great gulf that is set between England +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82"></a>82</span> +and Scotland—a gulf so easy in appearance, in reality so +difficult to traverse. Here are two people almost identical +in blood; pent up together on one small island, so that +their intercourse (one would have thought) must be as +close as that of prisoners who shared one cell of the Bastille; +the same in language and religion; and yet a few years of +quarrelsome isolation—a mere forenoon’s tiff, as one may +call it, in comparison with the great historical cycles—has +so separated their thoughts and ways that not unions, not +mutual dangers, nor steamers, nor railways, nor all the +king’s horses and all the king’s men, seem able to obliterate +the broad distinction. In the trituration of another +century or so the corners may disappear; but in the +meantime, in the year of grace 1871, I was as much in a +new country as if I had been walking out of the Hotel +St. Antoine at Antwerp.</p> + +<p>I felt a little thrill of pleasure at my heart as I realised +the change, and strolled away up the street with my hands +behind my back, noting in a dull, sensual way how foreign, +and yet how friendly, were the slopes of the gables and the +colour of the tiles, and even the demeanour and voices of +the gossips round about me.</p> + +<p>Wandering in this aimless humour, I turned up a lane +and found myself following the course of the bright little +river. I passed first one and then another, then a third, +several couples out love-making in the spring evening; +and a consequent feeling of loneliness was beginning to +grow upon me, when I came to a dam across the river, and +a mill—a great, gaunt promontory of building,—half on +dry ground and half arched over the stream. The road +here drew in its shoulders, and crept through between the +landward extremity of the mill and a little garden enclosure, +with a small house and a large signboard within its privet +hedge. I was pleased to fancy this an inn, and drew little +etchings in fancy of a sanded parlour, and three-cornered +spittoons, and a society of parochial gossips seated within +over their churchwardens; but as I drew near, the board +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83"></a>83</span> +displayed its superscription, and I could read the name of +Smethurst, and the designation of “Canadian Felt Hat +Manufacturers.” There was no more hope of evening +fellowship, and I could only stroll on by the river-side, +under the trees. The water was dappled with slanting +sunshine, and dusted all over with a little mist of flying +insects. There were some amorous ducks, also, whose love-making +reminded me of what I had seen a little farther +down. But the road grew sad, and I grew weary; and as +I was perpetually haunted with the terror of a return of +the tic that had been playing such ruin in my head a week +ago, I turned and went back to the inn, and supper, and +my bed.</p> + +<p>The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated to the +smart waitress my intention of continuing down the coast +and through Whitehaven to Furness, and, as I might have +expected, I was instantly confronted by that last and most +worrying form of interference, that chooses to introduce +tradition and authority into the choice of a man’s own +pleasures. I can excuse a person combating my religious +or philosophical heresies, because them I have deliberately +accepted, and am ready to justify by present argument. +But I do not seek to justify my pleasures. If I prefer +tame scenery to grand, a little hot sunshine over lowland +parks and woodlands to the war of the elements round the +summit of Mont Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of mild tobacco, +and the company of one or two chosen companions, to a +ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, and weary, +I merely state these preferences as facts, and do not seek +to establish them as principles. This is not the general +rule, however, and accordingly the waitress was shocked, +as one might be at a heresy, to hear the route that I had +sketched out for myself. Everybody who came to Cockermouth +for pleasure, it appeared, went on to Keswick. It +was in vain that I put up a little plea for the liberty of the +subject; it was in vain that I said I should prefer to go to +Whitehaven. I was told that there was “nothing to see +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84"></a>84</span> +there”—that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; and at +last, as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I +gave way, as men always do in such circumstances, and +agreed that I was to leave for Keswick by a train in the +early evening.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>AN EVANGELIST</h5> + +<p>Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a place +with “nothing to see”; nevertheless I saw a good deal, +and retain a pleasant, vague picture of the town and all its +surroundings. I might have dodged happily enough all +day about the main street and up to the castle and in and +out of byways, but the curious attraction that leads a +person in a strange place to follow, day after day, the same +round, and to make set habits for himself in a week or ten +days, led me half unconsciously up the same road that I +had gone the evening before. When I came up to the hat +manufactory, Smethurst himself was standing in the garden +gate. He was brushing one Canadian felt hat, and several +others had been put to await their turn one above the +other on his own head, so that he looked something like +the typical Jew old-clothesman. As I drew near, he came +sidling out of the doorway to accost me, with so curious an +expression on his face that I instinctively prepared myself +to apologise for some unwitting trespass. His first question +rather confirmed me in this belief, for it was whether or +not he had seen me going up this way last night; and after +having answered in the affirmative, I waited in some alarm +for the rest of my indictment. But the good man’s heart +was full of peace; and he stood there brushing his hats and +prattling on about fishing, and walking, and the pleasures +of convalescence, in a bright shallow stream that kept me +pleased and interested, I could scarcely say how. As he +went on, he warmed to his subject, and laid his hats aside +to go along the water-side and show me where the large +trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85"></a>85</span> +and he was much disappointed, for my sake, that there were +none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another +tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow +in the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known +me before, or, if not me, some friend of mine—merely, I +believe, out of a desire that we should feel more friendly +and at our ease with one another. At last he made a little +speech to me, of which I wish I could recollect the very +words, for they were so simple and unaffected that they +put all the best writing and speaking to the blush; as it +is, I can recall only the sense, and that perhaps imperfectly. +He began by saying that he had little things in his past life +that it gave him especial pleasure to recall; and that the +faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now died +out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and +active. Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on +the river above the dam which he was going to lend me, +in order that I might be able to look back, in after years, +upon having done so, and get great pleasure from the +recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who will +forego present enjoyments and suffer much present inconvenience +for the sake of manufacturing “a reminiscence” +for himself; but there was something singularly refined +in this pleasure that the hatmaker found in making reminiscences +for others; surely no more simple or unselfish +luxury can be imagined. After he had unmoored his little +embarkation, and seen me safely shoved off into mid-stream, +he ran away back to his hats with the air of a man who had +only just recollected that he had anything to do.</p> + +<p>I did not stay very long on the raft. It ought to have +been very nice punting about there in the cool shade of the +trees, or sitting moored to an overhanging root; but +perhaps the very notion that I was bound in gratitude +specially to enjoy my little cruise, and cherish its recollection, +turned the whole thing from a pleasure into a duty. Be +that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and +came ashore again, and that it gives me more pleasure to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86"></a>86</span> +recall the man himself and his simple, happy conversation, +so full of gusto and sympathy, than anything possibly +connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. In order +to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself +for having failed to enjoy this treat sufficiently, I determined +to continue up the river, and, at all prices, to find +some other way back into the town in time for dinner. +As I went, I was thinking of Smethurst with admiration; +a look into that man’s mind was like a retrospect over the +smiling champaign of his past life, and very different from +the Sinai-gorges up which one looks for a terrified moment +into the dark souls of many good, many wise, and many +prudent men. I cannot be very grateful to such men for +their excellence, and wisdom, and prudence. I find myself +facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, full +of doubt, difficulties, defeats, disappointments, and dangers, +quite a hard enough life without their dark countenances at +my elbow, so that what I want is a happy-minded Smethurst +placed here and there at ugly corners of my life’s wayside, +preaching his gospel of quiet and contentment.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>ANOTHER</h5> + +<p>I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another +stamp. After I had forced my way through a gentleman’s +grounds, I came out on the high road, and sat down +to rest myself on a heap of stones at the top of a long hill, +with Cockermouth lying snugly at the bottom. An Irish +beggar-woman, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came +up to ask for alms, and gradually fell to telling me the +little tragedy of her life. Her own sister, she told me, had +seduced her husband from her after many years of married +life, and the pair had fled, leaving her destitute, with the +little girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful and +cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the loss +of her husband’s earnings, she made no pretence of despair +at the loss of his affection; some day she would meet the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87"></a>87</span> +fugitives, and the law would see her duly righted, and in +the meantime the smallest contribution was gratefully +received. While she was telling all this in the most matter-of-fact +way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall man, +with a high white hat and darkish clothes. He came up +the hill at a rapid pace, and joined our little group with a +sort of half salutation. Turning at once to the woman, +he asked her in a business-like way whether she had anything +to do, whether she were a Catholic or a Protestant, whether +she could read, and so forth; and then, after a few kind +words and some sweeties to the child, he despatched the +mother with some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and +the Orangeman’s Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt +manner, for he was still a young man, and had somewhat +the air of a navy officer; but he tackled me with great +solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, for I do +not think it was very wise; but the subject does not +appear to me just now in a jesting light, so I shall only +say that he related to me his own conversion, which had +been effected (as is very often the case) through the +agency of a gig accident, and that, after having examined +me and diagnosed my case, he selected some suitable +tracts from his repertory, gave them to me, and, bidding +me God-speed, went on his way.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>LAST OF SMETHURST</h5> + +<p>That evening I got into a third-class carriage on my +way for Keswick, and was followed almost immediately +by a burly man in brown clothes. This fellow-passenger +was seemingly ill at ease, and kept continually putting his +head out of the window, and asking the bystanders if they +saw <i>him</i> coming. At last, when the train was already in +motion, there was a commotion on the platform, and a way +was left clear to our carriage door. <i>He</i> had arrived. In +the hurry I could just see Smethurst, red and panting, +thrust a couple of clay pipes into my companion’s outstretched +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88"></a>88</span> +hand, and hear him crying his farewells after us +as we slipped out of the station at an ever accelerating +pace. I said something about its being a close run, and +the broad man, already engaged in filling one of the pipes, +assented, and went on to tell me of his own stupidity in +forgetting a necessary, and of how his friend had good-naturedly +gone down town at the last moment to supply the +omission. I mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst +already, and that he had been very polite to me; and we +fell into a discussion of the hatter’s merits that lasted +some time and left us quite good friends at its conclusion. +The topic was productive of goodwill. We exchanged +tobacco and talked about the season, and agreed at last +that we should go to the same hotel at Keswick and sup in +company. As he had some business in the town which +would occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to +improve the time and go down to the lake, that I might +see a glimpse of the promised wonders.</p> + +<p>The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, +at a place where many pleasure-boats are moored and +ready for hire; and as I went along a stony path, between +wood and water, a strong wind blew in gusts from the far +end of the lake. The sky was covered with flying scud; +and, as this was ragged, there was quite a wild chase of +shadow and moon-glimpse over the surface of the shuddering +water. I had to hold my hat on, and was growing rather +tired, and inclined to go back in disgust, when a little +incident occurred to break the tedium. A sudden and +violent squall of wind sundered the low underwood, and +at the same time there came one of those brief discharges +of moonlight, which leaped into the opening thus made, +and showed me three girls in the prettiest flutter and disorder. +It was as though they had sprung out of the ground. +I accosted them very politely in my capacity of stranger, +and requested to be told the names of all manner of hills +and woods and places that I did not wish to know, and we +stood together for a while and had an amusing little talk. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89"></a>89</span> +The wind, too, made himself of the party, brought the +colour into their faces, and gave them enough to do to +repress their drapery; and one of them, amid much giggling, +had to pirouette round and round upon her toes (as girls +do) when some specially strong gust had got the advantage +over her. They were just high enough up in the social +order not to be afraid to speak to a gentleman; and just +low enough to feel a little tremor, a nervous consciousness +of wrong-doing—of stolen waters, that gave a considerable +zest to our most innocent interview. They were as much +discomposed and fluttered, indeed, as if I had been a +wicked baron proposing to elope with the whole trio; but +they showed no inclination to go away, and I had managed +to get them off hills and waterfalls and on to more promising +subjects, when a young man was descried coming along +the path from the direction of Keswick. Now whether he +was the young man of one of my friends, or the brother of +one of them, or indeed the brother of all, I do not know; +but they incontinently said that they must be going, and +went away up the path with friendly salutations. I need +not say that I found the lake and the moonlight rather dull +after their departure and speedily found my way back to +potted herrings and whisky-and-water in the commercial +room with my late fellow-traveller. In the smoking-room +there was a tall dark man with a moustache, in an ulster +coat, who had got the best place and was monopolising +most of the talk; and, as I came in, a whisper came round +to me from both sides, that this was the manager of a +London theatre. The presence of such a man was a great +event for Keswick, and I must own that the manager +showed himself equal to his position. He had a large fat +pocket-book, from which he produced poem after poem, +written on the backs of letters or hotel-bills; and nothing +could be more humorous than his recitation of these elegant +extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with which he varied +the entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, something less +countrified in my appearance than in most of the company, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90"></a>90</span> +he singled me out to corroborate some statements as to +the depravity and vice of the aristocracy, and when he +went on to describe some gilded saloon experiences, I am +proud to say that he honoured my sagacity with one little +covert wink before a second time appealing to me for confirmation. +The wink was not thrown away; I went in +up to the elbows with the manager, until I think that some +of the glory of that great man settled by reflection upon +me, and that I was as noticeably the second person in +the smoking-room as he was the first. For a young man, +this was a position of some distinction, I think you will +admit....</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<h3>ROADS</h3> + +<p class="center1">(1873)</p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">No</span> amateur will deny that he can find more pleasure in +a single drawing, over which he can sit a whole quiet forenoon, +and so gradually study himself into humour with +the artist, than he can ever extract from the dazzle and +accumulation of incongruous impressions that send him, +weary and stupefied, out of some famous picture-gallery. +But what is thus admitted with regard to art is not extended +to the (so-called) natural beauties: no amount of excess +in sublime mountain outline or the graces of cultivated +lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or +degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that +moderation, and a regimen tolerably austere, even in +scenery, are not healthful and strengthening to the taste; +and that the best school for a lover of nature is not to be +found in one of those countries where there is no stage +effect—nothing salient or sudden,—but a quiet spirit of +orderly and harmonious beauty pervades all the details, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91"></a>91</span> +so that we can patiently attend to each of the little touches +that strike in us, all of them together, the subdued note +of the landscape. It is in scenery such as this that we find +ourselves in the right temper to seek out small sequestered +loveliness. The constant recurrence of similar combinations +of colour and outline gradually forces upon us a sense of +how the harmony has been built up, and we become familiar +with something of nature’s mannerism. This is the true +pleasure of your “rural voluptuary,”—not to remain awe-stricken +before a Mount Chimborazo; not to sit deafened +over the big drum in the orchestra, but day by day to teach +himself some new beauty—to experience some new vague +and tranquil sensation that has before evaded him. It +is not the people who “have pined and hungered after +nature many a year, in the great city pent,” as Coleridge +said in the poem that made Charles Lamb so much ashamed +of himself; it is not those who make the greatest progress +in this intimacy with her, or who are most quick to see and +have the greatest gusto to enjoy. In this, as in everything +else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued loving +industry that make the true dilettante. A man must have +thought much over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy +it. It is no youngling enthusiasm on hill-tops that can +possess itself of the last essence of beauty. Probably most +people’s heads are growing bare before they can see all in +a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; and, +even then, it will be only for one little moment of consummation +before the faculties are again on the decline, +and they that look out of the windows begin to be darkened +and restrained in sight. Thus the study of nature should +be carried forward thoroughly and with system. Every +gratification should be rolled long under the tongue, and +we should be always eager to analyse and compare, in +order that we may be able to give some plausible reason for +our admirations. True, it is difficult to put even approximately +into words the kind of feelings thus called into play. +There is a dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92"></a>92</span> +refining upon vague sensation. The analysis of such +satisfactions lends itself very readily to literary affectations; +and we can all think of instances where it has shown itself +apt to exercise a morbid influence, even upon an author’s +choice of language and the turn of his sentences. And yet +there is much that makes the attempt attractive; for any +expression, however imperfect, once given to a cherished +feeling, seems a sort of legitimation of the pleasure we take +in it. A common sentiment is one of those great goods +that make life palatable and ever new. The knowledge +that another has felt as we have felt, and seen things, even +if they are little things, not much otherwise than we have +seen them, will continue to the end to be one of life’s +choicest pleasures.</p> + +<p>Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit we have +recommended to some of the quieter kinds of English landscape. +In those homely and placid agricultural districts, +familiarity will bring into relief many things worthy of +notice, and urge them pleasantly home to him by a sort of +loving repetition; such as the wonderful life-giving speed +of windmill sails above the stationary country; the occurrence +and recurrence of the same church tower at the end +of one long vista after another; and, conspicuous among +these sources of quiet pleasure, the character and variety of +the road itself, along which he takes his way. Not only +near at hand, in the lithe contortions with which it adapts +itself to the interchanges of level and slope, but far away +also, when he sees a few hundred feet of it upheaved against +a hill and shining in the afternoon sun, he will find it an +object so changeful and enlivening that he can always +pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may leave the +river-side, or fall out of the way of villages, but the road he +has always with him; and, in the true humour of observation, +will find in that sufficient company. From its subtle +windings and changes of level there arises a keen and continuous +interest, that keeps the attention ever alert and +cheerful. Every sensitive adjustment to the contour of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93"></a>93</span> +ground, every little dip and swerve, seems instinct with +life and an exquisite sense of balance and beauty. The +road rolls upon the easy slopes of the country, like a long +ship in the hollows of the sea. The very margins of waste +ground, as they trench a little farther on the beaten way, +or recede again to the shelter of the hedge, have something +of the same free delicacy of line—of the same swing and +wilfulness. You might think for a whole summer’s day +(and not have thought it any nearer an end by evening) +what concourse and succession of circumstances has produced +the least of these deflections; and it is, perhaps, just +in this that we should look for the secret of their interest. +A footpath across a meadow—in all its human waywardness +and unaccountability, in all the <i>grata protervitas</i> of its +varying direction—will always be more to us than a railroad +well engineered through a difficult country.<a name="FnAnchor_39" id="FnAnchor_39" href="#Footnote_39"><span class="sp">39</span></a> No reasoned +sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem to have +slipped for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule +of cause and effect; and so we revert at once to some of +the pleasant old heresies of personification, always poetically +orthodox, and attribute a sort of free will, an active and +spontaneous life, to the white riband of road that lengthens +out, and bends, and cunningly adapts itself to the inequalities +of the land before our eyes. We remember, as we write, +some miles of fine wide highway laid out with conscious +æsthetic artifice through a broken and richly cultivated +tract of country. It is said that the engineer had Hogarth’s +line of beauty in his mind as he laid them down. And the +result is striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes +with easy transition into another, and there is nothing to +trouble or dislocate the strong continuousness of the main +line of the road. And yet there is something wanting. +There is here no saving imperfection, none of these secondary +curves and little trepidations of direction that carry, in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94"></a>94</span> +natural roads, our curiosity actively along with them. +One feels at once that this road has not grown like a natural +road, but has been laboriously made to pattern; and that, +while a model may be academically correct in outline, it will +always be inanimate and cold. The traveller is also aware +of a sympathy of mood between himself and the road he +travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into +heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the +dunes like a trodden serpent: here we too must plod +forward at a dull, laborious pace; and so a sympathy is +preserved between our frame of mind and the expression +of the relaxed, heavy curves of the roadway. Such a +phenomenon, indeed, our reason might perhaps resolve +with a little trouble. We might reflect that the present +road had been developed out of a track spontaneously +followed by generations of primitive wayfarers; and might +see in its expression a testimony that those generations had +been affected at the same ground, one after another, in the +same manner as we are affected to-day. Or we might carry +the reflection further, and remind ourselves that where the +air is invigorating and the ground firm under the traveller’s +foot, his eye is quick to take advantage of small undulations, +and he will turn carelessly aside from the direct way wherever +there is anything beautiful to examine or some promise +of a wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may +permanently bias and deform the straight path over the +meadow; whereas, where the soil is heavy, one is preoccupied +with the labour of mere progression, and goes +with a bowed head heavily and unobservantly forward. +Reason, however, will not carry us the whole way; for the +sentiment often recurs in situations where it is very hard +to imagine any possible explanation; and indeed, if we +drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open +vehicle, we shall experience this sympathy almost at its +fullest. We feel the sharp settle of the springs at some +curiously twisted corner; after a steep ascent, the fresh +air dances in our faces as we rattle precipitately down the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95"></a>95</span> +other side, and we find It difficult to avoid attributing +something headlong, a sort of <i>abandon</i>, to the road itself.</p> + +<p>The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven a +long day’s walk in even a commonplace or dreary country-side. +Something that we have seen from miles back, upon +an eminence, is so long hid from us, as we wander through +folded valleys or among woods, that our expectation of +seeing it again is sharpened into a violent appetite, and as +we draw nearer we impatiently quicken our steps and +turn every corner with a beating heart. It is through these +prolongations of expectancy, this succession of one hope to +another, that we live out long seasons of pleasure in a few +hours’ walk. It is in following these capricious sinuosities +that we learn, only bit by bit and through one coquettish +reticence after another, much as we learn the heart of a +friend, the whole loveliness of the country. This disposition +always preserves something new to be seen, and takes us, +like a careful cicerone, to many different points of distant +view before it allows us finally to approach the hoped-for +destination.</p> + +<p>In its connection with the traffic, and whole friendly +intercourse with the country, there is something very +pleasant in that succession of saunterers and brisk and +business-like passers-by, that peoples our ways and helps +to build up what Walt Whitman calls “the cheerful voice +of the public road, the gay, fresh sentiment of the road.” +But out of the great network of ways that binds all life +together from the hill-farm to the city, there is something +individual to most, and, on the whole, nearly as much +choice on the score of company as on the score of beauty +or easy travel. On some we are never long without the +sound of wheels, and folk pass us by so thickly that we +lose the sense of their number. But on others, about little-frequented +districts, a meeting is an affair of moment; we +have the sight far off of some one coming towards us, the +growing definiteness of the person, and then the brief +passage and salutation, and the road left empty in front +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96"></a>96</span> +of us for perhaps a great while to come. Such encounters +have a wistful interest that can hardly be understood by +the dweller in places more populous. We remember +standing beside a countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet +by-street in a city that was more than ordinarily crowded +and bustling; he seemed stunned and bewildered by the +continual passage of different faces; and after a long pause, +during which he appeared to search for some suitable expression, +he said timidly that there seemed to be a <i>great +deal of meeting thereabouts</i>. The phrase is significant. It +is the expression of town-life in the language of the long, +solitary country highways. A meeting of one with one +was what this man had been used to in the pastoral +uplands from which he came; and the concourse of the +streets was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication +of such “meetings.”</p> + +<p>And now we come to that last and most subtle quality of +all, to that sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so +powerfully to our minds by a road. In real nature as well +as in old landscapes, beneath that impartial daylight in +which a whole variegated plain is plunged and saturated, +the line of the road leads the eye forth with the vague sense +of desire up to the green limit of the horizon. Travel is +brought home to us, and we visit in spirit every grove and +hamlet that tempts us in the distance. <i>Sehnsucht</i>—the +passion for what is ever beyond—is livingly expressed in +that white riband of possible travel that severs the uneven +country; not a ploughman following his plough up the +shining furrow, not the blue smoke of any cottage in a +hollow, but is brought to us with a sense of nearness and +attainability by this wavering line of junction. There is a +passionate paragraph in Werther that strikes the very key. +“When I came hither,” he writes, “how the beautiful +valley invited me on every side, as I gazed down into it +from the hill-top! There the wood—ah, that I might +mingle in its shadows! there the mountain summits—ah, +that I might look down from them over the broad country! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97"></a>97</span> +the interlinked hills! the secret valleys! O, to lose myself +among their mysteries! I hurried into the midst, and came +back without finding aught I hoped for. Alas! the distance +is like the future. A vast whole lies in the twilight before +our spirit; sight and feeling alike plunge and lose themselves +in the prospect, and we yearn to surrender our whole +being, and let it be filled full with all the rapture of one single +glorious sensation; and alas! when we hasten to the +fruition, when <i>there</i> is changed to <i>here</i>, all is afterwards as +it was before, and we stand in our indigent and cramped +estate, and our soul thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.” It +is to this wandering and uneasy spirit of anticipation that +roads minister. Every little vista, every little glimpse that +we have of what lies before us, gives the impatient imagination +rein, so that it can outstrip the body and already plunge +into the shadow of the woods, and overlook from the hilltop +the plain beyond it, and wander in the windings of the +valleys that are still far in front. The road is already there—we +shall not be long behind. It is as if we were marching +with the rear of a great army, and, from far before, heard +the acclamation of the people as the vanguard entered some +friendly and jubilant city. Would not every man, through +all the long miles of march, feel as if he also were within +the gates?</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39" href="#FnAnchor_39"><span class="fn">39</span></a> Compare Blake, in the “Marriage of Heaven and Hell”: +“Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, +without improvement, are roads of Genius.”</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<h3>NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS OF +YOUNG CHILDREN</h3> + +<p class="center1">(1874)</p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I wish</span> to direct the reader’s attention to a certain quality +in the movements of children when young, which is somehow +lovable in them, although it would be even unpleasant +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98"></a>98</span> +in any grown person. Their movements are not graceful, +but they fall short of grace by something so sweetly +humorous that we only admire them the more. The imperfection +is so pretty and pathetic, and it gives so great +a promise of something different in the future, that it +attracts us more than many forms of beauty. They have +something of the merit of a rough sketch by a master, in +which we pardon what is wanting or excessive for the sake +of the very bluntness and directness of the thing. It gives +us pleasure to see the beginning of gracious impulses and +the springs of harmonious movement laid bare to us with +innocent simplicity.</p> + +<p>One night some ladies formed a sort of impromptu +dancing-school in the drawing-room of an hotel in France. +One of the ladies led the ring, and I can recall her as a +model of accomplished, cultured movement. Two little +girls, about eight years old, were the pupils; that is an +age of great interest in girls, when natural grace comes to +its consummation of justice and purity, with little admixture +of that other grace of forethought and discipline that will +shortly supersede it altogether. In these two, particularly, +the rhythm was sometimes broken by an excess of energy, +as though the pleasure of the music in their light bodies +could endure no longer the restraint of regulated dance. +So that, between these and the lady, there was not only +some beginning of the very contrast I wish to insist upon, +but matter enough to set one thinking a long while on the +beauty of motion. I do not know that, here in England, +we have any good opportunity of seeing what that is; the +generation of British dancing men and women are certainly +more remarkable for other qualities than for grace: they +are, many of them, very conscientious artists, and give quite +a serious regard to the technical parts of their performance; +but the spectacle, somehow, is not often beautiful, and +strikes no note of pleasure. If I had seen no more, therefore, +this evening might have remained in my memory as a rare +experience. But the best part of it was yet to come. For +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99"></a>99</span> +after the others had desisted, the musician still continued +to play, and a little button between two and three years +old came out into the cleared space and began to figure +before us as the music prompted. I had an opportunity +of seeing her, not on this night only, but on many subsequent +nights; and the wonder and comical admiration she +inspired was only deepened as time went on. She had an +admirable musical ear; and each new melody, as it struck +in her a new humour, suggested wonderful combinations +and variations of movement. Now it would be a dance +with which she would suit the music, now rather an appropriate +pantomime, and now a mere string of disconnected +attitudes. But whatever she did, she did it with the same +verve and gusto. The spirit of the air seemed to have +entered into her, and to possess her like a passion; and you +could see her struggling to find expression for the beauty +that was in her against the inefficacy of the dull, half-informed +body. Though her footing was uneven, and her +gestures often ludicrously helpless, still the spectacle was +not merely amusing; and though subtle inspirations of +movement miscarried in tottering travesty, you could still +see that they had been inspirations; you could still see +that she had set her heart on realising something just and +beautiful, and that, by the discipline of these abortive +efforts, she was making for herself in the future a quick, +supple, and obedient body. It was grace in the making. +She was not to be daunted by any merriment of people +looking on critically; the music said something to her, and +her whole spirit was intent on what the music said: she +must carry out its suggestions, she must do her best +to translate its language into that other dialect of the +modulated body into which it can be translated most +easily and fully.</p> + +<p>Just the other day I was witness to a second scene, in +which the motive was something similar; only this time +with quite common children, and in the familiar neighbourhood +of Hampstead. A little congregation had formed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100"></a>100</span> +itself in the lane underneath my window, and was busy over +a skipping-rope. There were two sisters, from seven to +nine perhaps, with dark faces and dark hair, and slim, +lithe, little figures clad in lilac frocks. The elder of these +two was mistress of the art of skipping. She was just and +adroit in every movement; the rope passed over her black +head and under her scarlet-stockinged legs with a precision +and regularity that was like machinery; but there was +nothing mechanical in the infinite variety and sweetness +of her inclinations, and the spontaneous agile flexure of +her lean waist and hips. There was one variation favourite +with her, in which she crossed her hands before her with +a motion not unlike that of weaving, which was admirably +intricate and complete. And when the two took the rope +together and whirled in and out with occasional interruptions, +there was something Italian in the type of both—in +the length of nose, in the slimness and accuracy of the +shapes—and something gay and harmonious in the double +movement, that added to the whole scene a southern +element, and took me over sea and land into distant and +beautiful places. Nor was this impression lessened when +the elder girl took in her arms a fair-headed baby, while +the others held the rope for her, turned and gyrated, and +went in and out over it lightly, with a quiet regularity that +seemed as if it might go on for ever. Somehow, incongruous +as was the occupation, she reminded me of Italian +Madonnas. And now, as before in the hotel drawing-room, +the humorous element was to be introduced; only this +time it was in broad farce. The funniest little girl, with +a mottled complexion and a big, damaged nose, and looking +for all the world like any dirty, broken-nosed doll in a +nursery lumber-room, came forward to take her turn. +While the others swung the rope for her as gently as it +could be done—a mere mockery of movement—and playfully +taunted her timidity, she passaged backwards and +forwards in a pretty flutter of indecision, putting up her +shoulders and laughing with the embarrassed laughter of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101"></a>101</span> +children by the water’s edge, eager to bathe and yet fearful. +There never was anything at once so droll and so pathetic. +One did not know whether to laugh or to cry. And when +at last she had made an end of all her deprecations and +drawings back, and summoned up heart enough to straddle +over the rope, one leg at a time, it was a sight to see her +ruffle herself up like a peacock and go away down the lane +with her damaged nose, seeming to think discretion the +better part of valour, and rather uneasy lest they should +ask her to repeat the exploit. Much as I had enjoyed the +grace of the older girls, it was now just as it had been before +in France, and the clumsiness of the child seemed to have +a significance and a sort of beauty of its own, quite above +this grace of the others in power to affect the heart. I had +looked on with a certain sense of balance and completion at +the silent, rapid, masterly evolutions of the eldest; I had +been pleased by these in the way of satisfaction. But +when little broken-nose began her pantomime of indecision +I grew excited. There was something quite fresh and +poignant in the delight I took in her imperfect movements. +I remember, for instance, that I moved my own shoulders, +as if to imitate her; really, I suppose, with an inarticulate +wish to help her out.</p> + +<p>Now, there are many reasons why this gracelessness of +young children should be pretty and sympathetic to us. +And, first, there is an interest as of battle. It is in travail +and laughable <i>fiasco</i> that the young school their bodies to +beautiful expression, as they school their minds. We +seem, in watching them, to divine antagonists pitted one +against the other; and, as in other wars, so in this war of +the intelligence against the unwilling body, we do not wish +to see even the cause of progress triumph without some +honourable toil; and we are so sure of the ultimate result, +that it pleases us to linger in pathetic sympathy over these +reverses of the early campaign, just as we do over the +troubles that environ the heroine of a novel on her way +to the happy ending. Again, people are very ready to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102"></a>102</span> +disown the pleasure they take in a thing merely because it +is big, as an Alp, or merely because it is little, as a little +child; and yet this pleasure is surely as legitimate as +another. There is much of it here; we have an irrational +indulgence for small folk; we ask but little where there is +so little to ask it of; we cannot overcome our astonishment +that they should be able to move at all, and are interested +in their movements somewhat as we are interested in the +movements of a puppet. And again, there is a prolongation +of expectancy when, as in these movements of children, we +are kept continually on the very point of attainment and +ever turned away and tantalised by some humorous imperfection. +This is altogether absent in the secure and +accomplished movements of persons more fully grown. +The tight-rope walker does not walk so freely or so well as +any one else can walk upon a good road; and yet we like +to watch him for the mere sake of the difficulty; we like +to see his vacillations; we like this last so much even, that +I am told a really artistic tight-rope walker must feign to +be troubled in his balance, even if he is not so really. And +again, we have in these baby efforts an assurance of spontaneity +that we do not have often. We know this at least +certainly, that the child tries to dance for its own pleasure, +and not for any by-end of ostentation and conformity. +If we did not know it we should see it. There is a sincerity, +a directness, an impulsive truth, about their free gestures +that shows throughout all imperfection, and it is to us as +a reminiscence of primitive festivals and the Golden Age. +Lastly, there is in the sentiment much of a simple human +compassion for creatures more helpless than ourselves. +One nearly ready to die is pathetic; and so is one scarcely +ready to live. In view of their future, our heart is softened +to these clumsy little ones. They will be more adroit +when they are not so happy.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, then, this character that so much delights +us is not one that can be preserved by any plastic art. It +turns, as we have seen, upon consideration not really +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103"></a>103</span> +æsthetic. Art may deal with the slim freedom of a few +years later; but with this fettered impulse, with these +stammering motions, she is powerless to do more than +stereotype what is ungraceful, and, in the doing of it, lose +all pathos and humanity. So these humorous little ones +must go away into the limbo of beautiful things that are +not beautiful for art, there to wait a more perfect age +before they sit for their portraits.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>V</h5> + +<h3>ON THE ENJOYMENT OF +UNPLEASANT PLACES</h3> + +<p class="center1">(1874)</p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">It</span> is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, +and we have much in our own power. Things looked at +patiently from one side after another generally end by +showing a side that is beautiful. A few months ago some +words were said in the <i>Portfolio</i> as to an “austere regimen +in scenery”; and such a discipline was then recommended +as “healthful and strengthening to the taste.” That is +the test, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline +in scenery, it must be understood, is something more +than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. +For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, +and especially if we have come to be more or less +dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt +out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience of a +botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves +in the art of seeing nature more favourably. We +learn to live with her, as people learn to live with fretful +or violent spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is good, +and shut our eyes against all that is bleak or inharmonious. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>104</span> +We learn, also, to come to each place in the right spirit. +The traveller, as Brantôme quaintly tells us, “<i>fait des discours +en soi pour se soutenir en chemin</i>”; and into these +discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and +suffers by the way; they take their tone greatly from the +varying character of the scene; a sharp ascent brings +different thoughts from a level road; and the man’s fancies +grow lighter as he comes out of the wood into a clearing. +Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than +the thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through +our humours as through differently-coloured glasses. We +are ourselves a term in the equation, a note of the +chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. +There is no fear for the result, if we can but surrender +ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds +and follows us, so that we are ever thinking +suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort +of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre +of beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle +and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and +gentleness in others. And even where there is no harmony +to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of spirits, +we may still embellish a place with some attraction of +romance. We may learn to go far afield for associations, +and handle them lightly when we have found them. +Sometimes an old print comes to our aid; I have seen +many a spot lit up at once with picturesque imaginations, +by a reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. +Dick Turpin has been my lay figure for many an English +lane. And I suppose the Trossachs would hardly be the +Trossachs for most tourists if a man of admirable romantic +instinct had not peopled it for them with harmonious +figures, and brought them thither with minds rightly prepared +for the impression. There is half the battle in this +preparation. For instance: I have rarely been able to +visit, in the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable places +of our own Highlands. I am happier where it is tame +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105"></a>105</span> +and fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I +understand that there are some phases of mental trouble +that harmonise well with such surroundings, and that +some persons, by the dispensing power of the imagination, +can go back several centuries in spirit, and put themselves +into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsociable way +of life that was in its place upon these savage hills. Now, +when I am sad, I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, +like David before Saul; and the thought of these +past ages strikes nothing in me but an unpleasant pity; +so that I can never hit on the right humour for this sort +of landscape, and lose much pleasure in consequence. +Still, even here, if I were only let alone, and time enough +were given, I should have all manner of pleasures, and +take many clear and beautiful images away with me when +I left. When we cannot think ourselves into sympathy +with the great features of a country, we learn to ignore +them, and put our head among the grass for flowers, or +pore, for long times together, over the changeful current +of a stream. We come down to the sermon in stones, +when we are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. +We begin to peep and botanise, we take an interest +in birds and insects, we find many things beautiful in +miniature. The reader will recollect the little summer +scene in “Wuthering Heights”—the one warm scene, +perhaps, in all that powerful, miserable novel—and the +great feature that is made therein by grasses and +flowers and a little sunshine: this is in the spirit of +which I now speak. And, lastly, we can go indoors; +interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more picturesque, +than the shows of the open air, and they have +that quality of shelter of which I shall presently have +more to say.</p> + +<p>With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to +put forth the paradox that any place is good enough to +live a life in, while it is only in a few, and those highly +favoured, that we can pass a few hours agreeably. For, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>106</span> +if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the +neighbourhood. Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, +about uninteresting corners. We forget to some degree +the superior loveliness of other places, and fall into a +tolerant and sympathetic spirit which is its own reward +and justification. Looking back the other day on some +recollections of my own, I was astonished to find how +much I owed to such a residence; six weeks in one unpleasant +country-side had done more, it seemed, to quicken +and educate my sensibilities than many years in places +that jumped more nearly with my inclination.</p> + +<p>The country to which I refer was a level and treeless +plateau over which the winds cut like a whip. For miles +on miles it was the same. A river, indeed, fell into the +sea near the town where I resided; but the valley of the +river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had +the heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but +roads that had no beauty or interest; for, as there was +no timber, and but little irregularity of surface, you saw +your whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: +there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing +to see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking +homestead, and here and there a solitary, +spectacled stone-breaker; and you were only accompanied, +as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt +telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the +keen sea-wind. To one who had learned to know their +song in warm pleasant places by the Mediterranean, it +seemed to taunt the country, and make it still bleaker by +suggested contrast. Even the waste places by the side +of the road were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, “taken +back to Nature” by any decent covering of vegetation. +Wherever the land had the chance, it seemed to lie fallow. +There is a certain tawny nudity of the South, bare sun-burnt +plains, coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only +in the blue transparent air; but this was of another +description—this was the nakedness of the North; the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107"></a>107</span> +earth seemed to know that it was naked, and was ashamed +and cold.</p> + +<p>It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, +this had passed into the speech of the inhabitants, +and they saluted each other when they met with “Breezy, +breezy,” instead of the customary “Fine day” of farther +south. These continual winds were not like the harvest +breeze, that just keeps an equable pressure against your +face as you walk, and serves to set all the trees talking +over your head, or bring round you the smell of the wet +surface of the country after a shower. They were of the +bitter, hard, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and +respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds +as these have their own merit in proper time and place. +It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses of shadow. +And what a power they have over the colour of the world! +How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and +make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There +is nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among +the woods, with all its sights and noises; and the effect +gets between some painters and their sober eyesight, so +that, even when the rest of their picture is calm, the foliage +is coloured like foliage in a gale. There was nothing, +however, of this sort to be noticed in a country where there +were no trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive +shadows of clouds or those of rigid houses and walls. But +the wind was nevertheless an occasion of pleasure; for +nowhere could you taste more fully the pleasure of a sudden +lull, or a place of opportune shelter. The reader knows +what I mean; he must remember how, when he has sat +himself down behind a dyke on a hill-side, he delighted +to hear the wind hiss vainly through the crannies at his +back; how his body tingled all over with warmth, and +it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, +that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and +the far-away hills all marbled with sun and shadow. +Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage of the “Prelude,” has +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108"></a>108</span> +used this as a figure for the feeling struck in us by the +quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the great +thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the +other way with as good effect:</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length,</p> +<p class="i05">Escaped as from an enemy, we turn</p> +<p class="i05">Abruptly into some sequester’d nook,</p> +<p class="i05">Still as a shelter’d place when winds blow loud!”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told +me of what must have been quite the most perfect instance +of this pleasure of escape. He had gone up, one sunny, +windy morning, to the top of a great cathedral somewhere +abroad; I think it was Cologne Cathedral, the great +unfinished marvel by the Rhine; and after a long while +in dark stairways, he issued at last into the sunshine, on +a platform high above the town. At that elevation it +was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower +strata of the air, and he had forgotten it in the quiet +interior of the church and during his long ascent; and +so you may judge of his surprise when, resting his arms +on the sunlit balustrade and looking over into the “Place” +far below him, he saw the good people holding on their +hats and leaning hard against the wind as they walked. +There is something, to my fancy, quite perfect in this +little experience of my fellow-traveller’s. The ways of +men seem always very trivial to us when we find ourselves +alone on a church top, with the blue sky and a few tall +pinnacles, and see far below us the steep roofs and foreshortened +buttresses, and the silent activity of the city +streets; but how much more must they not have seemed +so to him as he stood, not only above other men’s business, +but above other men’s climate, in a golden zone like +Apollo’s!</p> + +<p>This was the sort of pleasure I found in the country +of which I write. The pleasure was to be out of the wind, +and to keep it in memory all the time, and hug oneself +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109"></a>109</span> +upon the shelter. And it was only by the sea that any +such sheltered places were to be found. Between the +black worm-eaten headlands there are little bights and +havens, well screened from the wind and the commotion +of the external sea, where the sand and weeds look up +into the gazer’s face from a depth of tranquil water, and +the sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined +crags, alone disturb the silence and the sunshine. One +such place has impressed itself on my memory beyond +all others. On a rock by the water’s edge, old fighting +men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the +two stood wall to wall like semi-detached villas; and +yet feud had run so high between their owners, that one, +from out of a window, shot the other as he stood in his +own doorway. There is something in the juxtaposition of +these two enemies full of tragic irony. It is grim to think +of bearded men and bitter women taking hateful counsel +together about the two hall-fires at night, when the +sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter +wind was loose over the battlements. And in the study +we may reconstruct for ourselves some pale figure of what +life then was. Not so when we are there; when we are +there such thoughts come to us only to intensify a contrary +impression, and association is turned against itself. +I remember walking thither three afternoons in succession, +my eyes weary with being set against the wind, and how, +dropping suddenly over the edge of the down, I found +myself in a new world of warmth and shelter. The wind, +from which I had escaped, “as from an enemy,” was +seemingly quite local. It carried no clouds with it, and +came from such a quarter that it did not trouble the sea +within view. The two castles, black and ruinous as the +rocks about them, were still distinguishable from these by +something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, +something that the last storm had left imminent and the +next would demolish entirely. It would be difficult to +render in words the sense of peace that took possession of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110"></a>110</span> +me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I +have said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and +bemauled by previous tempests; I had the memory at +heart of the insane strife of the pigmies who had erected +these two castles and lived in them in mutual distrust and +enmity, and knew I had only to put my head out of this +little cup of shelter to find the hard wind blowing in my +eyes; and yet there were the two great tracts of motionless +blue air and peaceful sea looking on, unconcerned and +apart, at the turmoil of the present moment and the +memorials of the precarious past. There is ever something +transitory and fretful in the impression of a high wind +under a cloudless sky; it seems to have no root in the +constitution of things; it must speedily begin to faint and +wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the +thought of the wind and the thought of human life came +very near together in my mind. Our noisy years did +indeed seem moments in the being of the eternal silence: +and the wind, in the face of that great field of stationary +blue, was as the wind of a butterfly’s wing. The placidity +of the sea was a thing likewise to be remembered. Shelley +speaks of the sea as “hungering for calm,” and in this +place one learned to understand the phrase. Looking +down into these green waters from the broken edge of +the rock, or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed +to me that they were enjoying their own tranquillity; +and when now and again it was disturbed by a wind ripple +on the surface, or the quick black passage of a fish far +below, they settled back again (one could fancy) with +relief.</p> + +<p>On shore too, in the little nook of shelter, everything +was so subdued and still that the least particular struck +in me a pleasurable surprise. The desultory crackling of +the whin-pods in the afternoon sun usurped the ear. The +hot, sweet breath of the bank, that had been saturated all +day long with sunshine, and now exhaled it into my face, +was like the breath of a fellow-creature. I remember that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111"></a>111</span> +I was haunted by two lines of French verse; in some +dumb way they seemed to fit my surroundings and give +expression to the contentment that was in me, and I kept +repeating to myself—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Mon cœur est un luth suspendu;</p> +<p class="i05">Sitôt qu’on le touche, il résonne.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this +time; and for that very cause I repeat them here. For +all I know, they may serve to complete the impression in +the mind of the reader, as they were certainly a part of +it for me.</p> + +<p>And this happened to me in the place of all others +where I liked least to stay. When I think of it I grow +ashamed of my own ingratitude. “Out of the strong came +forth sweetness.” There, in the bleak and gusty North, I +received, perhaps, my strongest impression of peace. I +saw the sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in that +little corner, was all alive and friendly to me. So, wherever +a man is, he will find something to please and pacify +him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and +women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a +cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; +and for the country, there is no country without some +amenity—let him only look for it in the right spirit, and +he will surely find.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page112"></a>112</span></p> +<h5>VI</h5> + +<h3>AN AUTUMN EFFECT</h3> + +<p class="center1">(1875)</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Nous ne décrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous +nous efforçons d’exprimer sobrement et simplement l’impression +que nous en avons reçue.”—<span class="sc">M. André Theuriet</span>, “L’Automne +dans les Bois,” <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, 1st Oct. 1874, p. 562.<a name="FnAnchor_40" id="FnAnchor_40" href="#Footnote_40"><span class="sp">40</span></a></p> +</div> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">A country</span> rapidly passed through under favourable +auspices may leave upon us a unity of impression that +would only be disturbed and dissipated if we stayed longer. +Clear vision goes with the quick foot. Things fall for us +into a sort of natural perspective when we see them for a +moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, +and are gone before the sun is overcast, before the rain +falls, before the season can steal like a dial-hand from +his figure, before the lights and shadows, shifting round +towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, +and belie what they showed us in the morning. We +expose our mind to the landscape (as we would expose +the prepared plate in the camera) for the moment only +during which the effect endures; and we are away before +the effect can change. Hence we shall have in our +memories a long scroll of continuous wayside pictures, +all imbued already with the prevailing sentiment of the +season, the weather, and the landscape, and certain to be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>113</span> +unified more and more, as time goes on, by the unconscious +processes of thought. So that we who have only looked +at a country over our shoulder, so to speak, as we went +by, will have a conception of it far more memorable and +articulate than a man who has lived there all his life from +a child upwards, and had his impression of to-day modified +by that of to-morrow, and belied by that of the day after, +till at length the stable characteristics of the country are +all blotted out from him behind the confusion of variable +effect.</p> + +<p>I began my little pilgrimage in the most enviable of +all humours: that in which a person, with a sufficiency of +money and a knapsack, turns his back on a town and walks +forward into a country of which he knows only by the +vague report of others. Such an one has not surrendered +his will and contracted for the next hundred miles, like +a man on a railway. He may change his mind at every +finger-post, and, where ways meet, follow vague preferences +freely and go the low road or the high, choose the +shadow or the sunshine, suffer himself to be tempted by +the lane that turns immediately into the woods, or the +broad road that lies open before him into the distance, +and shows him the far-off spires of some city, or a range +of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low +horizon. In short, he may gratify his every whim and +fancy, without a pang of reproving conscience, or the +least jostle to his self-respect. It is true, however, that +most men do not possess the faculty of free action, the +priceless gift of being able to live for the moment only; +and as they begin to go forward on their journey, they will +find that they have made for themselves new fetters. +Slight projects they may have entertained for a moment, +half in jest, become iron laws to them, they know not +why. They will be led by the nose by these vague reports +of which I spoke above; and the mere fact that their +informant mentioned one village and not another will +compel their footsteps with inexplicable power. And yet +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114"></a>114</span> +a little while, yet a few days of this fictitious liberty, and +they will begin to hear imperious voices calling on them +to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy +or unworthy expectation, will set its hand upon their +shoulder and lead them back into the old paths. Once +and again we have all made the experiment. We know +the end of it right well. And yet if we make it for the +hundredth time to-morrow, it will have the same charm +as ever; our heart will beat and our eyes will be bright, +as we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once +again (as we have felt so often before) that we are cutting +ourselves loose for ever from our whole past life, with all +its sins and follies and circumscriptions, and go forward +as a new creature into a new world.</p> + +<p>It is well, perhaps, that I had this first enthusiasm to +encourage me up the long hill above High Wycombe; for +the day was a bad day for walking at best, and now began +to draw towards afternoon, dull, heavy, and lifeless. A +pall of grey cloud covered the sky, and its colour reacted +on the colour of the landscape. Near at hand, indeed, +the hedgerow trees were still fairly green, shot through +with bright autumnal yellows, bright as sunshine. But a +little way off, the solid bricks of woodland that lay squarely +on slope and hill-top were not green, but russet and grey, +and ever less russet and more grey as they drew off into +the distance. As they drew off into the distance, also, +the woods seemed to mass themselves together, and lay +thin and straight, like clouds, upon the limit of one’s view. +Not that this massing was complete, or gave the idea of +any extent of forest, for every here and there the trees +would break up and go down into a valley in open order, +or stand in long Indian file along the horizon, tree after +tree relieved, foolishly enough, against the sky. I say +foolishly enough, although I have seen the effect employed +cleverly in art, and such long line of single trees thrown +out against the customary sunset of a Japanese picture +with a certain fantastic effect that was not to be despised; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115"></a>115</span> +but this was over water and level land, where it did not +jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills and valleys. +The whole scene had an indefinable look of being painted, +the colour was so abstract and correct, and there was +something so sketchy and merely impressional about these +distant single trees on the horizon that one was forced +to think of it all as of a clever French landscape. For it +is rather in nature that we see resemblance to art, than +in art to nature; and we say a hundred times, “How like +a picture!” for once that we say, “How like the truth!” +The forms in which we learn to think of landscape are +forms that we have got from painted canvas. Any man +can see and understand a picture; it is reserved for the +few to separate anything out of the confusion of nature, +and see that distinctly and with intelligence.</p> + +<p>The sun came out before I had been long on my way; +and as I had got by that time to the top of the ascent, +and was now treading a labyrinth of confined by-roads, +my whole view brightened considerably in colour, for it +was the distance only that was grey and cold, and the +distance I could see no longer. Overhead there was a +wonderful carolling of larks which seemed to follow me as +I went. Indeed, during all the time I was in that country +the larks did not desert me. The air was alive with them +from High Wycombe to Tring; and as, day after day, +their “shrill delight” fell upon me out of the vacant sky, +they began to take such a prominence over other conditions, +and form so integral a part of my conception of the +country, that I could have baptised it “The Country of +Larks.” This, of course, might just as well have been in +early spring; but everything else was deeply imbued +with the sentiment of the later year. There was no stir +of insects in the grass. The sunshine was more golden, +and gave less heat than summer sunshine; and the shadows +under the hedge were somewhat blue and misty. It was +only in autumn that you could have seen the mingled +green and yellow of the elm foliage, and the fallen leaves +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116"></a>116</span> +that lay about the road, and covered the surface of wayside +pools so thickly that the sun was reflected only here +and there from little joints and pin-holes in that brown +coat of proof; or that your ear would have been troubled, +as you went forward, by the occasional report of fowling-pieces +from all directions and all degrees of distance.</p> + +<p>For a long time this dropping fire was the one sign +of human activity that came to disturb me as I walked. +The lanes were profoundly still. They would have been +sad but for the sunshine and the singing of the larks. +And as it was, there came over me at times a feeling of +isolation that was not disagreeable, and yet was enough +to make me quicken my steps eagerly when I saw some +one before me on the road. This fellow-voyager proved +to be no less a person than the parish constable. It had +occurred to me that in a district which was so little populous +and so well wooded, a criminal of any intelligence +might play hide-and-seek with the authorities for months; +and this idea was strengthened by the aspect of the portly +constable as he walked by my side with deliberate dignity +and turned-out toes. But a few minutes’ converse set +my heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame +birds, it appeared. If my informant did not immediately +lay his hand on an offender, he was content to wait; some +evening after nightfall there would come a tap at his door, +and the outlaw, weary of outlawry, would give himself +quietly up to undergo sentence, and resume his position +in the life of the country-side. Married men caused him +no disquietude whatever; he had them fast by the foot. +Sooner or later they would come back to see their wives, a +peeping neighbour would pass the word, and my portly +constable would walk quietly over and take the bird +sitting. And if there were a few who had no particular +ties in the neighbourhood, and preferred to shift into +another county when they fell into trouble, their departure +moved the placid constable in no degree. He was of +Dogberry’s opinion; and if a man would not stand in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117"></a>117</span> +Prince’s name, he took no note of him, but let him go, +and thanked God he was rid of a knave. And surely the +crime and the law were in admirable keeping: rustic +constable was well met with rustic offender. The officer +sitting at home over a bit of fire until the criminal came +to visit him, and the criminal coming—it was a fair match. +One felt as if this must have been the order in that delightful +seaboard Bohemia where Florizel and Perdita courted +in such sweet accents, and the Puritan sang psalms to +hornpipes, and the four-and-twenty shearers danced with +nosegays in their bosoms, and chanted their three songs +apiece at the old shepherd’s festival; and one could not +help picturing to oneself what havoc among good people’s +purses, and tribulation for benignant constable, might be +worked here by the arrival, over stile and footpath, of a +new Autolycus.</p> + +<p>Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveller, I left the +road and struck across country. It was rather a revelation +to pass from between the hedgerows and find quite a bustle +on the other side, a great coming and going of school-children +upon by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty horses and +stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took +me through many fields thus occupied, and through many +strips of plantation, and then over a little space of smooth +turf, very pleasant to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and +clamorous with rooks making ready for the winter, and so +back again into the quiet road. I was now not far from the +end of my day’s journey. A few hundred yards farther, +and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go +down hill through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. +I was soon in shadow myself, but the afternoon sun still +coloured the upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire +over my head in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapour +lay among the slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; +and from farther up I heard from time to time an outburst +of gross laughter, as though clowns were making merry in +the bush. There was something about the atmosphere that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>118</span> +brought all sights and sounds home to one with a singular +purity, so that I felt as if my senses had been washed with +water. After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path +began to remount the hill; and just as I, mounting along +with it, had got back again, from the head downwards, +into the thin golden sunshine, I saw in front of me a donkey +tied to a tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkeys, +principally, I believe, because of the delightful things that +Sterne has written of them. But this was not after the +pattern of the ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, +that seemed to fit him rather for rare festal occasions than +for constant drudgery. Besides, he was very small, and of +the daintiest proportions you can imagine in a donkey. +And so, sure enough, you had only to look at him to see he +had never worked. There was something too roguish and +wanton in his face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a +street Arab, to have survived much cudgelling. It was +plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children +oftener than they had plodded with a freight through miry +lanes. He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of +donkey; and though he was just then somewhat solemnised +and rueful, he still gave proof of the levity of his disposition +by impudently wagging his ears at me as I drew near. I +say he was somewhat solemnised just then; for, with the +admirable instinct of all men and animals under restraint, +he had so wound and wound the halter about the tree that +he could go neither back nor forwards, nor so much as put +down his head to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part +puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not +given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, +giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free +rope that still remained unwound. A humorous sort of +sympathy for the creature took hold upon me. I went +up, and, not without some trouble on my part, and much +distrust and resistance on the part of Neddy, got him forced +backward until the whole length of the halter was set loose, +and he was once more as free a donkey as I dared to make +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119"></a>119</span> +him. I was pleased (as people are) with this friendly action +to a fellow-creature in tribulation, and glanced back over +my shoulder to see how he was profiting by his freedom. +The brute was looking after me; and no sooner did he +catch my eye than he put up his long white face into the +air, pulled an impudent mouth at me, and began to bray +derisively. If ever any one person made a grimace at +another, that donkey made a grimace at me. The hardened +ingratitude of his behaviour, and the impertinence that +inspired his whole face as he curled up his lip, and showed +his teeth, and began to bray, so tickled me, and was so +much in keeping with what I had imagined to myself about +his character, that I could not find it in my heart to be +angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This +seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me +again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for a while, +braying and laughing, until I began to grow a-weary of it, +and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my +way. In so doing—it was like going suddenly into cold +water—I found myself face to face with a prim little old +maid. She was all in a flutter, the poor old dear! She +had concluded beyond question that this must be a lunatic +who stood laughing aloud at a white donkey in the placid +beech-woods. I was sure, by her face, that she had already +recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and +prepared herself for the worst. And so, to reassure her, I +uncovered and besought her, after a very staid fashion, to +put me on my way to Great Missenden. Her voice trembled +a little, to be sure, but I think her mind was set at rest; +and she told me, very explicitly, to follow the path until +I came to the end of the wood, and then I should see the +village below me in the bottom of the valley. And, with +mutual courtesies, the little old maid and I went on our +respective ways.</p> + +<p>Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at +hand, as she had said, in the trough of a gentle valley, with +many great elms about it. The smoke from its chimneys +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120"></a>120</span> +went up pleasantly in the afternoon sunshine. The sleepy +hum of a threshing-machine filled the neighbouring fields +and hung about the quaint street corners. A little above, +the church sits well back on its haunches against the hill-side—an +attitude for a church, you know, that makes it look +as if it could be ever so much higher if it liked; and the +trees grew about it thickly, so as to make a density of +shade in the churchyard. A very quiet place it looks; +and yet I saw many boards and posters about threatening +dire punishment against those who broke the church +windows or defaced the precinct, and offering rewards for +the apprehension of those who had done the like already. +It was fair-day in Great Missenden. There were three +stalls set up <i>sub jove</i>, for the sale of pastry and cheap toys; +and a great number of holiday children thronged about the +stalls, and noisily invaded every corner of the straggling +village. They came round me by coveys, blowing simultaneously +upon penny trumpets as though they imagined +I should fall to pieces like the battlements of Jericho. I +noticed one among them who could make a wheel of himself +like a London boy, and seemingly enjoyed a grave pre-eminence +upon the strength of the accomplishment. By +and by, however, the trumpets began to weary me, and I +went indoors, leaving the fair, I fancy at its height.</p> + +<p>Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was +pitch dark in the village street, and the darkness seemed +only the greater for a light here and there in an uncurtained +window or from an open door. Into one such window I +was rude enough to peep, and saw within a charming <i>genre</i> +picture. In a room, all white wainscot and crimson wall-paper, +a perfect gem of colour after the black, empty darkness +in which I had been groping, a pretty girl was telling +a story, as well as I could make out, to an attentive child +upon her knee, while an old woman sat placidly dozing over +the fire. You may be sure I was not behindhand with a +story for myself—a good old story after the manner of +G.P.R. James and the village melodramas, with a wicked +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121"></a>121</span> +squire, and poachers, and an attorney, and a virtuous +young man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, +and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson +room. Baudelaire has a few dainty sentences on the fancies +that we are inspired with when we look through a window +into other people’s lives; and I think Dickens has somewhat +enlarged on the same text. The subject, at least, +is one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I +remember, night after night, at Brussels, watching a +good family sup together, make merry, and retire to +rest; and night after night I waited to see the candles lit, +and the salad made, and the last salutations dutifully +exchanged, without any abatement of interest. Night +after night I found the scene rivet my attention and keep +me awake in bed with all manner of quaint imaginations. +Much of the pleasure of the “Arabian Nights” hinges upon +this Asmodean interest; and we are not weary of lifting +other people’s roofs and going about behind the scenes of +life with the Caliph and the serviceable Giaffar. It is a +salutary exercise, besides; it is salutary to get out of ourselves +and see people living together in perfect unconsciousness +of our existence, as they will live when we are gone. +If to-morrow the blow falls, and the worst of our ill fears +is realised, the girl will none the less tell stories to the child +on her lap in the cottage at Great Missenden, nor the good +Belgians light their candle, and mix their salad, and go +orderly to bed.</p> + +<p>The next morning was sunny overhead and damp underfoot, +with a thrill in the air like a reminiscence of frost. +I went up into the sloping garden behind the inn and smoked +a pipe pleasantly enough, to the tune of my landlady’s +lamentations over sundry cabbages and cauliflowers that +had been spoiled by caterpillars. She had been so much +pleased in the summer-time, she said, to see the garden all +hovered over by white butterflies. And now, look at the +end of it! She could nowise reconcile this with her moral +sense. And, indeed, unless these butterflies are created +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>122</span> +with a side-look to the composition of improving apologues, +it is not altogether easy, even for people who have read +Hegel and Dr. M’Cosh, to decide intelligibly upon the issue +raised. Then I fell into a long and abstruse calculation +with my landlord; having for object to compare the +distance driven by him during eight years’ service on the +box of the Wendover coach with the girth of the round +world itself. We tackled the question most conscientiously, +made all necessary allowance for Sundays and leap-years, +and were just coming to a triumphant conclusion of our +labours when we were stayed by a small lacuna in my information. +I did not know the circumference of the +earth. The landlord knew it, to be sure—plainly he had +made the same calculation twice and once before,—but +he wanted confidence in his own figures, and from the +moment I showed myself so poor a second seemed to lose +all interest in the result.</p> + +<p>Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same +valley with Great Missenden, but at the foot of it, where +the hills trend off on either hand like a coast-line, and a great +hemisphere of plain lies, like a sea, before one. I went up +a chalky road, until I had a good outlook over the place. +The vale, as it opened out into the plain, was shallow, and +a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. +From the level to which I have now attained the fields were +exposed before me like a map, and I could see all that bustle +of autumn field-work which had been hid from me yesterday +behind the hedgerows, or shown to me only for a moment +as I followed the footpath. Wendover lay well down in +the midst, with mountains of foliage about it. The great +plain stretched away to the northward, variegated near at +hand with the quaint pattern of the fields, but growing ever +more and more indistinct, until it became a mere hurly-burly +of trees and bright crescents of river, and snatches of +slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous cloud-land +over the horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, touched +here and there with blue, and with certain faint russets that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>123</span> +looked as if they were reflections of the colour of the +autumnal woods below. I could hear the ploughmen +shouting to their horses, the uninterrupted carol of larks +innumerable overhead, and, from a field where the shepherd +was marshalling his flock, a sweet tumultuous tinkle of +sheep-bells. All these noises came to me very thin and +distinct in the clear air. There was a wonderful sentiment +of distance and atmosphere about the day and the place.</p> + +<p>I mounted the hill yet farther by a rough staircase of +chalky footholds cut in the turf. The hills about Wendover, +and, as far as I could see, all the hills in Buckinghamshire, +wear a sort of hood of beech plantation; but in this +particular case the hood had been suffered to extend itself +into something more like a cloak, and hung down about the +shoulders of the hill in wide folds, instead of lying flatly +along the summit. The trees grew so close, and their +boughs were so matted together, that the whole wood +looked as dense as a bush of heather. The prevailing +colour was a dull, smouldering red, touched here and there +with vivid yellow. But the autumn had scarce advanced +beyond the outworks; it was still almost summer in the +heart of the wood; and as soon as I had scrambled through +the hedge, I found myself in a dim green forest atmosphere +under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the wood +had itself for a background and the trees were massed +together thickly, the colour became intensified and almost +gem-like: a perfect fire of green, that seemed none the less +green for a few specks of autumn gold. None of the trees +were of any considerable age or stature; but they grew +well together, I have said; and as the road turned and +wound among them, they fell into pleasant groupings and +broke the light up pleasantly. Sometimes there would be +a colonnade of slim, straight tree-stems with the light +running down them as down the shafts of pillars, that looked +as if it ought to lead to something, and led only to a corner +of sombre and intricate jungle. Sometimes a spray of +delicate foliage would be thrown out flat, the light lying +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124"></a>124</span> +flatly along the top of it, so that against a dark background +it seemed almost luminous. There was a great hush over +the thicket (for, indeed, it was more of a thicket than a +wood); and the vague rumours that went among the tree-tops, +and the occasional rustling of big birds or hares among +the undergrowth, had in them a note of almost treacherous +stealthiness, that put the imagination on its guard and +made me walk warily on the russet carpeting of last year’s +leaves. The spirit of the place seemed to be all attention; +the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to number +my footfalls. One could not help feeling that there ought +to be some reason for this stillness: whether, as the bright +old legend goes, Pan lay somewhere near in a siesta, or +whether, perhaps, the heaven was meditating rain, and the +first drops would soon come pattering through the leaves. +It was not unpleasant, in such an humour, to catch sight, +ever and anon, of large spaces of the open plain. This +happened only where the path lay much upon the slope, +and there was a flaw in the solid leafy thatch of the wood +at some distance below the level at which I chanced myself +to be walking; then, indeed, little scraps of foreshortened +distance, miniature fields, and Liliputian houses and +hedgerow trees would appear for a moment in the aperture, +and grow larger and smaller, and change and melt one into +another, as I continued to go forward, and so shift my +point of view.</p> + +<p>For ten minutes, perhaps, I had heard from somewhere +before me in the wood a strange, continuous noise, as of +clucking, cooing, and gobbling, now and again interrupted +by a harsh scream. As I advanced towards this noise, it +began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through +the trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something +like the tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, a +rickyard it proved to be, and a neat little farm-steading, +with the beech-woods growing almost to the door of it. +Just before me, however, as I came up the path, the trees +drew back and let in a wide flood of daylight on to a circular +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125"></a>125</span> +lawn. It was here that the noises had their origin. More +than a score of peacocks (there are altogether thirty at the +farm), a proper contingent of peahens, and a great multitude +that I could not number of more ordinary barn-door fowls, +were all feeding together on this little open lawn among the +beeches. They fed in a dense crowd, which swayed to and +fro, and came hither and thither as by a sort of tide, and +of which the surface was agitated like the surface of a sea +as each bird guzzled his head along the ground after the +scattered corn. The clucking, cooing noise that had led +me thither was formed by the blending together of countless +expressions of individual contentment into one collective +expression of contentment, or general grace during meat. +Every now and again a big peacock would separate himself +from the mob and take a stately turn or two about the +lawn, or perhaps mount for a moment upon the rail, and +there shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with himself +and what he had to eat. It happened, for my sins, +that none of these admirable birds had anything beyond the +merest rudiment of a tail. Tails, it seemed, were out of +season just then. But they had their necks for all that; +and by their necks alone they do as much surpass all the +other birds of our grey climate as they fall in quality of +song below the blackbird or the lark. Surely the peacock, +with its incomparable parade of glorious colour and the +scrannel voice of it issuing forth, as in mockery, from its +painted throat, must, like my landlady’s butterflies at +Great Missenden, have been invented by some skilful +fabulist for the consolation and support of homely virtue: +or rather, perhaps, by a fabulist not quite so skilful, who +made points for the moment without having a studious +enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these +melting greens and blues so beautiful that afternoon, that +I would have given them my vote just then before the +sweetest pipe in all the spring woods. For indeed there is +no piece of colour of the same extent in nature, that will +so flatter and satisfy the lust of a man’s eyes; and to come +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126"></a>126</span> +upon so many of them, after these acres of stone-coloured +heavens and russet woods, and grey-brown ploughlands and +white roads, was like going three whole days’ journey to the +southward, or a month back into the summer.</p> + +<p>I was sorry to leave “Peacock Farm”—for so the place +is called, after the name of its splendid pensioners—and +go forward again in the quiet woods. It began to grow +both damp and dusk under the beeches: and as the day +declined the colour faded out of the foliage: and shadow, +without form and void, took the place of all the fine tracery +of leaves and delicate gradations of living green that had +before accompanied my walk. I had been sorry to leave +“Peacock Farm,” but I was not sorry to find myself once +more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat troubled-looking +evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the +inn at Wendover.</p> + +<p>Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of +place. Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as +to how the street should go; or rather, every now and then +a man seems to have arisen with a new idea on the subject, +and led away a little sect of neighbours to join in his heresy. +It would have somewhat the look of an abortive watering-place, +such as we may now see them here and there along +the coast, but for the age of the houses, the comely quiet +design of some of them, and the look of long habitation, +of a life that is settled and rooted, and makes it worth while +to train flowers about the windows, and otherwise shape the +dwelling to the humour of the inhabitant. The church, +which might perhaps have served as rallying-point for these +loose houses, and pulled the township into something like +intelligible unity, stands some distance off among great +trees; but the inn (to take the public buildings in order of +importance) is in what I understand to be the principal +street: a pleasant old house, with bay windows, and three +peaked gables, and many swallows’ nests plastered about +the eaves.</p> + +<p>The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127"></a>127</span> +indeed, I never saw any room much more to be admired +than the low wainscoted parlour in which I spent the remainder +of the evening. It was a short oblong in shape, +save that the fireplace was built across one of the angles so +as to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle was similarly +truncated by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was white, +and there was a Turkey carpet on the floor, so old that it +might have been imported by Walter Shandy before he +retired, worn almost through in some places, but in others +making a good show of blues and oranges, none the less +harmonious for being somewhat faded. The corner cupboard +was agreeable in design; and there were just the +right things upon the shelves—decanters and tumblers, and +blue plates, and one red rose in a glass of water. The furniture +was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, +down to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round +table. And you may fancy how pleasant it looked all +flushed and flickered over by the light of a brisk companionable +fire, and seen, in a strange, tilted sort of perspective, +in the three compartments of the old mirror above +the chimney. As I sat reading in the great arm-chair, I +kept looking round with the tail of my eye at the quaint, +bright picture that was about me, and could not help some +pleasure and a certain childish pride in forming part of it. +The book I read was about Italy in the early Renaissance, +the pageantries and the light loves of princes, the passion +of men for learning, and poetry, and art; but it was written, +by good luck, after a solid, prosaic fashion, that suited the +room infinitely more nearly than the matter; and the +result was that I thought less, perhaps, of Lippo Lippi, or +Lorenzo, or Politian, than of the good Englishman who had +written in that volume what he knew of them, and taken +so much pleasure in his solemn polysyllables.</p> + +<p>I was not left without society. My landlord had a very +pretty little daughter whom we shall call Lizzie. If I had +made any notes at the time, I might be able to tell you +something definite of her appearance. But faces have a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>128</span> +trick of growing more and more spiritualised and abstract +in the memory, until nothing remains of them but a look, +a haunting expression; just that secret quality in a face that +is apt to slip out somehow under the cunningest painter’s +touch, and leave the portrait dead for the lack of it. And +if it is hard to catch with the finest of camel’s hair pencils, +you may think how hopeless it must be to pursue after it +with clumsy words. If I say, for instance, that this look, +which I remember as Lizzie, was something wistful that +seemed partly to come of slyness and in part of simplicity, +and that I am inclined to imagine it had something to do +with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in one of her large eyes, +I shall have said all that I can, and the reader will not be +much advanced towards comprehension. I had struck up +an acquaintance with this little damsel in the morning, and +professed much interest in her dolls, and an impatient +desire to see the large one which was kept locked away for +great occasions. And so I had not been very long in the +parlour before the door opened, and in came Miss Lizzie +with two dolls tucked clumsily under her arm. She was +followed by her brother John, a year or so younger than +herself, not simply to play propriety at our interview, but +to show his own two whips in emulation of his sister’s dolls. +I did my best to make myself agreeable to my visitors, +showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls’ dresses, +and, with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions +about their age and character. I did not think that Lizzie +distrusted my sincerity, but it was evident she was both +bewildered and a little contemptuous. Although she was +ready herself to treat her dolls as if they were alive, she +seemed to think rather poorly of any grown person who +could fall heartily into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes +she would look at me with gravity and a sort of disquietude, +as though she really feared I must be out of my wits. +Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly into the +question of their names, she laughed at me so long and +heartily that I began to feel almost embarrassed. But +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129"></a>129</span> +when, in an evil moment, I asked to be allowed to kiss one +of them, she could keep herself no longer to herself. Clambering +down from the chair on which she sat perched to show +me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of the +room and into the bar—it was just across the passage,—and +I could hear her telling her mother in loud tones, but +apparently more in sorrow than in merriment, that <i>the +gentleman in the parlour wanted to kiss Dolly</i>. I fancy she +was determined to save me from this humiliating action, +even in spite of myself, for she never gave me the desired +permission. She reminded me of an old dog I once knew, +who would never suffer the master of the house to dance, +out of an exaggerated sense of the dignity of that master’s +place and carriage.</p> + +<p>After the young people were gone there was but one +more incident ere I went to bed. I heard a party of children +go up and down the dark street for a while, singing together +sweetly. And the mystery of this little incident was so +pleasant to me that I purposely refrained from asking who +they were, and wherefore they went singing at so late an +hour. One can rarely be in a pleasant place without +meeting with some pleasant accident. I have a conviction +that these children would not have gone singing before the +inn unless the inn-parlour had been the delightful place it +was. At least, if I had been in the customary public room +of the modern hotel, with all its disproportions and discomforts, +my ears would have been dull, and there would +have been some ugly temper or other uppermost in my +spirit, and so they would have wasted their songs upon an +unworthy hearer.</p> + +<p>Next morning I went along to visit the church. It is a +long-backed red-and-white building, very much restored, +and stands in a pleasant graveyard among those great trees +of which I have spoken already. The sky was drowned in +a mist. Now and again pulses of cold wind went about +the enclosure, and set the branches busy overhead, and the +dead leaves scurrying in to the angles of the church buttresses. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130"></a>130</span> +Now and again, also, I could hear the dull sudden fall of a +chestnut among the grass—the dog would bark before the +rectory door—or there would come a clinking of pails from +the stable-yard behind. But in spite of these occasional +interruptions—in spite, also, of the continuous autumn +twittering that filled the trees—the chief impression somehow +was one as of utter silence, inasmuch that the little +greenish bell that peeped out of a window in the tower +disquieted me with a sense of some possible and more +inharmonious disturbance. The grass was wet, as if with +a hoar-frost that had just been melted. I do not know +that ever I saw a morning more autumnal. As I went to +and fro among the graves, I saw some flowers set reverently +before a recently erected tomb, and drawing near was almost +startled to find they lay on the grave of a man seventy-two +years old when he died. We are accustomed to strew +flowers only over the young, where love has been cut short +untimely, and great possibilities have been restrained by +death. We strew them there in token that these possibilities, +in some deeper sense, shall yet be realised, and the touch +of our dead loves remain with us and guide us to the end. +And yet there was more significance, perhaps, and perhaps +a greater consolation, in this little nosegay on the grave +of one who had died old. We are apt to make so much of +the tragedy of death, and think so little of the enduring +tragedy of some men’s lives, that we see more to lament +for in a life cut off in the midst of usefulness and love, than +in one that miserably survives all love and usefulness, and +goes about the world the phantom of itself, without hope, +or joy, or any consolation. These flowers seemed not so +much the token of love that survived death, as of something +yet more beautiful—of love that had lived a man’s life out +to an end with him, and been faithful and companionable, +and not weary of loving, throughout all these years.</p> + +<p>The morning cleared a little, and the sky was once more +the old stone-coloured vault over the sallow meadows and +the russet woods, as I set forth on a dog-cart from Wendover +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131"></a>131</span> +to Tring. The road lay for a good distance along the side +of the hills, with the great plain below on one hand, and +the beech-woods above on the other. The fields were busy +with people ploughing and sowing; every here and there +a jug of ale stood in the angle of the hedge, and I could see +many a team wait smoking in the furrow as ploughman or +sower stepped aside for a moment to take a draught. Over +all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless hedgerows, +there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it +were, a spirit of picnic. The horses smoked and the men +laboured and shouted and drank in the sharp autumn +morning; so that one had a strong effect of large, open-air +existence. The fellow who drove me was something of a +humorist; and his conversation was all in praise of an +agricultural labourer’s way of life. It was he who called +my attention to these jugs of ale by the hedgerow; he +could not sufficiently express the liberality of these men’s +wages; he told me how sharp an appetite was given by +breaking up the earth in the morning air, whether with +plough or spade, and cordially admired this provision of +nature. He sang <i>O fortunatos agricolas</i>! indeed, in every +possible key, and with many cunning inflections, till I +began to wonder what was the use of such people as Mr. +Arch, and to sing the same air myself in a more diffident +manner.</p> + +<p>Tring was reached, and then Tring railway station; for +the two are not very near, the good people of Tring having +held the railway, of old days, in extreme apprehension, +lest some day it should break loose in the town and work +mischief. I had a last walk, among russet beeches as +usual, and the air filled, as usual, with the carolling of +larks; I heard shots fired in the distance, and saw, as a new +sign of the fulfilled autumn, two horsemen exercising a +pack of fox-hounds. And then the train came and carried +me back to London.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40" href="#FnAnchor_40"><span class="fn">40</span></a> I had nearly finished the transcription of the following pages, +when I saw on a friend’s table the number containing the piece from +which this sentence is extracted, and, struck with a similarity of +title, took it home with me and read it with indescribable satisfaction. +I do not know whether I more envy M. Theuriet the pleasure +of having written this delightful article, or the reader the pleasure, +which I hope he has still before him, of reading it once and again, +and lingering over the passages that please him most.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>132</span></p> +<h5>VII</h5> + +<h3>A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND +GALLOWAY</h3> + +<p class="center1">(<i>A Fragment</i>: 1876)</p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">At</span> the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of +the shire of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. +On the Carrick side of the river rises a hill of somewhat +gentle conformation, cleft with shallow dells, and sown here +and there with farms and tufts of wood. Inland, it loses +itself, joining, I suppose, the great herd of similar hills that +occupies the centre of the Lowlands. Towards the sea, it +swells out the coast-line into a protuberance, like a bay +window in a plan, and is fortified against the surf behind +bold crags. This hill is known as the Brown Hill of Carrick, +or, more shortly, Brown Carrick.</p> + +<p>It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted +up; they were tucked in among the snow, and their shape +was modelled through the pliant counterpane, like children +tucked in by a fond mother. The wind had made ripples +and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet +weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle +in the air. An effusion of coppery light on the summit of +Brown Carrick showed where the sun was trying to look +through; but along the horizon clouds of cold fog had +settled down, so that there was no distinction of sky and +sea. Over the white shoulders of the headlands, or in the +opening of bays, there was nothing but a great vacancy and +blackness; and the road as it drew near the edge of the +cliff seemed to skirt the shores of creation and void space.</p> + +<p>The snow crunched underfoot, and at farms all the +dogs broke out barking as they smelt a passer-by upon +the road. I met a fine old fellow, who might have sat as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133"></a>133</span> +the father in “The Cottar’s Saturday Night,” and who +swore most heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a +little after I scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping +out to gather cockles. His face was wrinkled by +exposure; it was broken up into flakes and channels, like +mud beginning to dry, and weathered in two colours, an +incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air of being +surprised—which, God knows, he might well be—that life +had gone so ill with him. The shape of his trousers was +in itself a jest, so strangely were they bagged and ravelled +about his knees; and his coat was all bedaubed with clay +as though he had lain in a rain-dub during the New Year’s +festivity. I will own I was not sorry to think he had had +a merry New Year, and been young again for an evening; +but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One could +not expect such an old gentleman to be much of a dandy, +or a great student of respectability in dress; but there +might have been a wife at home, who had brushed out +similar stains after fifty New Years, now become old, or a +round-armed daughter, who would wish to have him neat, +were it only out of self-respect and for the ploughman +sweetheart when he looks round at night. Plainly, there +was nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness hung +heavily on his old arms. He was seventy-six, he told me; +and nobody would give a day’s work to a man that age: +they would think he couldn’t do it. “And, ’deed,” he +went on, with a sad little chuckle, “’deed, I doubt if I +could.” He said good-bye to me at a foot-path, and +crippled wearily off to his work. It will make your heart +ache if you think of his old fingers groping in the snow.</p> + +<p>He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house +for Dunure. And so, when I found a lone house among +the snow, and heard a babble of childish voices from within, +I struck off into a steep road leading downwards to the +sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven +among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, +much apparatus for drying nets, and a score or so of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>134</span> +fishers’ houses. Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle +overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall gable honeycombed +with windows. The snow lay on the beach to the +tide-mark. It was daubed on to the sills of the ruin; it +roosted in the crannies of the rock like white sea-birds; +even on outlying reefs there would be a little cock of snow, +like a toy lighthouse. Everything was grey and white in +a cold and dolorous sort of shepherd’s plaid. In the profound +silence, broken only by the noise of oars at sea, a +horn was sounded twice; and I saw the postman, girt +with two bags, pause a moment at the end of the clachan +for letters. It is, perhaps, characteristic of Dunure that +none were brought him.</p> + +<p>The people at the public-house did not seem well pleased +to see me, and though I would fain have stayed by the +kitchen fire, sent me “ben the hoose” into the guest-room. +This guest-room at Dunure was painted in quite +æsthetic fashion. There are rooms in the same taste not +a hundred miles from London, where persons of an extreme +sensibility meet together without embarrassment. It was +all in a fine dull bottle-green and black; a grave harmonious +piece of colouring, with nothing, so far as coarser +folk can judge, to hurt the better feelings of the most +exquisite purist. A cherry-red half window-blind kept up +an imaginary warmth in the cold room, and threw quite +a glow on the floor. Twelve cockle-shells and a halfpenny +china figure were ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. +Even the spittoon was an original note, and instead of +sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, +it would merit an article to itself, and a coloured diagram +to help the text. It was patchwork, but the patchwork +of the poor; no glowing shreds of old brocade and Chinese +silk, shaken together in the kaleidoscope of some tasteful +housewife’s fancy; but a work of art in its own way, and +plainly a labour of love. The patches came exclusively +from people’s raiment. There was no colour more brilliant +than a heather mixture; “My Johnnie’s grey breeks,” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135"></a>135</span> +well polished over the oar on the boat’s thwart, entered +largely into its composition. And the spoils of an old +black cloth coat, that had been many a Sunday to church, +added something (save the mark!) of preciousness to the +material.</p> + +<p>While I was at luncheon four carters came in—long-limbed, +muscular Ayrshire Scots, with lean, intelligent +faces. Four quarts of stout were ordered; they kept +filling the tumbler with the other hand as they drank; and +in less time than it takes me to write these words the four +quarts were finished—another round was proposed, discussed, +and negatived—and they were creaking out of the +village with their carts.</p> + +<p>The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any +place more desolate from a distance, nor one that less +belied its promise near at hand. Some crows and gulls +flew away croaking as I scrambled in. The snow had +drifted into the vaults. The clachan dabbled with snow, +the white hills, the black sky, the sea marked in the coves +with faint circular wrinkles, the whole world, as it looked +from a loop-hole in Dunure, was cold, wretched, and out-at-elbows. +If you had been a wicked baron and compelled +to stay there all the afternoon, you would have had a rare +fit of remorse. How you would have heaped up the fire +and gnawed your fingers! I think it would have come to +homicide before the evening—if it were only for the pleasure +of seeing something red! And the masters of Dunure, +it is to be noticed, were remarkable of old for inhumanity. +One of these vaults where the snow had drifted was that +“black voute” where “Mr. Alane Stewart, Commendatour +of Crossraguel,” endured his fiery trials. On the 1st and +7th of September 1570 (ill dates for Mr. Alan!), Gilbert, +Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his +pantryman, and another servant, bound the poor Commendator +“betwix an iron chimlay and a fire,” and there +cruelly roasted him until he signed away his abbacy. It +is one of the ugliest stories of an ugly period, but not, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>136</span> +somehow, without such a flavour of the ridiculous as makes +it hard to sympathise quite seriously with the victim. +And it is consoling to remember that he got away at last, +and kept his abbacy, and, over and above, had a pension +from the Earl until he died.</p> + +<p>Some way beyond Dunure a wide bay, of somewhat less +unkindly aspect, opened out. Colzean plantations lay all +along the steep shore, and there was a wooded hill towards +the centre, where the trees made a sort of shadowy etching +over the snow. The road went down and up, and past a +blacksmith’s cottage that made fine music in the valley. +Three compatriots of Burns drove up to me in a cart. They +were all drunk, and asked me jeeringly if this was the way +to Dunure. I told them it was; and my answer was received +with unfeigned merriment. One gentleman was so +much tickled he nearly fell out of the cart; indeed, he was +only saved by a companion, who either had not so fine a +sense of humour or had drunken less.</p> + +<p>“The toune of Mayboll,” says the inimitable Abercrummie,<a name="FnAnchor_41" id="FnAnchor_41" href="#Footnote_41"><span class="sp">41</span></a> +“stands upon an ascending ground from east +to west, and lyes open to the south. It hath one principall +street, with houses upon both sides, built of freestone, +and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one +at each end of this street. That on the east belongs to +the Erle of Cassilis. On the west end is a castle, which +belonged sometime to the laird of Blairquan, which is +now the tolbuith, and is adorned with a pyremide [conical +roof], and a row of ballesters round it raised from the top +of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne +clock. There be four lanes which pass from the principall +street; one is called the Back Vennel, which is steep, +declining to the south-west, and leads to a lower street, +which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and it runs +from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have +been many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137"></a>137</span> +gentry of the countrey, who were wont to resort thither in +winter, and divert themselves in converse together at their +owne houses. It was once the principall street of the +town; but many of these houses of the gentry having been +decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. +Just opposite to this vennel, there is another that leads +north-west, from the chiefe street to the green, which is +a pleasant plott of ground, enclosed round with an earthen +wall, wherein they were wont to play football, but now +at the Gowff and byasse-bowls. The houses of this towne, +on both sides of the street, have their several gardens +belonging to them; and in the lower street there be some +pretty orchards, that yield store of good fruit.” As +Patterson says, this description is near enough even to-day, +and is mighty nicely written to boot. I am bound to +add, of my own experience, that Maybole is tumble-down +and dreary. Prosperous enough in reality, it has an air +of decay; and though the population has increased, a +roofless house every here and there seems to protest the +contrary. The women are more than well-favoured, and +the men fine tall fellows; but they look slipshod and dissipated. +As they slouched at street corners, or stood about +gossiping in the snow, it seemed they would have been +more at home in the slums of a large city than here in a +country place betwixt a village and a town. I heard a +great deal about drinking, and a great deal about religious +revivals: two things in which the Scottish character is +emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, I heard of +clergymen who were employing their time in explaining to a +delighted audience the physics of the Second Coming. It is +not very likely any of us will be asked to help. If we were, +it is likely we should receive instructions for the occasion, +and that on more reliable authority. And so I can only +figure to myself a congregation truly curious in such flights +of theological fancy, as one of veteran and accomplished +saints, who have fought the good fight to an end and outlived +all worldly passion, and are to be regarded rather as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>138</span> +a part of the Church Triumphant than the poor, imperfect +company on earth. And yet I saw some young fellows +about the smoking-room who seemed, in the eyes of one +who cannot count himself strait-laced, in need of some +more practical sort of teaching. They seemed only eager +to get drunk, and to do so speedily. It was not much +more than a week after the New Year; and to hear them +return on their past bouts with a gusto unspeakable was +not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of talk, for +the accuracy of which I can vouch—</p> + +<p>“Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?”</p> + +<p>“We had that!”</p> + +<p>“I wasna able to be oot o’ my bed. Man, I was awful +bad on Wednesday.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, ye were gey bad.”</p> + +<p>And you should have seen the bright eyes, and heard +the sensual accents! They recalled their doings with +devout gusto and a sort of rational pride. Schoolboys, +after their first drunkenness, are not more boastful; a +cock does not plume himself with a more unmingled satisfaction +as he paces forth among his harem; and yet these +were grown men, and by no means short of wit. It was +hard to suppose they were very eager about the Second +Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of +temperance for the men and seemliness for the women +would have gone nearer the mark. And yet, as it seemed +to me typical of much that is evil in Scotland, Maybole is +also typical of much that is best. Some of the factories, +which have taken the place of weaving in the town’s +economy, were originally founded and are still possessed +by self-made men of the sterling, stout old breed—fellows +who made some little bit of an invention, borrowed some +little pocketful of capital, and then, step by step, in +courage, thrift, and industry, fought their way upward +to an assured position.</p> + +<p>Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; +but, as a bit of spelling, this inscription on the Tolbooth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139"></a>139</span> +bell seems too delicious to withhold: “This bell is founded +at Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, a Frenchman, the 6th November +1696, Bi appointment of the heritors of the parish of +Maiyboll.” The Castle deserves more notice. It is a large +and shapely tower, plain from the ground upward, but +with a zone of ornamentation running about the top. In +a general way this adornment is perched on the very +summit of the chimney-stacks; but there is one corner +more elaborate than the rest. A very heavy string-course +runs round the upper story, and just above this, facing up +the street, the tower carries a small oriel window, fluted +and corbelled and carved about with stone heads. It is +so ornate it has somewhat the air of a shrine. And it was, +indeed, the casket of a very precious jewel, for in the +room to which it gives light lay, for long years, the heroine +of the sweet old ballad of “Johnnie Faa”—she who, at +the call of the gipsies’ songs, “came tripping down the +stair, and all her maids before her.” Some people say the +ballad has no basis in fact, and have written, I believe, unanswerable +papers to the proof. But in the face of all that, +the very look of that high oriel window convinces the +imagination, and we enter into all the sorrows of the +imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of the long, +lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against +the mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High +Street, and the children at play, and ruffling gallants riding +by from hunt or foray. We conceive the passion of odd +moments, when the wind threw up to her some snatch of +song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes +overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the +tale be not true of this or that lady, or this or that old +tower, it is true in the essence of all men and women: for +all of us, some time or other, hear the gipsies singing; +over all of us is the glamour cast. Some resist and sit +resolutely by the fire. Most go and are brought back +again, like Lady Cassilis. A few, of the tribe of Waring, +go and are seen no more; only now and again, at springtime, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140"></a>140</span> +when the gipsies’ song is afloat in the amethyst +evening, we can catch their voices in the glee.</p> + +<p>By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible than +during the day. Clouds coursed over the sky in great +masses; the full moon battled the other way, and lit up +the snow with gleams of flying silver; the town came down +the hill in a cascade of brown gables, bestridden by smooth +white roofs, and spangled here and there with lighted +windows. At either end the snow stood high up in the +darkness, on the peak of the Tolbooth and among the +chimneys of the Castle. As the moon flashed a bull’s-eye +glitter across the town between the racing clouds, the +white roofs leaped into relief over the gables and the +chimney-stacks, and their shadows over the white roofs. +In the town itself the lit face of the clock peered down +the street; an hour was hammered out on Mr. Geli’s bell, +and from behind the red curtains of a public-house some +one trolled out—a compatriot of Burns, again!—“The +saut tear blin’s my e’e.”</p> + +<p>Next morning there were sun and a flapping wind. +From the street-corners of Maybole I could catch breezy +glimpses of green fields. The road underfoot was wet and +heavy—part ice, part snow, part water; and any one I +met greeted me, by way of salutation, with “A fine thowe” +(thaw). My way lay among rather bleak hills, and past +bleak ponds and dilapidated castles and monasteries, to +the Highland-looking village of Kirkoswald. It has little +claim to notice save that Burns came there to study surveying +in the summer of 1777, and there also, in the kirkyard, +the original of Tam o’ Shanter sleeps his last sleep. +It is worth noticing, however, that this was the first place +I thought “Highland-looking.” Over the hill from Kirkoswald +a farm-road leads to the coast. As I came down +above Turnberry, the sea view was indeed strangely +different from the day before. The cold fogs were all +blown away; and there was Ailsa Craig, like a refraction, +magnified and deformed, of the Bass Rock; and there +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141"></a>141</span> +were the chiselled mountain tops of Arran, veined and +tipped with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, blue +land of Cantyre. Cottony clouds stood, in a great castle, +over the top of Arran, and blew out in long streamers to +the south. The sea was bitten all over with white; little +ships, tacking up and down the Firth, lay over at different +angles in the wind. On Shanter they were ploughing lea; +a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied +as if the spring were in him.</p> + +<p>The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along the +shore, among sandhills and by wildernesses of tumbled +bent. Every here and there a few cottages stood together +beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, not easy to +describe in words: a triangular porch projected from above +the door, supported at the apex by a single upright post; +a secondary door was hinged to the post, and could be +hasped on either cheek of the real entrance; so, whether +the wind was north or south, the cotter could make himself +a triangular bight of shelter where to set his chair and +finish a pipe with comfort. There is one objection to +this device: for, as the post stands in the middle of the +fairway, any one precipitately issuing from the cottage +must run his chance of a broken head. So far as I am +aware, it is peculiar to the little corner of country about +Girvan. And that corner is noticeable for more reasons: +it is certainly one of the most characteristic districts in +Scotland. It has this movable porch by way of architecture; +it has, as we shall see, a sort of remnant of provincial +costume, and it has the handsomest population in +the Lowlands....</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41" href="#FnAnchor_41"><span class="fn">41</span></a> William Abercrombie. See <i>Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ</i>, under +“Maybole” (Part iii.).</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>142</span></p> +<h5>VIII</h5> + +<h3>FOREST NOTES</h3> + +<p class="center1">(1875-6)</p> + +<h5>ON THE PLAIN</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Perhaps</span> the reader knows already the aspect of the great +levels of the Gâtinais, where they border with the wooded +hills of Fontainebleau. Here and there a few grey rocks +creep out of the forest as if to sun themselves. Here and +there a few apple-trees stand together on a knoll. The +quaint, undignified tartan of a myriad small fields dies +out into the distance; the strips blend and disappear; and +the dead flat lies forth open and empty, with no accident +save perhaps a thin line of trees or faint church-spire against +the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in spite of pettiness +in the near details, the impression becomes more solemn +and vast towards evening. The sun goes down, a swollen +orange, as it were into the sea. A blue-clad peasant rides +home, with a harrow smoking behind him among the dry +clods. Another still works with his wife in their little strip. +An immense shadow fills the plain; these people stand in +it up to their shoulders; and their heads, as they stoop +over their work and rise again, are relieved from time +to time against the golden sky.</p> + +<p>These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not +by any means overworked; but somehow you always see +in them the historical representative of the serf of yore, +and think not so much of present times, which may be +prosperous enough, as of the old days when the peasant +was taxed beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in +Michelet’s image, like a hare between two furrows. These +very people now weeding their patch under the broad +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143"></a>143</span> +sunset, that very man and his wife, it seems to us, have +suffered all the wrongs of France. It is they who have +been their country’s scape-goat for long ages; they who, +generation after generation, have sowed and not reaped, +reaped and another has garnered; and who have now +entered into their reward, and enjoy their good things in +their turn. For the days are gone by when the Seigneur +ruled and profited. “Le Seigneur,” says the old formula, +“enferme ses manants comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel +à la terre. Tout est à lui, forêt chenue, oiseau dans l’air, +poisson dans l’eau, bête au buisson, l’onde qui coule, la +cloche dont le son au loin roule.” Such was his old state +of sovereignty, a local god rather than a mere king. And +now you may ask yourself where he is, and look round for +vestiges of my late lord, and in all the country-side there +is no trace of him but his forlorn and fallen mansion. At +the end of a long avenue, now sown with grain, in the midst +of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and crowing +chanticleers and droning bees, the old château lifts its red +chimneys and peaked roofs and turning vanes into the +wind and sun. There is a glad spring bustle in the air, +perhaps, and the lilacs are all in flower, and the creepers +green about the broken balustrade; but no spring shall +revive the honour of the place. Old women of the people, +little children of the people, saunter and gambol in the +walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected moat. +Plough-horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. +The dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. +Out on the plain, where hot sweat trickles into men’s eyes, +and the spade goes in deep and comes up slowly, perhaps +the peasant may feel a movement of joy at his heart when +he thinks that these spacious chimneys are now cold, +which have so often blazed and flickered upon gay folk +at supper, while he and his hollow-eyed children watched +through the night with empty bellies and cold feet. And +perhaps, as he raises his head and sees the forest lying +like a coast-line of low hills along the sea-like level of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144"></a>144</span> +the plain, perhaps forest and château hold no unsimilar +place in his affections.</p> + +<p>If the château was my lord’s the forest was my lord +the king’s; neither of them for this poor Jacques. If he +thought to eke out his meagre way of life by some petty +theft of wood for the fire, or for a new roof-tree, he found +himself face to face with a whole department, from the +Grand Master of the Woods and Waters, who was a high-born +lord, down to the common sergeant, who was a +peasant like himself, and wore stripes or bandolier by way +of uniform. For the first offence, by the Salic law, there +was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man be taken +more than once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the +colour of his guilt, he might be whipped, branded, or +hanged. There was a hangman over at Melun, and, I +doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town gate, where +Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the sky as +he went to market.</p> + +<p>And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would be +the more hares and rabbits to eat out his harvest, and +the more hunters to trample it down. My lord has a new +horn from England. He has laid out seven francs in decorating +it with silver and gold, and fitting it with a silken +leash to hang about his shoulder. The hounds have been +on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint +Hubert in the Ardennes, or some other holy intercessor +who has made a speciality of the health of hunting-dogs. +In the grey dawn the game was turned and the branch +broken by our best piqueur. A rare day’s hunting lies +before us. Wind a jolly flourish, sound the <i>bien-aller</i> +with all your lungs. Jacques must stand by, hat in hand, +while the quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across +his field, and a year’s sparing and labouring is as though +it had not been. If he can see the ruin with a good enough +grace, who knows but he may fall in favour with my lord; +who knows but his son may become the last and least +among the servants at his lordship’s kennel—one of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145"></a>145</span> +two poor varlets who get no wages and sleep at night +among the hounds?<a name="FnAnchor_42" id="FnAnchor_42" href="#Footnote_42"><span class="sp">42</span></a></p> + +<p>For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not +only warming him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter +in days of sore trouble, when my lord of the château, +with all his troopers and trumpets, had been beaten from +field after field into some ultimate fastness, or lay overseas +in an English prison. In these dark days, when the +watch on the church steeple saw the smoke of burning +villages on the sky-line, or a clump of spears and fluttering +pennon drawing nigh across the plain, these good folk gat +them up, with all their household gods, into the wood, +whence, from some high spur, their timid scouts might +overlook the coming and going of the marauders, and see +the harvest ridden down, and church and cottage go up +to heaven all night in flame. It was but an unhomely +refuge that the woods afforded, where they must abide +all change of weather and keep house with wolves and +vipers. Often there was none left alive, when they returned, +to show the old divisions of field from field. And +yet, as times went, when the wolves entered at night +into depopulated Paris, and perhaps De Retz was passing +by with a company of demons like himself, even in these +caves and thickets there were glad hearts and grateful +prayers.</p> + +<p>Once or twice, as I say, in the course of the ages, the +forest may have served the peasant well, but at heart it +is a royal forest, and noble by old association. These +woods have rung to the horns of all the kings of France, +from Philip Augustus downwards. They have seen St. +Louis exercise the dogs he brought with him from Egypt; +Francis I. go a-hunting with ten thousand horses in his +train; and Peter of Russia following his first stag. And +so they are still haunted for the imagination by royal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146"></a>146</span> +hunts and progresses, and peopled with the faces of memorable +men of yore. And this distinction is not only in +virtue of the pastime of dead monarchs. Great events, +great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs of men, have +here left their note, here taken shape in some significant +and dramatic situation. It was hence that Guise and +his leaguers led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. +Here, booted and spurred, and with all his dogs about +him, Napoleon met the Pope beside a woodland cross. +Here, on his way to Elba, not so long after, he kissed the +eagle of the Old Guard, and spoke words of passionate +farewell to his soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, rather +than yield its ensign to the new power, one of his faithful +regiments burned that memorial of so much toil and +glory on the Grand Master’s table, and drank its dust +in brandy, as a devout priest consumes the remnants of +the Host.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>IN THE SEASON</h5> + +<p>Close into the edge of the forest, so close that the trees +of the <i>bornage</i> stand pleasantly about the last houses, sits +a certain small and very quiet village. There is but one +street, and that, not long ago, was a green lane, where +the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. As you go +up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the +wood, you will arrive at last before an inn where artists +lodge. To the door (for I imagine it to be six o’clock on +some fine summer’s even), half a dozen, or maybe half a +score, of people have brought out chairs, and now sit +sunning themselves and waiting the omnibus from Melun. +If you go on into the court you will find as many more, +some in the billiard-room over absinthe and a match of +corks, some without over a last cigar and a vermouth. +The doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; Hortense is +drawing water from the well; and as all the rooms open +into the court, you can see the white-capped cook over +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>147</span> +the furnace in the kitchen, and some idle painter, who +has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, jangling +a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-à-manger. +“<i>Edmond, encore un vermouth</i>,” cries a man in +velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic after-thought, +“<i>un double, s’il vous plaît</i>.” “Where are you working?” +asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. “At the +Garrefour de l’Épine,” returns the other in corduroy (they +are all gaitered, by the way). “I couldn’t do a thing to +it. I ran out of white. Where were you?” “I wasn’t +working. I was looking for motives.” Here is an outbreak +of jubilation, and a lot of men clustering together +about some new-comer with outstretched hands; perhaps +the “correspondence” has come in and brought So-and-so +from Paris, or perhaps it is only So-and-so who has walked +over from Chailly to dinner.</p> + +<p>“<i>À table, Messieurs!</i>” cries M. Siron, bearing through +the court the first tureen of soup. And immediately the +company begins to settle down about the long tables in +the dining-room, framed all round with sketches of all +degrees of merit and demerit. There’s the big picture of +the huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between +his legs, and his legs—well, his legs in stockings. And +here is the little picture of a raw mutton-chop, in which +Such-a-one knocked a hole last summer with no worse +a missile than a plum from the dessert. And under all +these works of art so much eating goes forward, so much +drinking, so much jabbering in French and English, that +it would do your heart good merely to peep and listen +at the door. One man is telling how they all went last +year to the fête at Fleury, and another how well So-and-so +would sing of an evening; and here are a third and fourth +making plans for the whole future of their lives; and +there is a fifth imitating a conjuror making faces on his +clenched fist, surely of all arts the most difficult and +admirable! A sixth has eaten his fill, lights a cigarette, +and resigns himself to digestion. A seventh has just +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148"></a>148</span> +dropped in, and calls for soup. Number eight, meanwhile, +has left the table, and is once more trampling the poor +piano under powerful and uncertain fingers.</p> + +<p>Dinner over, people drop outside to smoke and chat. +Perhaps we go along to visit our friends at the other end +of the village, where there is always a good welcome and +a good talk, and perhaps some pickled oysters and white +wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised in +the dining-room, and the piano exhibits all its paces under +manful jockeying, to the light of three or four candles +and a lamp or two, while the waltzers move to and fro +upon the wooden floor, and sober men, who are not given +to such light pleasures, get up on the table or the sideboard, +and sit there looking on approvingly over a pipe +and a tumbler of wine. Or sometimes—suppose my lady +moon looks forth, and the court from out the half-lit +dining-room seems nearly as bright as by day, and the +light picks out the window-panes, and makes a clear +shadow under every vine leaf on the wall—sometimes a +picnic is proposed, and a basket made ready, and a good +procession formed in front of the hotel. The two trumpeters +in honour go before; and as we file down the long +alley, and up through devious footpaths among rocks and +pine-trees, with every here and there a dark passage +of shadow, and every here and there a spacious outlook +over moonlit woods, these two precede us and sound many +a jolly flourish as they walk. We gather ferns and dry +boughs into the cavern, and soon a good blaze flutters +the shadows of the old bandits’ haunt, and shows shapely +beards and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the +wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch is burnt and sent +round in scalding thimblefuls. So a good hour or two +may pass with song and jest. And then we go home in +the moonlight morning, straggling a good deal among the +birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called together +again, as one of our leaders winds his horn. Perhaps some +one of the party will not heed the summons, but chooses +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149"></a>149</span> +out some by-way of his own. As he follows the winding +sandy road, he hears the flourishes grow fainter and fainter +in the distance, and die finally out, and still walks on in +the strange coolness and silence and between the crisp +lights and shadows of the moonlit woods, until suddenly +the bell rings out the hour from far-away Chailly, and he +starts to find himself alone. No surf-bell on forlorn and +perilous shores, no passing knell over the busy market-place, +can speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue +to human ears. Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly +reverberations in his mind. And as he stands rooted, it +has grown once more so utterly silent that it seems to him +he might hear the church-bells ring the hour out all the +world over, not at Chailly only, but in Paris, and away +in outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where +his childhood passed between the sun and flowers.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>IDLE HOURS</h5> + +<p>The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are +not rightly to be understood until you can compare them +with the woods by day. The stillness of the medium, the +floor of glittering sand, these trees that go streaming up +like monstrous sea-weeds and waver in the moving winds +like the weeds in submarine currents, all these set the +mind working on the thought of what you may have seen +off a foreland or over the side of a boat, and make you +feel like a diver, down in the quiet water, fathoms below +the tumbling, transitory surface of the sea. And yet in +itself, as I say, the strangeness of these nocturnal solitudes +is not to be felt fully without the sense of contrast. You +must have risen in the morning and seen the woods as +they are by day, kindled and coloured in the sun’s light; +you must have felt the odour of innumerable trees at even, +the unsparing heat along the forest roads, and the coolness +of the groves.</p> + +<p>And on the first morning you will doubtless rise betimes. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150"></a>150</span> +If you have not been wakened before by the visit +of some adventurous pigeon, you will be wakened as soon +as the sun can reach your window—for there are no blinds +or shutters to keep him out—and the room, with its bare +wood floor and bare whitewashed walls, shines all round +you in a sort of glory of reflected lights. You may doze +a while longer by snatches, or lie awake to study the +charcoal men and dogs and horses with which former +occupants have defiled the partitions: Thiers, with wily +profile; local celebrities, pipe in hand; or, maybe, a +romantic landscape splashed in oil. Meanwhile artist after +artist drops into the salle-à-manger for coffee, and then +shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, and paint-box, bound +into a fagot, and sets off for what he calls his “motive.” +And artist after artist, as he goes out of the village, carries +with him a little following of dogs. For the dogs, who +belong only nominally to any special master, hang about +the gate of the forest all day long, and whenever any one +goes by who hits their fancy, profit by his escort, and go +forth with him to play an hour or two at hunting. They +would like to be under the trees all day. But they cannot +go alone. They require a pretext. And so they take the +passing artist as an excuse to go into the woods, as they +might take a walking-stick as an excuse to bathe. With +quick ears, long spines, and bandy legs, or perhaps as +tall as a greyhound and with a bulldog’s head, this company +of mongrels will trot by your side all day and come +home with you at night, still showing white teeth and +wagging stunted tail. Their good humour is not to be +exhausted. You may pelt them with stones if you please, +all they will do is to give you a wider berth. If once they +come out with you, to you they will remain faithful, and +with you return; although if you meet them next morning +in the street, it is as like as not they will cut you with +a countenance of brass.</p> + +<p>The forest—a strange thing for an Englishman—is very +destitute of birds. This is no country where every patch +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151"></a>151</span> +of wood among the meadows gives up an incense of song, +and every valley wandered through by a streamlet rings +and reverberates from side to side with a profusion of clear +notes. And this rarity of birds is not to be regretted on +its own account only. For the insects prosper in their +absence, and become as one of the plagues of Egypt. +Ants swarm in the hot sand; mosquitoes drone their nasal +drone; wherever the sun finds a hole in the roof of the +forest, you see a myriad transparent creatures coming and +going in the shaft of light; and even between-whiles, even +where there is no incursion of sun-rays into the dark arcade +of the wood, you are conscious of a continual drift of +insects, an ebb and flow of infinitesimal living things +between the trees. Nor are insects the only evil creatures +that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave +among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a +wild boar, or see a crooked viper slither across the road.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you may set yourself down in the bay between +two spreading beech-roots with a book on your lap, and +be awakened all of a sudden by a friend: “I say, just +keep where you are, will you? You make the jolliest +motive.” And you reply: “Well, I don’t mind, if I may +smoke.” And thereafter the hours go idly by. Your +friend at the easel labours doggedly a little way off, in the +wide shadow of the tree; and yet farther, across a strait +of glaring sunshine, you see another painter, encamped in +the shadow of another tree, and up to his waist in the +fern. You cannot watch your own effigy growing out of +the white trunk, and the trunk beginning to stand forth +from the rest of the wood, and the whole picture getting +dappled over with the flecks of sun that slip through the +leaves overhead, and, as a wind goes by and sets the trees +a-talking, flicker hither and thither like butterflies of +light. But you know it is going forward; and, out of +emulation with the painter, get ready your own palette, +and lay out the colour for a woodland scene in words.</p> + +<p>Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>152</span> +heather, set in a basin of low hills, and scattered over +with rocks and junipers. All the open is steeped in pitiless +sunlight. Everything stands out as though it were cut in +cardboard, every colour is strained into its highest key. +The boulders are some of them upright and dead like +monolithic castles, some of them prone like sleeping cattle. +The junipers—looking, in their soiled and ragged mourning, +like some funeral procession that has gone seeking the +place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind +and rain—are daubed in forcibly against the glowing ferns +and heather. Every tassel of their rusty foliage is defined +with pre-Raphaelite minuteness. And a sorry figure they +make out there in the sun, like misbegotten yew-trees! +The scene is all pitched in a key of colour so peculiar, and +lit up with such a discharge of violent sunlight, as a man +might live fifty years in England and not see.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, +words of Ronsard to a pathetic tremulous air, of how +the poet loved his mistress long ago, and pressed on her +the flight of time, and told her how white and quiet the +dead lay under the stones, and how the boat dipped and +pitched as the shades embarked for the passionless land. +Yet a little while, sang the poet, and there shall be no +more love; only to sit and remember loves that might +have been. There is a falling flourish in the air that +remains in the memory and comes back in incongruous +places, on the seat of hansoms or in the warm bed at +night, with something of a forest savour.</p> + +<p>“You can get up now,” says the painter; “I’m at +the background.”</p> + +<p>And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your +way into the wood, the daylight becoming richer and more +golden, and the shadows stretching farther into the open. +A cool air comes along the highways, and the scents awaken. +The fir-trees breathe abroad their ozone. Out of unknown +thickets comes forth the soft, secret, aromatic odour of +the woods, not like a smell of the free heaven, but as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153"></a>153</span> +though court ladies, who had known these paths in ages +long gone by, still walked in the summer evenings, and +shed from their brocades a breath of musk or bergamot +upon the woodland winds. One side of the long avenues +is still kindled with the sun, the other is plunged in transparent +shadow. Over the trees the west begins to burn +like a furnace; and the painters gather up their chattels, +and go down, by avenue or footpath, to the plain.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>A PLEASURE-PARTY</h5> + +<p>As this excursion is a matter of some length, and, +moreover, we go in force, we have set aside our usual +vehicle, the pony-cart, and ordered a large wagonette from +Lejosne’s. It has been waiting for near an hour, while +one went to pack a knapsack, and t’other hurried over his +toilette and coffee; but now it is filled from end to end +with merry folk in summer attire, the coachman cracks +his whip, and amid much applause from round the inn-door +off we rattle at a spanking trot. The way lies through +the forest, up hill and down dale, and by beech and pine +wood, in the cheerful morning sunshine. The English get +down at all the ascents and walk on ahead for exercise; +the French are mightily entertained at this, and keep +coyly underneath the tilt. As we go we carry with us a +pleasant noise of laughter and light speech, and some one +will be always breaking out into a bar or two of opera +bouffe. Before we get to the Route Ronde here comes +Desprez, the colourman from Fontainebleau, trudging +across on his weekly peddle with a case of merchandise; +and it is “Desprez, leave me some malachite green”; +“Desprez, leave me so much canvas”; “Desprez, leave +me this, or leave me that”; M. Desprez standing the while +in the sunlight with grave face and many salutations. The +next interruption is more important. For some time back +we have had the sound of cannon in our ears; and now, +a little past Franchard, we find a mounted trooper holding +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154"></a>154</span> +a led horse, who brings the wagonette to a stand. The +artillery is practising in the Quadrilateral, it appears; +passage along the Route Ronde formally interdicted for the +moment. There is nothing for it but to draw up at the +glaring cross-roads, and get down to make fun with the +notorious Cocardon, the most ungainly and ill-bred dog of +all the ungainly and ill-bred dogs of Barbizon, or clamber +about the sandy banks. And meanwhile the Doctor, with +sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal beard, is busy +wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the +too facile sentry. His speech is smooth and dulcet, his +manner dignified and insinuating. It is not for nothing +that the Doctor has voyaged all the world over, and speaks +all languages from French to Patagonian. He has not +come home from perilous journeys to be thwarted by a +corporal of horse. And so we soon see the soldier’s mouth +relax, and his shoulders imitate a relenting heart. “<i>En +voiture, Messieurs, Mesdames</i>,” sings the Doctor; and on +we go again at a good round pace, for black care follows +hard after us, and discretion prevails not a little over +valour in some timorous spirits of the party. At any +moment we may meet the sergeant, who will send us back. +At any moment we may encounter a flying shell, which +will send us somewhere farther off than Grez.</p> + +<p>Grez—for that is our destination—has been highly +recommended for its beauty. “<i>Il y a de l’eau</i>,” people +have said, with an emphasis, as if that settled the question, +which, for a French mind, I am rather led to think it does. +And Grez, when we get there, is indeed a place worthy of +some praise. It lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, +with an old bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a quaint +old church. The inn garden descends in terraces to the +river; stableyard, kailyard, orchard, and a space of lawn, +fringed with rushes and embellished with a green arbour. +On the opposite bank there is a reach of English-looking +plain, set thickly with willows and poplars. And between +the two lies the river, clear and deep, and full of reeds +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>155</span> +and floating lilies. Water-plants cluster about the starlings +of the long low bridge, and stand half-way up upon the +piers in green luxuriance. They catch the dipped oar +with long antennæ, and chequer the slimy bottom with +the shadow of their leaves. And the river wanders hither +and thither among the islets, and is smothered and broken +up by the reeds, like an old building in the lithe, hardy +arms of the climbing ivy. You may watch the box where +the good man of the inn keeps fish alive for his kitchen, +one oily ripple following another over the top of the yellow +deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices +from the shed under the old kirk, where the village women +wash and wash all day among the fish and water-lilies. +It seems as if linen washed there should be specially cool +and sweet.</p> + +<p>We have come here for the river. And no sooner have +we all bathed than we board the two shallops and push +off gaily, and go gliding under the trees and gathering a +great treasure of water-lilies. Some one sings; some trail +their hands in the cool water; some lean over the gunwale +to see the image of the tall poplars far below, and +the shadow of the boat, with balanced oars and their +own head protruded, glide smoothly over the yellow floor +of the stream. At last, the day declining—all silent and +happy, and up to the knees in the wet lilies—we punt +slowly back again to the landing-place beside the bridge. +There is a wish for solitude on all. One hides himself in +the arbour with a cigarette; another goes a walk in the +country with Cocardon; a third inspects the church. +And it is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn’s +best wine goes round from glass to glass, that we begin +to throw off the restraint and fuse once more into a +jolly fellowship.</p> + +<p>Half the party are to return to-night with the wagonette; +and some of the others, loath to break up good +company, will go with them a bit of the way and drink a +stirrup-cup at Marlotte. It is dark in the wagonette, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156"></a>156</span> +not so merry as it might have been. The coachman loses +the road. So-and-so tries to light fireworks with the +most indifferent success. Some sing, but the rest are +too weary to applaud; and it seems as if the festival +were fairly at an end—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Nous avons fait la noce,</p> +<p class="i05">Rentrons à nos foyers!”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">And such is the burthen, even after we have come to +Marlotte and taken our places in the court at Mother +Antonine’s. There is punch on the long table out in the +open air, where the guests dine in summer weather. The +candles flare in the night wind, and the faces round the +punch are lit up, with shifting emphasis, against a background +of complete and solid darkness. It is all picturesque +enough; but the fact is, we are aweary. We yawn; +we are out of the vein; we have made the wedding, as +the song says, and now, for pleasure’s sake, let’s make an +end on’t. When here comes striding into the court, +booted to mid-thigh, spurred and splashed, in a jacket of +green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; +and in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is +witness of our laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, +Englishmen, picture-dealers, all eccentric ways of speaking +and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a strain of +mind and voice, that would rather suggest a nervous +crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry as ever +when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily +to all the good folk going farther. Then, as we are far +enough from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his +quaint house, and sit an hour or so in a great tapestried +chamber, laid with furs, littered with sleeping hounds, and +lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by a wood-fire in a +mediæval chimney. And then we plod back through the +darkness to the inn beside the river.</p> + +<p>How quick bright things come to confusion! When +we arise next morning, the grey showers fall steadily, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157"></a>157</span> +trees hang limp, and the face of the stream is spoiled with +dimpling raindrops. Yesterday’s lilies encumber the +garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage +towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer +lies upon the dripping house roofs, and all the colour is +washed out of the green and golden landscape of last +night, as though an envious man had taken a water-colour +sketch and blotted it together with a sponge. We go out +a-walking in the wet roads. But the roads about Grez +have a trick of their own. They go on for a while among +clumps of willows and patches of vine, and then, suddenly +and without any warning, cease and determine in some +miry hollow or upon some bald knowe; and you have a +short period of hope, then right-about face, and back the +way you came! So we draw about the kitchen fire and +play a round game of cards for ha’pence, or go to the +billiard-room for a match at corks; and by one consent +a messenger is sent over for the wagonette—Grez shall be +left to-morrow.</p> + +<p>To-morrow dawns so fair that two of the party agree +to walk back for exercise, and let their knapsacks follow +by the trap. I need hardly say they are neither of them +French; for, of all English phrases, the phrase “for +exercise” is the least comprehensible across the Straits +of Dover. All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. +The wet woods are full of scents in the noontide. At a +certain cross, where there is a guard-house, they make a +halt, for the forester’s wife is the daughter of their good +host at Barbizon. And so there they are hospitably +received by the comely woman, with one child in her +arms and another prattling and tottering at her gown, +and drink some syrup of quince in the back parlour, with +a map of the forest on the wall, and some prints of love-affairs +and the great Napoleon hunting. As they draw +near the Quadrilateral, and hear once more the report of +the big guns, they take a by-road to avoid the sentries, +and go on a while somewhat vaguely, with the sound of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>158</span> +the cannon in their ears and the rain beginning to fall. +The ways grow wider and sandier; here and there there +are real sand hills, as though by the seashore; the fir-wood +is open and grows in clumps upon the hillocks, and +the race of sign-posts is no more. One begins to look at +the other doubtfully. “I am sure we should keep more +to the right,” says one; and the other is just as certain +they should hold to the left. And now, suddenly, the +heavens open, and the rain falls “sheer and strong and +loud,” as out of a shower-bath. In a moment they are +as wet as shipwrecked sailors. They cannot see out of +their eyes for the drift, and the water churns and gurgles +in their boots. They leave the track and try across country +with a gambler’s desperation, for it seems as if it were +impossible to make the situation worse; and, for the next +hour, go scrambling from boulder to boulder, or plod +along paths that are now no more than rivulets, and +across waste clearings where the scattered shells and +broken fir-trees tell all too plainly of the cannon in the +distance. And meantime the cannon grumble out responses +to the grumbling thunder. There is such a mixture of +melodrama and sheer discomfort about all this, it is at +once so grey and so lurid, that it is far more agreeable to +read and write about by the chimney-corner than to suffer +in the person. At last they chance on the right path, and +make Franchard in the early evening, the sorriest pair of +wanderers that ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by +the Bois d’Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins +Brulés, to the clean hostelry, dry clothes, and dinner.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h5>THE WOODS IN SPRING</h5> + +<p>I think you will like the forest best in the sharp early +spring-time, when it is just beginning to re-awaken, and +innumerable violets peep from among the fallen leaves; +when two or three people at most sit down to dinner, +and, at table, you will do well to keep a rug about your +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159"></a>159</span> +knees, for the nights are chill, and the salle-à-manger +opens on the court. There is less to distract the attention, +for one thing, and the forest is more itself. It is not +bedotted with artists’ sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, +nor bestrewn with the remains of English picnics. +The hunting still goes on, and at any <span class="correction" title="amended from 'monent'">moment</span> your heart +may be brought into your mouth as you hear far-away +horns; or you may be told by an agitated peasant that +the Vicomte has gone up the avenue, not ten minutes +since, “<i>à fond de train, monsieur, et avec douze piqueurs.</i>”</p> + +<p>If you go up to some coign of vantage in the system +of low hills that permeates the forest, you will see many +different tracts of country, each of its own cold and melancholy +neutral tint, and all mixed together and mingled the +one into the other at the seams. You will see tracts of +leafless beeches of a faint yellowish grey, and leafless oaks +a little ruddier in the hue. Then zones of pine of a solemn +green; and, dotted among the pines, or standing by themselves +in rocky clearings, the delicate, snow-white trunks +of birches, spreading out into snow-white branches yet +more delicate, and crowned and canopied with a purple +haze of twigs. And then a long, bare ridge of tumbled +boulders, with bright sandbreaks between them, and +wavering sandy roads among the bracken and brown +heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not +the perfect beauty, nor the gem-like colouring, of the wood +in the later year, when it is no more than one vast colonnade +of verdant shadow, tremulous with insects, intersected +here and there by lanes of sunlight set in purple +heather. The loveliness of the woods in March is not, +assuredly, of this blowsy rustic type. It is made sharp +with a grain of salt, with a touch of ugliness. It has a +sting like the sting of bitter ale; you acquire the love of +it as men acquire a taste for olives. And the wonderful +clear, pure air wells into your lungs the while by voluptuous +inhalations, and makes the eyes bright, and sets the heart +tinkling to a new tune—or, rather, to an old tune; for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>160</span> +you remember in your boyhood something akin to this +spirit of adventure, this thirst for exploration, that now +takes you masterfully by the hand, plunges you into +many a deep grove, and drags you over many a stony +crest. It is as if the whole wood were full of friendly +voices calling you farther in, and you turn from one side +to another, like Buridan’s donkey, in a maze of pleasure.</p> + +<p>Comely beeches send up their white, straight, clustered +branches, barred with green moss, like so many +fingers from a half-clenched hand. Mighty oaks stand to +the ankles in a fine tracery of underwood; thence the tall +shaft climbs upward, and the great forest of stalwart +boughs spreads out into the golden evening sky, where the +rooks are flying and calling. On the sward of the Bois +d’Hyver the firs stand well asunder with outspread arms, +like fencers saluting; and the air smells of resin all around, +and the sound of the axe is rarely still. But strangest of +all, and in appearance oldest of all, are the dim and wizard +upland districts of young wood. The ground is carpeted +with fir-tassel, and strewn with fir-apples and flakes of +fallen bark. Rocks lie crouching in the thicket, guttered +with rain, tufted with lichen, white with years and the +rigours of the changeful seasons. Brown and yellow +butterflies are sown and carried away again by the light +air—like thistledown. The loneliness of these coverts is +so excessive, that there are moments when pleasure draws +to the verge of fear. You listen and listen for some noise +to break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by +the intensity of the strain; your sense of your own identity +is troubled; your brain reels, like that of some gymnosophist +poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; and +should you see your own outspread feet, you see them, +not as anything of yours, but as a feature of the scene +around you.</p> + +<p>Still the forest is always, but the stillness is not always +unbroken. You can hear the wind pass in the distance +over the tree-tops; sometimes briefly, like the noise of a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161"></a>161</span> +train; sometimes with a long steady rush, like the breaking +of waves. And sometimes, close at hand, the branches +move, a moan goes through the thicket, and the wood +thrills to its heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage on +the road to Fontainebleau, a bird gives a dry continual +chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, or you may time +your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman’s +axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a +flight of rooks goes by; and from time to time the cooing +of wild doves falls upon the ear, not sweet and rich and +near at hand as in England, but a sort of voice of the +woods, thin and far away, as fits these solemn places. +Or you hear suddenly the hollow, eager, violent barking +of dogs; scared deer flit past you through the fringes of +the wood; then a man or two running, in green blouse, +with gun and game-bag on a bandolier; and then, out of +the thick of the trees, comes the jar of rifle-shots. Or +perhaps the hounds are out, and horns are blown, and +scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through the clearings, and +the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, where +you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar +is afoot, and all over the forest, and in all neighbouring +villages, there is a vague excitement and a vague hope; +for who knows whither the chase may lead? and even to +have seen a single piqueur, or spoken to a single sportsman, +is to be a man of consequence for the night.</p> + +<p>Besides men who shoot and men who ride with the +hounds, there are few people in the forest, in the early +spring, save woodcutters plying their axes steadily, and +old women and children gathering wood for the fire. You +may meet such a party coming home in the twilight: the +old woman laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones +hauling a long branch behind them in her wake. That is +the worst of what there is to encounter; and if I tell you +of what once happened to a friend of mine, it is by no +means to tantalise you with false hopes; for the adventure +was unique. It was on a very cold, still, sunless +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162"></a>162</span> +morning, with a flat grey sky and a frosty tingle in the +air, that this friend (who shall here be nameless) heard +the notes of a key-bugle played with much hesitation, and +saw the smoke of a fire spread out along the green pine-tops, +in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked +boulders. He drew near warily, and beheld a picnic party +seated under a tree in an open. The old father knitted a +sock, the mother sat staring at the fire. The eldest son, +in the uniform of a private of dragoons, was choosing out +notes on a key-bugle. Two or three daughters lay in the +neighbourhood picking violets. And the whole party as +grave and silent as the woods around them! My friend +watched for a long time, he says; but all held their +peace; not one spoke or smiled; only the dragoon kept +choosing out single notes upon the bugle, and the father +knitted away at his work and made strange movements +the while with his flexible eyebrows. They took no notice +whatever of my friend’s presence, which was disquieting +in itself, and increased the resemblance of the whole party +to mechanical wax-works. Certainly, he affirms, a wax +figure might have played the bugle with more spirit than +that strange dragoon. And as this hypothesis of his +became more certain, the awful insolubility of why they +should be left out there in the woods with nobody to wind +them up again when they ran down, and a growing disquietude +as to what might happen next, became too much +for his courage, and he turned tail, and fairly took to his +heels. It might have been a singing in his ears, but he +fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic +laughter. Nothing has ever transpired to clear up the +mystery; it may be they were automata; or it may be +(and this is the theory to which I lean myself) that this +is all another chapter of Heine’s “Gods in Exile”; that +the upright old man with the eyebrows was no other than +Father Jove, and the young dragoon with the taste for +music either Apollo or Mars.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page163"></a>163</span></p> +<h5>MORALITY</h5> + +<p>Strange indeed is the attraction of the forest for the +minds of men. Not one or two only, but a great chorus +of grateful voices have arisen to spread abroad its fame. +Half the famous writers of modern France have had their +word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, Michelet, +Béranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, Murger, +the brothers Goncourt, Théodore de Banville, each of +these has done something to the eternal praise and memory +of these woods. Even at the very worst of times, even +when the picturesque was anathema in the eyes of all +Persons of Taste, the forest still preserved a certain reputation +for beauty. It was in 1730 that the Abbé Guilbert +published his “Historical Description of the Palace, Town, +and Forest of Fontainebleau.” And very droll it is to see +him, as he tries to set forth his admiration in terms of +what was then permissible. The monstrous rocks, etc., +says the Abbé, “sont admirées avec surprise des voyageurs +qui s’écrient aussitôt avec Horace: Ut mihi devio rupes +et vacuum nemus mirari libet.” The good man is not +exactly lyrical in his praise; and you see how he sets his +back against Horace as against a trusty oak. Horace, at +any rate, was classical. For the rest, however, the Abbé +likes places where many alleys meet; or which, like the +Belle-Étoile, are kept up “by a special gardener,” and +admires at the Table du Roi the labours of the Grand +Master of Woods and Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, “qui +a fait faire ce magnifique endroit.”</p> + +<p>But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the +forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle +something, that quality of the air, that emanation from +the old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a +weary spirit. Disappointed men, sick Francis Firsts and +vanquished Grand Monarchs, time out of mind have come +here for consolation. Hither perplexed folk have retired +out of the press of life, as into a deep bay-window on some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"></a>164</span> +night of masquerade, and here found quiet and silence, +and rest, the mother of wisdom. It is the great moral +spa; this forest without a fountain is itself the great +fountain of Juventius. It is the best place in the world +to bring an old sorrow that has been a long while your +friend and enemy; and if, like Béranger’s, your gaiety has +run away from home and left open the door for sorrow to +come in, of all covers in Europe, it is here you may expect +to find the truant hid. With every hour you change. +The air penetrates through your clothes, and nestles to +your living body. You love exercise and slumber, long +fasting and full meals. You forget all your scruples and +live a while in peace and freedom, and for the moment +only. For here, all is absent that can stimulate to moral +feeling. Such people as you see may be old, or toil-worn, +or sorry; but you see them framed in the forest, like +figures on a painted canvas; and for you, they are not +people in any living and kindly sense. You forget the +grim contrariety of interests. You forget the narrow +lane where all men jostle together in unchivalrous contention, +and the kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on +either hand for the defeated. Life is simple enough, it +seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes like a mad +fancy out of a last night’s dream.</p> + +<p>Your ideal is not perhaps high, but it is plain and +possible. You become enamoured of a life of change and +movement and the open air, where the muscles shall be +more exercised than the affections. When you have had +your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round +world. You may buckle on your knapsack and take the +road on foot. You may bestride a good nag, and ride forth, +with a pair of saddle-bags, into the enchanted East. You +may cross the Black Forest, and see Germany widespread +before you, like a map, dotted with old cities, walled and +spired, that dream all day on their own reflections in the +Rhine or Danube. You may pass the spinal cord of +Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165"></a>165</span> +extends her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces +in the midland sea. You may sleep in flying trains or +wayside taverns. You may be awakened at dawn by the +scream of the express or the small pipe of the robin in the +hedge. For you the rain should allay the dust of the +beaten road; the wind dry your clothes upon you as you +walked. Autumn should hang out russet pears and purple +grapes along the lane; inn after inn proffer you their +cups of raw wine; river by river receive your body in the +sultry noon. Wherever you went warm valleys and high +trees and pleasant villages should compass you about; +and light fellowships should take you by the arm, and +walk with you an hour upon your way. You may see +from afar off what it will come to in the end—the weather-beaten +red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of the +feet, cut off from all near touch of human sympathy, a +waif, an Ishmael, and an outcast. And yet it will seem +well—and yet, in the air of the forest, this will seem the +best—to break all the network bound about your feet by +birth and old companionship and loyal love, and bear +your shovelful of phosphates to and fro, in town and +country, until the hour of the great dissolvent.</p> + +<p>Or, perhaps, you will keep to the cover. For the forest +is by itself, and forest life owns small kinship with life in +the dismal land of labour. Men are so far sophisticated +that they cannot take the world as it is given to them by +the sight of their eyes. Not only what they see and hear, +but what they know to be behind, enter into their notion +of a place. If the sea, for instance, lie just across the +hills, sea-thoughts will come to them at intervals, and the +tenor of their dreams from time to time will suffer a sea-change. +And so here, in this forest, a knowledge of its +greatness is for much in the effect produced. You reckon +up the miles that lie between you and intrusion. You +may walk before you all day long, and not fear to touch +the barrier of your Eden, or stumble out of fairyland into +the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there is an old +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>166</span> +tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your +seclusion. When Charles VI. hunted in the time of his +wild boyhood near Senlis, there was captured an old stag, +having a collar of bronze about his neck, and these words +engraved on the collar: “Cæsar mini hoc donavit.” It +is no wonder if the minds of men were moved at this +occurrence and they stood aghast to find themselves thus +touching hands with forgotten ages, and following an +antiquity with hound and horn. And even for you, it is +scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder how many +centuries this stag had carried its free antlers through the +wood, and how many summers and winters had shone and +snowed on the imperial badge. If the extent of solemn +wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter’s +hounds and horses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, +in these groves, with all the pangs and trepidations of +man’s life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, for more +than the span of human years? Here, also, crash his +arrows; here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of +the pale horse. But he does not hunt this cover with all +his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and if you +were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the deepest +thickets, you too might live on into later generations and +astonish men by your stalwart age and the trophies of an +immemorial success.</p> + +<p>For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. +There is nothing here to cabin or thwart your free desires. +Here all the impudences of the brawling world reach you +no more. You may count your hours, like Endymion, by +the strokes of the lone woodcutter, or by the progression +of the lights and shadows and the sun wheeling his wide +circuit through the naked heavens. Here shall you see no +enemies but winter and rough weather. And if a pang +comes to you at all, it will be a pang of healthful hunger. +All the puling sorrows, all the carking repentance, all this +talk of duty that is no duty, in the great peace, in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>167</span> +pure daylight of these woods, fall away from you like a +garment. And if perchance you come forth upon an +eminence, where the wind blows upon you large and fresh, +and the pines knock their long stems together, like an +ungainly sort of puppets, and see far away over the plain +a factory chimney defined against the pale horizon—it is +for you, as for the staid and simple peasant when, with +his plough, he upturns old arms and harness from the +furrow of the glebe. Ay, sure enough, there was a battle +there in the old times; and, sure enough, there is a world +out yonder where men strive together with a noise of +oaths and weeping and clamorous dispute. So much you +apprehend by an athletic act of the imagination. A faint +far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of +some dead religion.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42" href="#FnAnchor_42"><span class="fn">42</span></a> “Deux poures varlez qui n’out nulz gages et qui gissoient la +nuit avec les chiens.” See Champollion-Figeac’s “Louis et Charles +d’Orléans,” i. 63, and for my lord’s English horn, <i>ibid.</i> 96.</p> +</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>168</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page169"></a>169</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>CRITICISMS</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page170"></a>170</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>171</span></p> +<hr class="art" /> +<h2>CRITICISMS</h2> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<h3>LORD LYTTON’S “FABLES IN SONG”</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">It</span> seems as if Lord Lytton, in this new book of his, had +found the form most natural to his talent. In some ways, +indeed, it may be held inferior to “Chronicles and Characters”; +we look in vain for anything like the terrible +intensity of the night-scene in “Irene,” or for any such +passages of massive and memorable writing as appeared, +here and there, in the earlier work, and made it not altogether +unworthy of its model, Hugo’s “Legend of the +Ages.” But it becomes evident, on the most hasty retrospect, +that this earlier work was a step on the way towards +the later. It seems as if the author had been feeling about +for his definite medium, and was already, in the language +of the child’s game, growing hot. There are many pieces +in “Chronicles and Characters” that might be detached +from their original setting, and embodied, as they stand, +among the “Fables in Song.”</p> + +<p>For the term Fable is not very easy to define rigorously. +In the most typical form some moral precept is set forth +by means of a conception purely fantastic, and usually +somewhat trivial into the bargain; there is something +playful about it, that will not support a very exacting +criticism, and the lesson must be apprehended by the +fancy at half a hint. Such is the great mass of the old +stories of wise animals or foolish men that have amused +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172"></a>172</span> +our childhood. But we should expect the fable, in company +with other and more important literary forms, to be +more and more loosely, or at least largely, comprehended +as time went on, and so to degenerate in conception from +this original type. That depended for much of its piquancy +on the very fact that it was fantastic: the point of the +thing lay in a sort of humorous inappropriateness; and it +is natural enough that pleasantry of this description should +become less common, as men learn to suspect some serious +analogy underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape +touches us quite differently after the proposition of Mr. +Darwin’s theory. Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the +bottom of this primitive sort of fable, a humanity, a +tenderness of rough truths; so that at the end of some +story, in which vice or folly had met with its destined +punishment, the fabulist might be able to assure his auditors, +as we have often to assure tearful children on the like +occasions, that they may dry their eyes, for none of it +was true.</p> + +<p>But this benefit of fiction becomes lost with more +sophisticated hearers and authors: a man is no longer +the dupe of his own artifice, and cannot deal playfully +with truths that are a matter of bitter concern to him in +his life. And hence, in the progressive centralisation of +modern thought, we should expect the old form of fable +to fall gradually into desuetude, and be gradually succeeded +by another, which is a fable in all points except that it is +not altogether fabulous. And this new form, such as we +should expect, and such as we do indeed find, still presents +the essential character of brevity; as in any other fable +also, there is, underlying and animating the brief action, +a moral idea; and as in any other fable, the object is to +bring this home to the reader through the intellect rather +than through the feelings; so that, without being very +deeply moved or interested by the characters of the piece, +we should recognise vividly the hinges on which the little +plot revolves. But the fabulist now seeks analogies where +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173"></a>173</span> +before he merely sought humorous situations. There will +be now a logical nexus between the moral expressed and +the machinery employed to express it. The machinery, +in fact, as this change is developed, becomes less and less +fabulous. We find ourselves in presence of quite a serious, +if quite a miniature division of creative literature; and +sometimes we have the lesson embodied in a sober, everyday +narration, as in the parables of the New Testament, +and sometimes merely the statement or, at most, the +collocation of significant facts in life, the reader being left +to resolve for himself the vague, troublesome, and not yet +definitely moral sentiment which has been thus created. +And step by step with the development of this change, yet +another is developed: the moral tends to become more +indeterminate and large. It ceases to be possible to append +it, in a tag, to the bottom of the piece, as one might write +the name below a caricature; and the fable begins to +take rank with all other forms of creative literature, as +something too ambitious, in spite of its miniature dimensions, +to be resumed in any succinct formula without the +loss of all that is deepest and most suggestive in it.</p> + +<p>Now it is in this widest sense that Lord Lytton understands +the term; there are examples in his two pleasant +volumes of all the forms already mentioned, and even of +another which can only be admitted among fables by the +utmost possible leniency of construction. “Composure,” +“Et Cætera,” and several more, are merely similes poetically +elaborated. So, too, is the pathetic story of the grandfather +and grandchild: the child, having treasured away +an icicle and forgotten it for ten minutes, comes back to +find it already nearly melted, and no longer beautiful: +at the same time, the grandfather has just remembered +and taken out a bundle of love-letters, which he too had +stored away in years gone by, and then long neglected; +and, behold! the letters are as faded and sorrowfully disappointing +as the icicle. This is merely a simile poetically +worked out; and yet it is in such as these, and some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174"></a>174</span> +others, to be mentioned further on, that the author seems +at his best. Wherever he has really written after the old +model, there is something to be deprecated: in spite of +all the spirit and freshness, in spite of his happy assumption +of that cheerful acceptation of things as they are, which, +rightly or wrongly, we come to attribute to the ideal +fabulist, there is ever a sense as of something a little out +of place. A form of literature so very innocent and primitive +looks a little over-written in Lord Lytton’s conscious +and highly-coloured style. It may be bad taste, but sometimes +we should prefer a few sentences of plain prose +narration, and a little Bewick by way of tail-piece. So +that it is not among those fables that conform most nearly +to the old model, but one had nearly said among those +that most widely differ from it, that we find the most +satisfactory examples of the author’s manner.</p> + +<p>In the mere matter of ingenuity, the metaphysical +fables are the most remarkable; such as that of the windmill +who imagined that it was he who raised the wind; +or that of the grocer’s balance (”Cogito ergo sum”) who +considered himself endowed with free-will, reason, and an +infallible practical judgment; until, one fine day, the +police made a descent upon the shop, and find the weights +false and the scales unequal; and the whole thing is broken +up for old iron. Capital fables, also, in the same ironical +spirit, are “Prometheus Unbound,” the tale of the vainglorying +of a champagne-cork, and “Teleology,” where a +nettle justifies the ways of God to nettles while all goes +well with it, and, upon a change of luck, promptly changes +its divinity.</p> + +<p>In all these there is still plenty of the fabulous if you +will, although, even here, there may be two opinions +possible; but there is another group, of an order of merit +perhaps still higher, where we look in vain for any such +playful liberties with Nature. Thus we have “Conservation +of Force”; where a musician, thinking of a +certain picture, improvises in the twilight; a poet, hearing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175"></a>175</span> +the music, goes home inspired, and writes a poem; +and then a painter, under the influence of this poem, +paints another picture, thus lineally descended from the +first. This is fiction, but not what we have been used +to call fable. We miss the incredible element, the point +of audacity with which the fabulist was wont to mock +at his readers. And still more so is this the case with +others. “The Horse and the Fly” states one of the +unanswerable problems of life in quite a realistic and +straightforward way. A fly startles a cab-horse, the coach +is overset; a newly-married pair within and the driver, +a man with a wife and family, are all killed. The horse +continues to gallop off in the loose traces, and ends the +tragedy by running over an only child; and there is some +little pathetic detail here introduced in the telling, that +makes the reader’s indignation very white-hot against +some one. It remains to be seen who that some one is to +be: the fly? Nay, but on closer inspection, it appears +that the fly, actuated by maternal instinct, was only +seeking a place for her eggs: is maternal instinct, then, +“sole author of these mischiefs all”? “Who’s in the +Right?” one of the best fables in the book, is somewhat +in the same vein. After a battle has been won, a group +of officers assemble inside a battery, and debate together +who should have the honour of the success; the Prince, +the general staff, the cavalry, the engineer who posted the +battery in which they then stand talking, are successively +named: the sergeant, who pointed the guns, sneers to +himself at the mention of the engineer; and, close by, +the gunner, who had applied the match, passes away with +a smile of triumph, since it was through his hand that the +victorious blow had been dealt. Meanwhile, the cannon +claims the honour over the gunner; the cannon-ball, who +actually goes forth on the dread mission, claims it over the +cannon, who remains idly behind; the powder reminds +the cannon-ball that, but for him, it would still be lying +on the arsenal floor; and the match caps the discussion; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176"></a>176</span> +powder, cannon-ball, and cannon would be all equally vain +and ineffectual without fire. Just then there comes on a +shower of rain, which wets the powder and puts out the +match, and completes this lesson of dependence, by indicating +the negative conditions which are as necessary for +any effect, in their absence, as is the presence of this great +fraternity of positive conditions, not any one of which +can claim priority over any other. But the fable does not +end here, as perhaps, in all logical strictness, it should. +It wanders off into a discussion as to which is the truer +greatness, that of the vanquished fire or that of the +victorious rain. And the speech of the rain is charming:</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Lo, with my little drops I bless again</p> +<p class="i05">And beautify the fields which thou didst blast!</p> +<p class="i05">Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt,</p> +<p class="i05">But call not Greatness what the Gods call Guilt.</p> +<p class="i05">Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt,</p> +<p class="i05">And poppied corn, I bring.</p> +<p class="i05">’Mid mouldering Babels, to oblivion built,</p> +<p class="i05">My violets spring.</p> +<p class="i05">Little by little my small drops have strength</p> +<p class="i05">To deck with green delights the grateful earth.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">And so forth, not quite germane (it seems to me) to the +matter in hand, but welcome for its own sake.</p> + +<p>Best of all are the fables that deal more immediately +with the emotions. There is, for instance, that of “The +Two Travellers,” which is profoundly moving in conception, +although by no means as well written as some +others. In this, one of the two, fearfully frost-bitten, saves +his life out of the snow at the cost of all that was comely +in his body; just as, long before, the other, who has now +quietly resigned himself to death, had violently freed +himself from Love at the cost of all that was finest and +fairest in his character. Very graceful and sweet is the +fable (if so it should be called) in which the author sings +the praises of that “kindly perspective,” which lets a +wheat-stalk near the eye cover twenty leagues of distant +country, and makes the humble circle about a man’s hearth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177"></a>177</span> +more to him than all the possibilities of the external world. +The companion fable to this is also excellent. It tells us +of a man who had, all his life through, entertained a +passion for certain blue hills on the far horizon, and had +promised himself to travel thither ere he died, and become +familiar with these distant friends. At last, in some +political trouble, he is banished to the very place of his +dreams. He arrives there overnight, and, when he rises +and goes forth in the morning, there sure enough are the +blue hills, only now they have changed places with him, +and smile across to him, distant as ever, from the old home +whence he has come. Such a story might have been very +cynically treated; but it is not so done, the whole tone +is kindly and consolatory, and the disenchanted man submissively +takes the lesson, and understands that things +far away are to be loved for their own sake, and that the +unattainable is not truly unattainable, when we can make +the beauty of it our own. Indeed, throughout all these +two volumes, though there is much practical scepticism, +and much irony on abstract questions, this kindly and +consolatory spirit is never absent. There is much that is +cheerful and, after a sedate, fireside fashion, hopeful. No +one will be discouraged by reading the book; but the ground +of all this hopefulness and cheerfulness remains to the end +somewhat vague. It does not seem to arise from any +practical belief in the future either of the individual or +the race, but rather from the profound personal contentment +of the writer. This is, I suppose, all we must look +for in the case. It is as much as we can expect, if the +fabulist shall prove a shrewd and cheerful fellow-wayfarer, +one with whom the world does not seem to have gone +much amiss, but who has yet laughingly learned something +of its evil. It will depend much, of course, upon our own +character and circumstances, whether the encounter will +be agreeable and bracing to the spirits, or offend us as +an ill-timed mockery. But where, as here, there is a little +tincture of bitterness along with the good-nature, where +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178"></a>178</span> +it is plainly not the humour of a man cheerfully ignorant, +but of one who looks on, tolerant and superior and smilingly +attentive, upon the good and bad of our existence, it will +go hardly if we do not catch some reflection of the same +spirit to help us on our way. There is here no impertinent +and lying proclamation of peace—none of the cheap +optimism of the well-to-do; what we find here is a view +of life that would be even grievous, were it not enlivened +with this abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon redeemed +by a stroke of pathos.</p> + +<p>It is natural enough, I suppose, that we should find +wanting in this book some of the intenser qualities of the +author’s work; and their absence is made up for by much +happy description after a quieter fashion. The burst of +jubilation over the departure of the snow, which forms the +prelude to “The Thistle,” is full of spirit and of pleasant +images. The speech of the forest in “Sans Souci” is +inspired by a beautiful sentiment for nature of the modern +sort, and pleases us more, I think, as poetry should please +us, than anything in “Chronicles and Characters.” There +are some admirable felicities of expression here and there; +as that of the hill, whose summit</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + + <p style="margin-left: 6em;">“Did print</p> +<p>The azure air with pines.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Moreover, I do not recollect in the author’s former work +any symptom of that sympathetic treatment of still life, +which is noticeable now and again in the fables; and +perhaps most noticeably, when he sketches the burned +letters as they hover along the gusty flue, “Thin, sable +veils, wherein a restless spark Yet trembled.” But the +description is at its best when the subjects are unpleasant, +or even grisly. There are a few capital lines in this key +on the last spasm of the battle before alluded to. Surely +nothing could be better, in its own way, than the fish in +“The Last Cruise of the Arrogant,” “the shadowy, side-faced, +silent things,” that come butting and staring with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179"></a>179</span> +lidless eyes at the sunken steam-engine. And although, +in yet another, we are told, pleasantly enough, how the +water went down into the valleys, where it set itself gaily +to saw wood, and on into the plains, where it would soberly +carry grain to town; yet the real strength of the fable +is when it deals with the shut pool in which certain unfortunate +raindrops are imprisoned among slugs and snails, +and in the company of an old toad. The sodden contentment +of the fallen acorn is strangely significant; and it +is astonishing how unpleasantly we are startled by the +appearance of her horrible lover, the maggot.</p> + +<p>And now for a last word, about the style. This is not +easy to criticise. It is impossible to deny to it rapidity, +spirit, and a full sound; the lines are never lame, and the +sense is carried forward with an uninterrupted, impetuous +rush. But it is not equal. After passages of really +admirable versification, the author falls back upon a sort +of loose, cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of +Mr. Browning’s minor pieces, and almost inseparable from +wordiness, and an easy acceptation of somewhat cheap +finish. There is nothing here of that compression which +is the note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair, perhaps, +to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton +side by side with one of the signal masterpieces of another, +and a very perfect poet; and yet it is interesting, when +we see how the portraiture of a dog, detailed through thirty +odd lines, is frittered down and finally almost lost in the +mere laxity of the style, to compare it with the clear, +simple, vigorous delineation that Burns, in four couplets, +has given us of the ploughman’s collie. It is interesting, +at first, and then it becomes a little irritating; for when +we think of other passages so much more finished and +adroit, we cannot help feeling, that with a little more +ardour after perfection of form, criticism would have found +nothing left for her to censure. A similar mark of precipitate +work is the number of adjectives tumultuously +heaped together, sometimes to help out the sense, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180"></a>180</span> +sometimes (as one cannot but suspect) to help out the +sound of the verses. I do not believe, for instance, that +Lord Lytton himself would defend the lines in which we +are told how Laocoön “Revealed to <i>Roman</i> crowds, now +<i>Christian</i> grown, That <i>Pagan</i> anguish which, in <i>Parian</i> +stone, the <i>Rhodian</i> artist,” and so on. It is not only that +this is bad in itself; but that it is unworthy of the company +in which it is found; that such verses should not +have appeared with the name of a good versifier like Lord +Lytton. We must take exception, also, in conclusion, to +the excess of alliteration. Alliteration is so liable to be +abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it; and +yet it is a trick that seems to grow upon the author with +years. It is a pity to see fine verses, such as some in +“Demos,” absolutely spoiled by the recurrence of one +wearisome consonant.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<h3>SALVINI’S MACBETH</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Salvini</span> closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance +of <i>Macbeth</i>. It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of +local colour that he chose to play the Scottish usurper for +the first time before Scotsmen; and the audience were +not insensible of the privilege. Few things, indeed, can +move a stronger interest than to see a great creation taking +shape for the first time. If it is not purely artistic, the +sentiment is surely human. And the thought that you are +before all the world, and have the start of so many others +as eager as yourself, at least keeps you in a more unbearable +suspense before the curtain rises, if it does not enhance +the delight with which you follow the performance and +see the actor “bend up each corporal agent” to realise +a masterpiece of a few hours’ duration. With a player +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181"></a>181</span> +so variable as Salvini, who trusts to the feelings of the +moment for so much detail, and who, night after night, +does the same thing differently but always well, it can +never be safe to pass judgment after a single hearing. +And this is more particularly true of last week’s <i>Macbeth</i>; +for the whole third act was marred by a grievously humorous +misadventure. Several minutes too soon the ghost of +Banquo joined the party, and after having sat helpless a +while at a table, was ignominiously withdrawn. Twice +was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage +before his time; twice removed again; and yet he showed +so little hurry when he was really wanted, that, after an +awkward pause, Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to +empty air. The arrival of the belated spectre in the +middle, with a jerk that made him nod all over, was +the last accident in the chapter, and worthily topped +the whole. It may be imagined how lamely matters +went throughout these cross purposes.</p> + +<p>In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini’s Macbeth +had an emphatic success. The creation is worthy +of a place beside the same artist’s Othello and Hamlet. +It is the simplest and most unsympathetic of the three; +but the absence of the finer lineaments of Hamlet is +redeemed by gusto, breadth, and a headlong unity. Salvini +sees nothing great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of +muscle, and that courage which comes of strong and +copious circulation. The moral smallness of the man is +insisted on from the first, in the shudder of uncontrollable +jealousy with which he sees Duncan embracing Banquo. +He may have some northern poetry of speech, but he has +not much logical understanding. In his dealings with the +supernatural powers he is like a savage with his fetich, +trusting them beyond bounds while all goes well, and +whenever he is crossed, casting his belief aside and calling +“fate into the list.” For his wife, he is little more than +an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery spirit +to command. The nature of his feeling towards her is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182"></a>182</span> +rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He +always yields to the woman’s fascination; and yet his +caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can +give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. Sometimes +he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of +any one who happened to be nearest to him at a moment +of excitement. Love has fallen out of this marriage by +the way, and left a curious friendship. Only once—at the +very moment when she is showing herself so little a woman +and so much a high-spirited man—only once is he very +deeply stirred towards her; and that finds expression in +the strange and horrible transport of admiration, doubly +strange and horrible on Salvini’s lips—“Bring forth men-children +only!”</p> + +<p>The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the +audience best. Macbeth’s voice, in the talk with his wife, +was a thing not to be forgotten; and when he spoke of +his hangman’s hands he seemed to have blood in his utterance. +Never for a moment, even in the very article of the +murder, does he possess his own soul. He is a man on +wires. From first to last it is an exhibition of hideous +cowardice. For, after all, it is not here, but in broad daylight, +with the exhilaration of conflict, where he can assure +himself at every blow he has the longest sword and the +heaviest hand, that this man’s physical bravery can keep +him up; he is an unwieldy ship, and needs plenty of way +on before he will steer.</p> + +<p>In the banquet scene, while the first murderer gives +account of what he has done, there comes a flash of truculent +joy at the “twenty trenchèd gashes” on Banquo’s head. +Thus Macbeth makes welcome to his imagination those +very details of physical horror which are so soon to turn +sour in him. As he runs out to embrace these cruel circumstances, +as he seeks to realise to his mind’s eye the reassuring +spectacle of his dead enemy, he is dressing out the phantom +to terrify himself; and his imagination, playing the part +of justice, is to “commend to his own lips the ingredients +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183"></a>183</span> +of his poisoned chalice.” With the recollection of Hamlet +and his father’s spirit still fresh upon him, and the holy +awe with which that good man encountered things not +dreamt of in his philosophy, it was not possible to avoid +looking for resemblances between the two apparitions and +the two men haunted. But there are none to be found. +Macbeth has a purely physical dislike for Banquo’s spirit +and the “twenty trenchèd gashes.” He is afraid of he +knows not what. He is abject, and again blustering. In +the end he so far forgets himself, his terror, and the nature +of what is before him, that he rushes upon it as he would +upon a man. When his wife tells him he needs repose, +there is something really childish in the way he looks about +the room, and, seeing nothing, with an expression of +almost sensual relief, plucks up heart enough to go to bed. +And what is the upshot of the visitation? It is written +in Shakespeare, but should be read with the commentary +of Salvini’s voice and expression:—“<i>O! siam nell’ opra +ancor fanciulli</i>,”—“We are yet but young in deed.” +Circle below circle. He is looking with horrible satisfaction +into the mouth of hell. There may still be a prick to-day; +but to-morrow conscience will be dead, and he may move +untroubled in this element of blood.</p> + +<p>In the fifth act we see this lowest circle reached; and +it is Salvini’s finest moment throughout the play. From +the first he was admirably made up, and looked Macbeth +to the full as perfectly as ever he looked Othello. From +the first moment he steps upon the stage you can see this +character is a creation to the fullest meaning of the phrase; +for the man before you is a type you know well already. +He arrives with Banquo on the heath, fair and red-bearded, +sparing of gesture, full of pride and the sense of animal +wellbeing, and satisfied after the battle like a beast who +has eaten his fill. But in the fifth act there is a change. +This is still the big, burly, fleshly, handsome-looking Thane; +here is still the same face which in the earlier acts could +be superficially good-humoured and sometimes royally +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184"></a>184</span> +courteous. But now the atmosphere of blood, which +pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and +subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable +degradation, a slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his +features. He has breathed the air of carnage, and supped +full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of +blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint—he has +ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. +A contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts +the messenger and the doctor as people would taunt their +mortal enemies. And, indeed, as he knows right well, +every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About her +he questions the doctor with something like a last human +anxiety; and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he +can “minister to a mind diseased.” When the news of her +death is brought him, he is staggered and falls into a +seat; but somehow it is not anything we can call grief +that he displays. There had been two of them against +God and man; and now, when there is only one, it makes +perhaps less difference than he had expected. And so her +death is not only an affliction, but one more disillusion; +and he redoubles in bitterness. The speech that follows, +given with tragic cynicism in every word, is a dirge, not +so much for her as for himself. From that time forth +there is nothing human left in him, only “the fiend of +Scotland,” Macduff’s “hell-hound,” whom, with a stern +glee, we see baited like a bear and hunted down like a +wolf. He is inspired and set above fate by a demoniacal +energy, a lust of wounds and slaughter. Even after he +meets Macduff his courage does not fail; but when he +hears the Thane was not born of woman, all virtue goes +out of him; and though he speaks sounding words of +defiance, the last combat is little better than a suicide.</p> + +<p>The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and +a headlong unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp +and powerful; and within these somewhat narrow limits +there is so much play and saliency that, so far as concerns +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185"></a>185</span> +Salvini himself, a third great success seems indubitable. +Unfortunately, however, a great actor cannot fill more than +a very small fraction of the boards; and though Banquo’s +ghost will probably be more seasonable in his future +apparitions, there are some more inherent difficulties in +the piece. The company at large did not distinguish +themselves. Macduff, to the huge delight of the gallery, +out-Macduff’d the average ranter. The lady who filled +the principal female part has done better on other occasions, +but I fear she has not metal for what she tried last +week. Not to succeed in the sleep-walking scene is to +make a memorable failure. As it was given, it succeeded +in being wrong in art without being true to nature.</p> + +<p>And there is yet another difficulty, happily easy to +reform, which somewhat interfered with the success of the +performance. At the end of the incantation scene the +Italian translator has made Macbeth fall insensible upon +the stage. This is a change of questionable propriety +from a psychological point of view; while in point of +view of effect it leaves the stage for some moments empty +of all business. To remedy this, a bevy of green ballet-girls +came forth and pointed their toes about the prostrate +king. A dance of High Church curates, or a hornpipe by +Mr. T. P. Cooke, would not be more out of the key; though +the gravity of a Scots audience was not to be overcome, +and they merely expressed their disapprobation by a +round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of Christmas +fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from +pit to gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am +told, the Italian tradition; but it is one more honoured in +the breach than the observance. With the total disappearance +of these damsels, with a stronger Lady Macbeth, and, +if possible, with some compression of those scenes in which +Salvini does not appear, and the spectator is left at the +mercy of Macduffs and Duncans, the play would go twice +as well, and we should be better able to follow and enjoy +an admirable work of dramatic art.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page186"></a>186</span></p> +<h5>III</h5> + +<h3>BAGSTER’S “PILGRIM’S PROGRESS”</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I have</span> here before me an edition of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” +bound in green, without a date, and described as +“illustrated by nearly three hundred engravings, and +memoir of Bunyan.” On the outside it is lettered “Bagster’s +Illustrated Edition,” and after the author’s apology, +facing the first page of the tale, a folding pictorial “Plan +of the Road” is marked as “drawn by the late Mr. T. +Conder,” and engraved by J. Basire. No further information +is anywhere vouchsafed; perhaps the publishers had +judged the work too unimportant; and we are still left +ignorant whether or not we owe the woodcuts in the body +of the volume to the same hand that drew the plan. It +seems, however, more than probable. The literal particularity +of mind which, in the map, laid down the flower-plots +in the devil’s garden, and carefully introduced the +court-house in the town of Vanity, is closely paralleled +in many of the cuts; and in both, the architecture of the +buildings and the disposition of the gardens have a kindred +and entirely English air. Whoever he was, the author of +these wonderful little pictures may lay claim to be the +best illustrator of Bunyan.<a name="FnAnchor_43" id="FnAnchor_43" href="#Footnote_43"><span class="sp">43</span></a> They are not only good +illustrations, like so many others; but they are like so few, +good illustrations of Bunyan. Their spirit, in defect and +quality, is still the same as his own. The designer also +has lain down and dreamed a dream, as literal, as quaint, +and almost as apposite as Bunyan’s; and text and pictures +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187"></a>187</span> +make but the two sides of the same homespun yet impassioned +story. To do justice to the designs, it will be +necessary to say, for the hundredth time, a word or two +about the masterpiece which they adorn.</p> + +<p>All allegories have a tendency to escape from the purpose +of their creators; and as the characters and incidents +become more and more interesting in themselves, the moral, +which these were to show forth, falls more and more into +neglect. An architect may command a wreath of vine-leaves +round the cornice of a monument; but if, as each +leaf came from the chisel, it took proper life and fluttered +freely on the wall, and if the vine grew, and the building +were hidden over with foliage and fruit, the architect +would stand in much the same situation as the writer of +allegories. The “Faëry Queen” was an allegory, I am +willing to believe; but it survives as an imaginative tale +in incomparable verse. The case of Bunyan is widely +different; and yet in this also Allegory, poor nymph, +although never quite forgotten, is sometimes rudely thrust +against the wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; with +“his fingers in his ears, he ran on,” straight for his mark. +He tells us himself, in the conclusion to the first part, that +he did not fear to raise a laugh; indeed, he feared nothing, +and said anything; and he was greatly served in this by +a certain rustic privilege of his style, which, like the talk +of strong uneducated men, when it does not impress by +its force, still charms by its simplicity. The mere story +and the allegorical design enjoyed perhaps his equal favour. +He believed in both with an energy of faith that was capable +of moving mountains. And we have to remark in him, +not the parts where inspiration fails and is supplied by cold +and merely decorative invention, but the parts where faith +has grown to be credulity, and his characters become so +real to him that he forgets the end of their creation. We +can follow him step by step into the trap which he lays +for himself by his own entire good faith and triumphant +literality of vision, till the trap closes and shuts him in an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188"></a>188</span> +inconsistency. The allegories of the Interpreter and of +the Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains are all actually +performed, like stage-plays, before the pilgrims. The son +of Mr. Great-grace visibly “tumbles hills about with his +words.” Adam the First has his condemnation written +visibly on his forehead, so that Faithful reads it. At the +very instant the net closes round the pilgrims, “the white +robe falls from the black man’s body.” Despair “getteth +him a grievous crab-tree cudgel”; it was in “sunshiny +weather” that he had his fits; and the birds in the grove +about the House Beautiful, “our country birds,” only sing +their little pious verses “at the spring, when the flowers +appear and the sun shines warm.” “I often,” says Piety, +“go out to hear them; we also ofttimes keep them tame +on our house.” The post between Beulah and the Celestial +City sounds his horn, as you may yet hear in country +places. Madam Bubble, that “tall, comely dame, something +of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant attire, +but old,” “gives you a smile at the end of each sentence”—a +real woman she; we all know her. Christiana dying +“gave Mr. Stand-fast a ring,” for no possible reason in +the allegory, merely because the touch was human and +affecting. Look at Great-heart, with his soldierly ways, +garrison ways, as I had almost called them; with his taste +in weapons; his delight in any that “he found to be a man +of his hands”; his chivalrous point of honour, letting +Giant Maul get up again when he was down, a thing fairly +flying in the teeth of the moral; above all, with his language +in the inimitable tale of Mr. Fearing: “I thought I should +have lost my man”—“chicken-hearted”—“at last he +came in, and I will say that for my lord, he carried it +wonderful lovingly to him.” This is no Independent +minister; this is a stout, honest, big-busted ancient, +adjusting his shoulder-belts, twirling his long moustaches +as he speaks. Last and most remarkable, “My sword,” +says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom Great-heart +delighted, “my sword I give to him that shall succeed me +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189"></a>189</span> +in my pilgrimage, <i>and my courage and skill to him that can +get it</i>.” And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox +than was ever dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we +are told that “all the trumpets sounded for him on the +other side.”</p> + +<p>In every page the book is stamped with the same energy +of vision and the same energy of belief. The quality is +equally and indifferently displayed in the spirit of the +fighting, the tenderness of the pathos, the startling vigour +and strangeness of the incidents, the natural strain of the +conversations, and the humanity and charm of the characters. +Trivial talk over a meal, the dying words of heroes, +the delights of Beulah or the Celestial City, Apollyon and my +Lord Hate-good, Great-heart, and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, +all have been imagined with the same clearness, all written +of with equal gusto and precision, all created in the same +mixed element, of simplicity that is almost comical, and +art that, for its purpose, is faultless.</p> + +<p>It was in much the same spirit that our artist sat down +to his drawings. He is by nature a Bunyan of the pencil. +He, too, will draw anything, from a butcher at work on +a dead sheep, up to the courts of Heaven. “A Lamb for +Supper” is the name of one of his designs, “Their Glorious +Entry” of another. He has the same disregard for the +ridiculous, and enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of +style, so that we are pleased even when we laugh the most. +He is literal to the verge of folly. If dust is to be raised +from the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will “fly +abundantly” in the picture. If Faithful is to lie “as +dead” before Moses, dead he shall lie with a warrant—dead +and stiff like granite; nay (and here the artist must +enhance upon the symbolism of the author), it is with +the identical stone tables of the law that Moses fells the +sinner. Good and bad people, whom we at once distinguish +in the text by their names, Hopeful, Honest, and Valiant-for-Truth, +on the one hand, as against By-ends, Sir Having +Greedy, and the Lord Old-man on the other, are in these +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190"></a>190</span> +drawings as simply distinguished by their costume. Good +people, when not armed <i>cap-à-pie</i>, wear a speckled tunic +girt about the waist, and low hats, apparently of straw. +Bad people swagger in tail-coats and chimney-pots, a few +with knee-breeches, but the large majority in trousers, and +for all the world like guests at a garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman +alone, by some inexplicable quirk, stands before +Christian in laced hat, embroidered waistcoat, and trunk-hose. +But above all examples of this artist’s intrepidity, +commend me to the print entitled “Christian Finds it +Deep.” “A great darkness and horror,” says the text, +have fallen on the pilgrim; it is the comfortless deathbed +with which Bunyan so strikingly concludes the sorrows and +conflicts of his hero. How to represent this worthily the +artist knew not; and yet he was determined to represent +it somehow. This was how he did: Hopeful is still shown +to his neck above the water of death; but Christian has +bodily disappeared, and a blot of solid blackness indicates +his place.</p> + +<p>As you continue to look at these pictures, about an +inch square for the most part, sometimes printed three or +more to the page, and each having a printed legend of +its own, however trivial the event recorded, you will soon +become aware of two things: first, that the man can draw, +and, second, that he possesses the gift of an imagination. +“Obstinate reviles,” says the legend; and you should see +Obstinate reviling. “He warily retraces his steps”; and +there is Christian, posting through the plain, terror and +speed in every muscle. “Mercy yearns to go” shows you +a plain interior with packing going forward, and, right in +the middle, Mercy yearning to go—every line of the girl’s +figure yearning. In “The Chamber called Peace” we see +a simple English room, bed with white curtains, window +valance and door, as may be found in many thousand unpretentious +houses; but far off, through the open window, +we behold the sun uprising out of a great plain, and Christian +hails it with his hand: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191"></a>191</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Where am I now! is this the love and care</p> +<p class="i05">Of Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are!</p> +<p class="i05">Thus to provide! That I should be forgiven!</p> +<p class="i05">And dwell already the next door to heaven!”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">A page or two further, from the top of the House Beautiful, +the damsels point his gaze toward the Delectable Mountains: +“The Prospect,” so the cut is ticketed—and I shall +be surprised, if on less than a square of paper you can +show me one so wide and fair. Down a cross road on an +English plain, a cathedral city outlined on the horizon, a +hazel shaw upon the left, comes Madam Wanton dancing +with her fair enchanted cup, and Faithful, book in hand, +half pauses. The cut is perfect as a symbol; the giddy +movement of the sorceress, the uncertain poise of the man +struck to the heart by a temptation, the contrast of that +even plain of life whereon he journeys with the bold, ideal +bearing of the wanton—the artist who invented and portrayed +this had not merely read Bunyan, he had also +thoughtfully lived. The Delectable Mountains—I continue +skimming the first part—are not on the whole happily +rendered. Once, and once only, the note is struck, when +Christian and Hopeful are seen coming, shoulder-high, +through a thicket of green shrubs—box, perhaps, or perfumed +nutmeg; while behind them, domed or pointed, the +hills stand ranged against the sky. A little further, and we +come to that masterpiece of Bunyan’s insight into life, the +Enchanted Ground; where, in a few traits, he has set +down the latter end of such a number of the would-be good; +where his allegory goes so deep that, to people looking +seriously on life, it cuts like satire. The true significance +of this invention lies, of course, far out of the way of drawing; +only one feature, the great tedium of the land, the +growing weariness in welldoing, may be somewhat represented +in a symbol. The pilgrims are near the end: +“Two Miles Yet,” says the legend. The road goes ploughing +up and down over a rolling heath; the wayfarers, with +outstretched arms, are already sunk to the knees over the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192"></a>192</span> +brow of the nearest hill; they have just passed a milestone +with the cipher two; from overhead a great, piled, summer +cumulus, as of a slumberous summer afternoon, beshadows +them: two miles! it might be hundreds. In dealing +with the Land of Beulah the artist lags, in both parts, +miserably behind the text, but in the distant prospect of +the Celestial City more than regains his own. You will +remember when Christian and Hopeful “with desire fell +sick.” “Effect of the Sunbeams” is the artist’s title. +Against the sky, upon a cliffy mountain, the radiant temple +beams upon them over deep, subjacent woods; they, +behind a mound, as if seeking shelter from the splendour—one +prostrate on his face, one kneeling, and with hands +ecstatically lifted—yearn with passion after that immortal +city. Turn the page, and we behold them walking by the +very shores of death; Heaven, from this nigher view, has +risen half-way to the zenith, and sheds a wider glory; and +the two pilgrims, dark against that brightness, walk +and sing out of the fulness of their hearts. No cut more +thoroughly illustrates at once the merit and the weakness +of the artist. Each pilgrim sings with a book in his grasp—a +family Bible at the least for bigness; tomes so recklessly +enormous that our second impulse is to laughter. And yet +that is not the first thought, nor perhaps the last. Something +in the attitude of the manikins—faces they have +none, they are too small for that—something in the way +they swing these monstrous volumes to their singing, +something perhaps borrowed from the text, some subtle +differentiation from the cut that went before and the cut +that follows after—something, at least, speaks clearly of a +fearful joy, of Heaven seen from the deathbed, of the horror +of the last passage no less than of the glorious coming home. +There is that in the action of one of them which always +reminds me, with a difference, of that haunting last glimpse +of Thomas Idle, travelling to Tyburn in the cart. Next +come the Shining Ones, wooden and trivial enough; the +pilgrims pass into the river; the blot already mentioned +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193"></a>193</span> +settles over and obliterates Christian. In two more cuts +we behold them drawing nearer to the other shore; and +then, between two radiant angels, one of whom points +upward, we see them mounting in new weeds, their former +lendings left behind them on the inky river. More angels +meet them; Heaven is displayed, and if no better, certainly +no worse, than it has been shown by others—a place, at +least, infinitely populous and glorious with light—a place +that haunts solemnly the hearts of children. And then +this symbolic draughtsman once more strikes into his +proper vein. Three cuts conclude the first part. In the +first the gates close, black against the glory struggling from +within. The second shows us Ignorance—alas! poor +Arminian!—hailing, in a sad twilight, the ferryman Vain-Hope; +and in the third we behold him, bound hand and +foot, and black already with the hue of his eternal fate, +carried high over the mountain-tops of the world by two +angels of the anger of the Lord. “Carried to Another +Place,” the artist enigmatically names his plate—a terrible +design.</p> + +<p>Wherever he touches on the black side of the supernatural +his pencil grows more daring and incisive. He has +many true inventions in the perilous and diabolic; he has +many startling nightmares realised. It is not easy to select +the best; some may like one and some another; the nude, +depilated devil bounding and casting darts against the +Wicket Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hang over +Christian by the Mouth of Hell; the horned shade that +comes behind him whispering blasphemies; the daylight +breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains +and falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian’s +further progress along the causeway, between the two +black pools, where, at every yard or two, a gin, a pitfall, or +a snare awaits the passer-by—loathsome white devilkins +harbouring close under the bank to work the springes, +Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword’s +point at the nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194"></a>194</span> +rising on the farther side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured +ones that beset the first of Christian’s journey, +with the frog-like structure of the skull, the frog-like limberness +of limbs—crafty, slippery, lustful-looking devils, drawn +always in outline as though possessed of a dim, infernal +luminosity. Horrid fellows are they, one and all; horrid +fellows and horrific scenes. In another spirit that Good-Conscience +“to whom Mr. Honest had spoken in his lifetime,” +a cowled, grey, awful figure, one hand pointing to +the heavenly shore, realises, I will not say all, but some +at least of the strange impressiveness of Bunyan’s words. +It is no easy nor pleasant thing to speak in one’s lifetime +with Good-Conscience; he is an austere, unearthly friend, +whom maybe Torquemada knew; and the folds of his +raiment are not merely claustral, but have something of +the horror of the pall. Be not afraid, however; with the +hand of that appearance Mr. Honest will get safe across.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:700px; height:1239px" + src="images/img2.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:700px; height:1031px" + src="images/img3.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>Yet perhaps it is in sequences that this artist best displays +himself. He loves to look at either side of a thing: +as, for instance, when he shows us both sides of the wall—“Grace +Inextinguishable” on the one side, with the devil +vainly pouring buckets on the flame, and “The Oil of +Grace” on the other, where the Holy Spirit, vessel in hand, +still secretly supplies the fire. He loves, also, to show us +the same event twice over, and to repeat his instantaneous +photographs at the interval of but a moment. So we have, +first, the whole troop of pilgrims coming up to Valiant, and +Great-heart to the front, spear in hand and parleying; and +next, the same cross-roads, from a more distant view, the +convoy now scattered and looking safely and curiously on, +and Valiant handing over for inspection his “right Jerusalem +blade.” It is true that this designer has no great care after +consistency: Apollyon’s spear is laid by, his quiver of +darts will disappear, whenever they might hinder the +designer’s freedom; and the fiend’s tail is blobbed or +forked at his good pleasure. But this is not unsuitable +to the illustration of the fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195"></a>195</span> +and momentary inspiration. He, with his hot purpose, +hunting sinners with a lasso, shall himself forget the things +that he has written yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless +in the Valley of the Shadow, and then take leave of him +talking in his sleep, as if nothing had happened, in an +arbour on the Enchanted Ground. And again, in his +rhymed prologue, he shall assign some of the glory of the +siege of Doubting Castle to his favourite Valiant-for-the-Truth, +who did not meet with the besiegers till long after, +at that dangerous corner by Deadman’s Lane. And, with +all inconsistencies and freedoms, there is a power shown in +these sequences of cuts: a power of joining on one action +or one humour to another; a power of following out the +moods, even of the dismal subterhuman fiends engendered +by the artist’s fancy; a power of sustained continuous +realisation, step by step, in nature’s order, that can tell a +story, in all its ins and outs, its pauses and surprises, fully +and figuratively, like the art of words.</p> + +<p>One such sequence is the fight of Christian and Apollyon—six +cuts, weird and fiery, like the text. The pilgrim is +throughout a pale and stockish figure; but the devil covers +a multitude of defects. There is no better devil of the +conventional order than our artist’s Apollyon, with his +mane, his wings, his bestial legs, his changing and terrifying +expression, his infernal energy to slay. In cut the first +you see him afar off, still obscure in form, but already +formidable in suggestion. Cut the second, “The Fiend +in Discourse,” represents him, not reasoning, railing rather, +shaking his spear at the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced, his +tail writhing in the air, his foot ready for a spring, while +Christian stands back a little, timidly defensive. The third +illustrates these magnificent words: “Then Apollyon +straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and +said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to +die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go +no farther: here will I spill thy soul! And with that he +threw a flaming dart at his breast.” In the cut he throws +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196"></a>196</span> +a dart with either hand, belching pointed flames out of +his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and straddling the +while across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who has +just sworn by his infernal den. The defence will not be +long against such vice, such flames, such red-hot nether +energy. And in the fourth cut, to be sure, he has leaped +bodily upon his victim, sped by foot and pinion, and roaring +as he leaps. The fifth shows the climacteric of the battle; +Christian has reached nimbly out and got his sword, and +dealt that deadly home-thrust, the fiend still stretched upon +him, but “giving back, as one that had received his mortal +wound.” The raised head, the bellowing mouth, the paw +clapped upon the sword, the one wing relaxed in agony, all +realise vividly these words of the text. In the sixth and +last, the trivial armed figure of the pilgrim is seen kneeling +with clasped hands on the betrodden scene of contest and +among the shivers of the darts; while just at the margin +the hinder quarters and the tail of Apollyon are whisking +off, indignant and discomfited.</p> + +<p>In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy +of the text, and that point is one rather of the difference +of arts than the difference of artists. Throughout his best +and worst, in his highest and most divine imaginations as +in the narrowest sallies of his sectarianism, the human-hearted +piety of Bunyan touches and ennobles, convinces, +accuses the reader. Through no art beside the art of words +can the kindness of a man’s affections be expressed. In +the cuts you shall find faithfully parodied the quaintness +and the power, the triviality and the surprising freshness +of the author’s fancy; there you shall find him outstripped +in ready symbolism and the art of bringing things essentially +invisible before the eyes: but to feel the contact of essential +goodness, to be made in love with piety, the book must be +read and not the prints examined.</p> + +<p>Farewell should not be taken with a grudge; nor can +I dismiss in any other words than those of gratitude a +series of pictures which have, to one at least, been the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197"></a>197</span> +visible embodiment of Bunyan from childhood up, and +shown him, through all his years, Great-heart lungeing at +Giant Maul, and Apollyon breathing fire at Christian, and +every turn and town along the road to the Celestial City, +and that bright place itself, seen as to a stave of music, +shining afar off upon the hill-top, the candle of the +world.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43" href="#FnAnchor_43"><span class="fn">43</span></a> The illustrator was, in fact, a lady, Miss Eunice Bagster, eldest +daughter of the publisher, Samuel Bagster; except in the case of +the cuts depicting the fight with Apollyon, which were designed by +her brother, Mr. Jonathan Bagster. The edition was published in +1845. I am indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. +Robert Bagster, the present managing director of the firm.—<span class="sc">Sir +Sidney Colvin’s Note.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page198"></a>198</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page199"></a>199</span></p> +<div style="border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%"> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:400px; height:44px" + src="images/img4.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: 250%;">An Appeal</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: 80%;">TO THE</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: 220%;"><i>Clergy of the Church of Scotland</i></p> + +<p class="center">WITH A NOTE FOR THE LAITY</p> + +<div class="quote" style="margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;"> +<p>“<i>Had I a strong voice, as it is the weakest alive, yea, could I lift +it up as a trumpet, I would sound a retreat from our unnatural +contentions, and irreligious strivings for religion</i>”</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 15em;"><span class="sc">Archbishop Leighton</span>, 1669</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:160px; height:111px" + src="images/img5.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center1 pt2"><i>William Blackwood & Sons</i></p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Edinburgh and London</i></p> + +<p class="center1">1875</p> + +<p class="pt3" style="margin-left: 3em;">Price 3d.]</p> + +</div> + +<p class="f70 center">(<i>Facsimile of original Title-page</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page200"></a>200</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page201"></a>201</span></p> +<h2>AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF<br /> +THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND</h2> + +<h3>WITH A NOTE FOR THE LAITY</h3> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Had I a strong voice, as it is the weakest alive, yea, could I +lift it up as a trumpet, I would sound a retreat from our unnatural +contentions, and irreligious strivings for religion.”—<span class="sc">Archbishop +Leighton</span>, 1669.</p> +</div> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Gentlemen</span>,—The position of the Church of Scotland is +now one of considerable difficulty; not only the credit of +the Church, not only the credit of Christianity, but to some +extent also that of the national character, is at stake. You +have just gained a great victory, in spite of an opposition +neither very logical nor very generous; you have succeeded +in effecting, by quiet constitutional processes, a great reform +which brings your Church somewhat nearer in character +to what is required by your Dissenting brethren. It +remains to be seen whether you can prove yourselves as +generous as you have been wise and patient. And the +position, as I say, is one of difficulty. Many, doubtless, +left the Church for a reason which is now removed; many +have joined other sects who would rather have joined +themselves with you, had you been then as you now are; +and for these you are bound to render as easy as may be +the way of reconciliation, and show, by some notable +action, the reality of your own desire for Peace. But I +am not unaware that there are others, and those possibly +a majority, who hold very different opinions—who regard +the old quarrel as still competent, or have found some new +reason for dissent; and from these the Church, if she makes +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202"></a>202</span> +such an advance as she ought to make, in all loyalty and +charity, may chance to meet that most sensible of insults—ridicule, +in return for an honest offer of reconciliation. +I am not unaware, also, that there is yet another ground +of difficulty; and that those even who would be most +ready to hold the cause of offence as now removed will find +it hard to forget the past—will continue to think themselves +unjustly used—will not be willing to come back, as though +they were repentant offenders, among those who delayed +the reform and quietly enjoyed their benefices, while they +bore the heat and burthen of the day in a voluntary exile +for the Truth’s sake.</p> + +<p>In view of so many elements of difficulty, no intelligent +person can be free from apprehension for the result; and +you, gentlemen, may be perhaps more ready now to receive +advice, to hear and weigh the opinion of one who is free, +because he writes without name, than you would be at +any juncture less critical. There is now a hope, at least, +that some term may be put to our more clamorous dissensions. +Those who are at all open to a feeling of national +disgrace look eagerly forward to such a possibility; they +have been witnesses already too long to the strife that +has divided this small corner of Christendom; and they +cannot remember without shame that there has been as +much noise, as much recrimination, as much severance of +friends, about mere logical abstractions in our remote +island, as would have sufficed for the great dogmatic battles +of the Continent. It would be difficult to exaggerate the +pity that fills the heart at such a reflection; at the thought +of how this neck of barren hills between two inclement +seaways has echoed for three centuries with the uproar of +sectarian battle; of how the east wind has carried out the +sound of our shrill disputations into the desolate Atlantic, +and the west wind has borne it over the German Ocean, as +though it would make all Europe privy to how well we +Scottish brethren abide together in unity. It is not a +bright page in the annals of a small country: it is not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203"></a>203</span> +a pleasant commentary on the Christianity that we profess; +there is something in it pitiful, as I have said, for the +pitiful man, but bitterly humorous for others. How much +time we have lost, how much of the precious energy and +patience of good men we have exhausted, on these trivial +quarrels, it would be nauseous to consider; we know too +much already when we know the facts in block; we know +enough to make us hide our heads for shame, and grasp +gladly at any present humiliation, if it would ensure a +little more quiet, a little more charity, a little more brotherly +love in the distant future.</p> + +<p>And it is with this before your eyes that, as I feel certain, +you are now addressing yourselves to the consideration of +this important crisis. It is with a sense of the blackness +of this discredit upon the national character and national +Christianity that not you alone but many of other Churches +are now setting themselves to square their future course +with the exigencies of the new position of sects; and it is +with you that the responsibility remains. The obligation +lies ever on the victor; and just so surely as you have +succeeded in the face of captious opposition in carrying forth +the substance of a reform of which others had despaired, +just as surely does it lie upon you as a duty to take such +steps as shall make that reform available, not to you only, +but to all your brethren who will consent to profit by it; +not only to all the clergy, but to the cause of decency and +peace, throughout your native land. It is earnestly hoped +that you may show yourselves worthy of a great opportunity, +and do more for the public minds by the example of one +act of generosity and humility than you could do by an +infinite series of sermons.</p> + +<p>Without doubt, it is your intention, on the earliest public +opportunity, to make some advance. Without doubt, it +is your purpose to improve the advantage you have gained, +and to press upon those who quitted your communion +some thirty years ago your great desire to be once more +united to them. This, at least, will find a place in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204"></a>204</span> +most unfriendly programme you can entertain; and if there +are any in the Free Church (as I doubt not there are some) +who seceded, not so much from any dislike to the just +supremacy of the law, as from a belief that the law in these +ecclesiastical matters was applied unjustly, I know well +that you will be most eager to receive them back again; +I know well that you will not let any petty vanity, any +scruple of worldly dignity, stand between them and their +honourable return. If, therefore, there were no more to +be done than to display to these voluntary exiles the deep +sense of your respect for their position, this appeal would be +unnecessary, and you might be left to the guidance of your +own good feeling.</p> + +<p>But it seems to me that there is need of something +more; it seems to me, and I think that it will seem so to +you also, that you must go even further if you would be +equal to the importance of the situation. If there are any +among the Dissenters whose consciences are so far satisfied +with the provisions of the recent Act that they could now +return to your communion, to such, it must not be forgotten, +you stand in a position of great delicacy. The conduct of +these men you have so far justified; you have tacitly +admitted that there was some ground for dissatisfaction +with the former condition of the Church; and though you +may still judge those to have been over-scrupulous who +were moved by this imperfection to secede, instead of +waiting patiently with you until it could be remedied by +peaceful means, you must not forget that it is the strong +stomach, according to St. Paul, that is to consider the weak, +and should come forward to meet these brethren with +something better than compliments upon your lips. +Observe, I speak only of those who would now see their +way back to your communion with a clear conscience; it +is their conduct, and their conduct alone, that you have +justified, and therefore it is only for them that your special +generosity is here solicited. But towards them, if there +are any such, your countrymen would desire to see you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205"></a>205</span> +behave with all consideration. I do not pretend to lay +before you any definite scheme of action; I wish only to +let you understand what thoughts are busy in the heads of +some outside your councils, so that you may take this also +into consideration when you come to decide. And this, +roughly, is how it appears to these: These good men have +exposed themselves to the chance of hardship for the sake +of their scruples, whilst you being of a stronger stomach, +continued to enjoy the security of national endowments. +Some of you occupy the very livings which they resigned +for conscience’ sake. To others preferment has fallen which +would have fallen to them had they been still eligible. If, +then, any of them are now content to return, you are bound, +if not in justice, then in honour, to do all that you can to +testify your respect for brave conviction, and to repair to +them such losses as they may have suffered, whether for +their first secession or their second. You owe a special duty, +not only to the courage that left the Church, but to the +wisdom and moderation that now returns to it. And your +sense of this duty will find a vent not only in word but in +action. You will facilitate their return not only by considerate +and brotherly language but by pecuniary aid; +you will seek, by some new endowment scheme, to preserve +for them their ecclesiastical status. That they have no +claim will be their strongest claim on your consideration. +Many of you, if not all, will set apart some share out of your +slender livings for their assistance and support: you will +give them what you can afford; and you will say to them, +as you do so, what I dare say to you, that what you give +is theirs—not only in honour but in justice.</p> + +<p>For you know that the justice which should rule the +dealings of Christians, how much more of Christian ministers, +is not as the justice of courts of law or equity; and those +who profess the morality of Jesus Christ have abjured, in +that profession, all that can be urged by policy or worldly +prudence. From them we can accept no half-hearted and +calculating generosity; they must make haste to be liberal; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206"></a>206</span> +they must catch with eagerness at all opportunities of +service, and the mere whisper of an obligation should be +to them more potent than the decree of a court to others +who make profession of a less stringent code. And remember +that it lies with you to show to the world that Christianity +is something more than a verbal system. In the lapse of +generations men grow weary of unsupported precept. +They may wait long, and keep long in memory the bright +doings of former days, but they will weary at the last; +they will begin to trouble you for your credentials; if you +cannot give them miracles, they will demand virtue; if +you cannot heal the sick, they will call upon you for some +practice of the Christian ethics. Thus people will knock +often at a door if only it be opened to them now and again; +but if the door remains closed too long, they will judge the +house uninhabited and go elsewhere. And thus it is that +a season of persecution, constantly endured, revives the +fainting confidence of the people, and some centuries of +prosperity may prepare a Church for ruin. You have here +at your hand an opportunity to do more for the credit of +your Christianity than ever you could do by visions, +miracles, or prophecies. A sacrifice such as this would be +better worth, as I said before, than many sermons; and +there is a disposition in mankind that would ennoble it +beyond much that is more ostentatious; for men, whether +lay or clerical, suffer better the flame of the stake than a +daily inconvenience or a pointed sneer, and will not readily +be martyred without some external circumstance and a +concourse looking on. And you need not fear that your +virtue will be thrown away; the people of Scotland will +be quick to understand, in default of visible fire and halter, +that you have done a brave action for Christianity and the +national weal; and if they are spared in the future any +of the present ignoble jealousy of sect against sect, they +will not forget that to that end you gave of your household +comfort and stinted your children. Even if you fail—ay, +and even if there were not found one to profit by your +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207"></a>207</span> +invitation—your virtue would still have its own reward. +Your predecessors gave their lives for ends not always +the most Christian; they were tempted, and slain with the +sword; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, in +caves and in dens of the earth. But your action will not +be less illustrious; what you may have to suffer may be +a small thing if the world will, but it will have been suffered +for the cause of peace and brotherly love.</p> + +<p>I have said that the people of Scotland will be quick +to appreciate what you do. You know well that they will +be quick also to follow your example. But the sign should +come from you. It is more seemly that you should lead +than follow in this matter. Your predecessors gave the word +from their free pulpits which was to brace men for sectarian +strife: it would be a pleasant sequel if the word came from +you that was to bid them bury all jealousy, and forget the +ugly and contentious past in a good hope of peace to come.</p> + +<p>What is said in these few pages may be objected to as +vague; it is no more vague than the position seemed to +me to demand. Each man must judge for himself what +it behoves him to do at this juncture, and the whole Church +for herself. All that is intended in this appeal is to begin, +in a tone of dignity and disinterestedness, the consideration +of the question; for when such matters are much pulled +about in public prints, and have been often discussed from +many different, and not always from very high, points of +view, there is ever a tendency that the decision of the +parties may contract some taint of meanness from the +spirit of their critics. All that is desired is to press upon +you, as ministers of the Church of Scotland, some sense of +the high expectation with which your country looks to you +at this time; and how many reasons there are that you +should show an example of signal disinterestedness and zeal +in the encouragement that you give to returning brethren. +For, first, it lies with you to clear the Church from the +discredit of our miserable contentions; and surely you can +never have a fairer opportunity to improve her claim to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208"></a>208</span> +the style of a peacemaker. Again, it lies with you, as I +have said, to take the first step, and prove your own true +ardour for an honourable union; and how else are you +to prove it? It lies with you, moreover, to justify in the +eyes of the world the time you have been enjoying your +benefices, while these others have voluntarily shut themselves +out from all participation in their convenience; and +how else are you to convince the world that there was not +something of selfishness in your motives? It lies with you, +lastly, to keep your example unspotted before your congregations; +and I do not know how better you are to do that.</p> + +<p>It is never a thankful office to offer advice; and advice +is the more unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the +service recommended, but often from its very obviousness. +We are fired with anger against those who make themselves +the spokesmen of plain obligations; for they seem to insult +us as they advise. In the present case I should have +feared to waken some such feeling, had it not been that I +was addressing myself to a body of special men on a very +special occasion. I know too much of the history of ideas +to imagine that the sentiments advocated in this appeal +are peculiar to me and a few others. I am confident that +your own minds are already busy with similar reflections. +But I know at the same time how difficult it is for one man +to speak to another in such a matter; how he is withheld +by all manner of personal considerations, and dare not +propose what he has nearest his heart, because the other +has a larger family or a smaller stipend, or is older, more +venerable, and more conscientious than himself; and it +is in view of this that I have determined to profit by the +freedom of an anonymous writer, and give utterance to +what many of you would have uttered already, had they +been (as I am) apart from the battle. It is easy to be +virtuous when one’s own convenience is not affected; and +it is no shame to any man to follow the advice of an outsider +who owns that, while he sees which is the better part, he +might not have the courage to profit himself by this opinion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page209"></a>209</span></p> +<p class="center1">[<i>Note for the Laity</i>]</p> + +<p>The foregoing pages have been in type since the beginning +of last September. I have been advised to give +them to the public; and it is only necessary to add that +nothing of all that has taken place since they were written +has made me modify an opinion or so much as change a +word. The question is not one that can be altered by +circumstances.</p> + +<p>I need not tell the laity that with them this matter +ultimately rests. Whether we regard it as a question of +mere expense or as a question of good feeling against ill +feeling, the solution must come from the Church members. +The lay purse is the long one; and if the lay opinion does +not speak from so high a place, it speaks all the week through +and with innumerable voices. Trumpets and captains are +all very well in their way; but if the trumpets were ever +so clear, and the captains as bold as lions, it is still the +army that must take the fort.</p> + +<p>The laymen of the Church have here a question before +them, on the answering of which, as I still think, many +others attend. If the Established Church could throw off +its lethargy, and give the Dissenters some speaking token +of its zeal for union, I still think that union, to some extent, +would be the result. There is a motion tabled (as I suppose +all know) for the next meeting of the General Assembly; +but something more than motions must be tabled, and +something more must be given than votes. It lies practically +with the laymen, by a new endowment scheme, +to put the Church right with the world in two ways, +so that those who left it more than thirty years ago, +and who may now be willing to return, shall lose neither +in money nor in ecclesiastical status. At the outside, what +will they have to do? They will have to do for (say) ten +years what the laymen of the Free Church have done +cheerfully ever since 1843.</p> + +<p><i>February 12th</i> 1875.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page210"></a>210</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page211"></a>211</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h3>THE CHARITY BAZAAR</h3> + +<h3>THE LIGHT-KEEPER</h3> + +<h3>ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT<br /> +LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES</h3> + +<h3>ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF<br /> +FORESTS</h3> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page212"></a>212</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page213"></a>213</span></p> +<h3>THE CHARITY BAZAAR</h3> + +<h4>AN ALLEGORICAL DIALOGUE</h4> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="center"><i>PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr" style="font-size: 100%;"> + +<p><span class="sc">The Ingenuous Public</span></p> +<p><span class="sc">His Wife</span></p> +<p><span class="sc">The Tout</span></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="nind"><i>The Tout, in an allegorical costume, holding a silver trumpet +in his right hand, is discovered on the steps in front of +the Bazaar. He sounds a preliminary flourish.</i></p> + +<p class="pt2"><i>The Tout</i>.—Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour +to announce a sale of many interesting, beautiful, rare, +quaint, comical, and necessary articles. Here you will find +objects of taste, such as Babies’ Shoes, Children’s Petticoats, +and Shetland Wool Cravats; objects of general usefulness, +such as Tea-cosies, Bangles, Brahmin Beads, and Madras +Baskets; and objects of imperious necessity, such as Pen-wipers, +Indian Figures carefully repaired with glue, and +Sealed Envelopes, containing a surprise. And all this is not +to be sold by your common Shopkeepers, intent on small +and legitimate profits, but by Ladies and Gentlemen, who +would as soon think of picking your pocket of a cotton +handkerchief as of selling a single one of these many interesting, +beautiful, rare, quaint, comical, and necessary +articles at less than twice its market value. (<i>He sounds +another flourish</i>.) +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214"></a>214</span></p> + +<p><i>The Wife.</i>—This seems a very fair-spoken young man.</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public</i> (<i>addressing the Tout</i>).—Sir, I am +a man of simple and untutored mind; but I apprehend +that this sale, of which you give us so glowing a description, +is neither more nor less than a Charity Bazaar?</p> + +<p><i>The Tout.</i>—Sir, your penetration has not deceived you.</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—Into which you seek to entice +unwary passengers?</p> + +<p><i>The Tout.</i>—Such is my office.</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—But is not a Charity Bazaar, +Sir, a place where, for ulterior purposes, amateur goods are +sold at a price above their market value?</p> + +<p><i>The Tout.</i>—I perceive you are no novice. Let us sit +down, all three, upon the doorsteps, and reason this matter +at length. The position is a little conspicuous, but airy +and convenient.</p> + +<p class="nind pt2">(<i>The Tout seats himself on the second step, the Ingenuous +Public and his Wife to right and left of him, one +step below.</i>)</p> + +<p class="pt2"><i>The Tout.</i>—Shopping is one of the dearest pleasures of +the human heart.</p> + +<p><i>The Wife.</i>—Indeed, Sir, and that it is.</p> + +<p><i>The Tout.</i>—The choice of articles, apart from their usefulness, +is an appetising occupation, and to exchange bald, +uniform shillings for a fine big, figurative knick-knack, +such as a windmill, a gross of green spectacles, or a cocked +hat, gives us a direct and emphatic sense of gain. We have +had many shillings before, as good as these; but this is +the first time we have possessed a windmill. Upon these +principles of human nature, Sir, is based the theory of the +Charity Bazaar. People were doubtless charitably disposed. +The problem was to make the exercise of charity +entertaining in itself—you follow me, Madam?—and in +the Charity Bazaar a satisfactory solution was attained. +The act of giving away money for charitable purposes is, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215"></a>215</span> +by this admirable invention, transformed into an amusement, +and puts on the externals of profitable commerce. +You play at shopping a while; and in order to keep up +the illusion, sham goods do actually change hands. Thus, +under the similitude of a game, I have seen children confronted +with the horrors of arithmetic, and even taught +to gargle.</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—You expound this subject very +magisterially, Sir. But tell me, would it not be possible +to carry this element of play still further? and after I +had remained a proper time in the Bazaar, and negotiated +a sufficient number of sham bargains, would it not be possible +to return me my money in the hall?</p> + +<p><i>The Tout.</i>—I question whether that would not impair +the humour of the situation. And besides, my dear Sir, +the pith of the whole device is to take that money from +you.</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—True. But at least the Bazaar +might take back the tea-cosies and pen-wipers.</p> + +<p><i>The Tout.</i>—I have no doubt, if you were to ask it handsomely, +that you would be so far accommodated. Still +it is out of the theory. The sham goods, for which, believe +me, I readily understand your disaffection—the sham goods +are well adapted for their purpose. Your lady wife will +lay these tea-cosies and pen-wipers aside in a safe place, +until she is asked to contribute to another Charity Bazaar. +There the tea-cosies and pen-wipers will be once more +charitably sold. The new purchasers, in their turn, will +accurately imitate the dispositions of your lady wife. In +short, Sir, the whole affair is a cycle of operations. The +tea-cosies and pen-wipers are merely counters; they come +off and on again like a stage army; and year after year +people pretend to buy and pretend to sell them, with a +vivacity that seems to indicate a talent for the stage. +But in the course of these illusory manœuvres, a great deal +of money is given in charity, and that in a picturesque, +bustling, and agreeable manner. If you have to travel +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216"></a>216</span> +somewhere on business, you would choose the prettiest +route, and desire pleasant companions by the way. And +why not show the same spirit in giving alms?</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—Sir, I am profoundly indebted +to you for all you have said. I am, Sir, your absolute +convert.</p> + +<p><i>The Wife.</i>—Let us lose no time, but enter the Charity +Bazaar.</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—Yes; let us enter the Charity +Bazaar.</p> + +<p><i>Both</i> (<i>singing</i>).—Let us enter, let us enter, let us enter, +Let us enter the Charity Bazaar!</p> + +<p class="nind pt2">(<i>An interval is supposed to elapse. The Ingenuous +Public and his Wife are discovered issuing from +the Charity Bazaar.</i>)</p> + +<p class="pt2"><i>The Wife.</i>—How fortunate you should have brought +your cheque-book!</p> + +<p><i>The Ingenuous Public.</i>—Well, fortunate in a sense. +(<i>Addressing the Tout.</i>)—Sir, I shall send a van in the course +of the afternoon for the little articles I have purchased. +I shall not say good-bye; because I shall probably take a +lift in the front seat, not from any solicitude, believe me, +about the little articles, but as the last opportunity I may +have for some time of enjoying the costly entertainment +of a drive.</p> + +<p class="center1"><span class="sc">The Scene Closes</span></p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page217"></a>217</span></p> +<h3>THE LIGHT-KEEPER</h3> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr" style="font-size: 100%"> + +<p>The brilliant kernel of the night,</p> + <p class="i1">The flaming lightroom circles me:</p> +<p>I sit within a blaze of light</p> + <p class="i1">Held high above the dusky sea.</p> +<p>Far off the surf doth break and roar</p> +<p>Along bleak miles of moonlit shore,</p> + <p class="i1">Where through the tides the tumbling wave</p> +<p>Falls in an avalanche of foam</p> +<p>And drives its churnèd waters home</p> + <p class="i1">Up many an undercliff and cave.</p> + +<p class="s">The clear bell chimes: the clockworks strain:</p> + <p class="i1">The turning lenses flash and pass,</p> +<p>Frame turning within glittering frame</p> + <p class="i1">With frosty gleam of moving glass:</p> +<p>Unseen by me, each dusky hour</p> +<p>The sea-waves welter up the tower</p> + <p class="i1">Or in the ebb subside again;</p> +<p>And ever and anon all night,</p> +<p>Drawn from afar by charm of light,</p> + <p class="i1">A sea-bird beats against the pane.</p> + +<p class="s">And lastly when dawn ends the night</p> + <p class="i1">And belts the semi-orb of sea,</p> +<p>The tall, pale pharos in the light</p> + <p class="i1">Looks white and spectral as may be.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page218"></a>218</span></p> +<p>The early ebb is out: the green</p> +<p>Straight belt of sea-weed now is seen,</p> + <p class="i1">That round the basement of the tower</p> +<p>Marks out the interspace of tide;</p> +<p>And watching men are heavy-eyed,</p> + <p class="i1">And sleepless lips are dry and sour.</p> + +<p class="s">The night is over like a dream:</p> + <p class="i1">The sea-birds cry and dip themselves;</p> +<p>And in the early sunlight, steam</p> + <p class="i1">The newly-bared and dripping shelves,</p> +<p>Around whose verge the glassy wave</p> +<p>With lisping wash is heard to lave;</p> + <p class="i1">While, on the white tower lifted high,</p> +<p>With yellow light in faded glass</p> +<p>The circling lenses flash and pass,</p> + <p class="i1">And sickly shine against the sky.</p> + +<p class="rt">1869.</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p> + +<h5>II</h5> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr" style="font-size: 100%"> + +<p>As the steady lenses circle</p> +<p>With a frosty gleam of glass;</p> +<p>And the clear bell chimes,</p> +<p>And the oil brims over the lip of the burner,</p> +<p>Quiet and still at his desk,</p> +<p>The lonely light-keeper</p> +<p>Holds his vigil.</p> + +<p class="s">Lured from afar,</p> +<p>The bewildered sea-gull beats</p> +<p>Dully against the lantern;</p> +<p>Yet he stirs not, lifts not his head</p> +<p>From the desk where he reads,</p> +<p>Lifts not his eyes to see</p> +<p>The chill blind circle of night</p> +<p>Watching him through the panes.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page219"></a>219</span></p> +<p>This is his country’s guardian,</p> +<p>The outmost sentry of peace.</p> +<p>This is the man,</p> +<p>Who gives up all that is lovely in living</p> +<p>For the means to live.</p> + +<p class="s">Poetry cunningly gilds</p> +<p>The life of the Light-Keeper,</p> +<p>Held on high in the blackness</p> +<p>In the burning kernel of night.</p> +<p>The seaman sees and blesses him;</p> +<p>The Poet, deep in a sonnet,</p> +<p>Numbers his inky fingers</p> +<p>Fitly to praise him:</p> +<p>Only we behold him,</p> +<p>Sitting, patient and stolid,</p> +<p>Martyr to a salary.</p> + +<p class="rt">1870.</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page220"></a>220</span></p> +<h3>ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT<br /> +LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES<a name="FnAnchor_44" id="FnAnchor_44" href="#Footnote_44"><span class="sp">44</span></a></h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> necessity for marked characteristics in coast illumination +increases with the number of lights. The late Mr. +Robert Stevenson, my grandfather, contributed two distinctions, +which he called respectively the <i>intermittent</i> and +the <i>flashing</i> light. It is only to the former of these that +I have to refer in the present paper. The intermittent +light was first introduced at Tarbetness in 1830, and is +already in use at eight stations on the coasts of the United +Kingdom. As constructed originally, it was an arrangement +by which a fixed light was alternately eclipsed and +revealed. These recurrent occultations and revelations +produce an effect totally different from that of the revolving +light, which comes gradually into its full strength, and as +gradually fades away. The changes in the intermittent, +on the other hand, are immediate; a certain duration of +darkness is followed at once and without the least gradation +by a certain period of light. The arrangement employed +by my grandfather to effect this object consisted of two +opaque cylindric shades or extinguishers, one of which +descended from the roof, while the other ascended from +below to meet it, at a fixed interval. The light was thus +entirely intercepted.</p> + +<p>At a later period, at the harbour light of Troon, Mr. +Wilson, C.E., produced an intermittent light by the use of +gas, which leaves little to be desired, and which is still in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221"></a>221</span> +use at Troon harbour. By a simple mechanical contrivance, +the gas jet was suddenly lowered to the point of extinction, +and, after a set period, as suddenly raised again. The +chief superiority of this form of intermittent light is economy +in the consumption of the gas. In the original design, of +course, the oil continues uselessly to illuminate the interior +of the screens during the period of occultation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson’s arrangement has been lately resuscitated +by Mr. Wigham of Dublin, in connection with his new +gas-burner.</p> + +<p>Gas, however, is inapplicable to many situations; and +it has occurred to me that the desired result might be +effected with strict economy with oil lights, in the following +manner:—</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:269px" + src="images/img221.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f90">Fig. 1.</p> +</div> + +<p>In Fig. 1, AAA represents in plan an ordinary Fresnel’s +dioptric fixed light apparatus, and BB’ a hemispherical +mirror (either metallic or dioptric on my father’s principle) +which is made to revolve with uniform speed about the +burner. This mirror, it is obvious, intercepts the rays of +one hemisphere, and, returning them through the flame +(less loss by absorption, etc.), spreads them equally over +the other. In this way 180° of light pass regularly the +eye of the seaman; and are followed at once by 180° of +darkness. As the hemispherical mirror begins to open, +the observer receives the full light, since the whole lit +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222"></a>222</span> +hemisphere is illuminated with strict equality; and as it +closes again, he passes into darkness.</p> + +<p>Other characteristics can be produced by different +modifications of the above. In Fig. 2 the original hemispherical +mirror is shown broken up into three different +sectors, BB´, CC´, and DD´; so that with the same velocity +of revolution the periods of light and darkness will be +produced in quicker succession. In this figure (Fig. 2) +the three sectors have been shown as subtending equal +angles, but if one of them were increased in size and the +other two diminished (as in Fig. 3), we should have one +long steady illumination and two short flashes at each +revolution. Again, the number of sectors may be increased; +and by varying both their number and their relative size, +a number of additional characteristics are attainable.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:282px" + src="images/img222.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f90">Fig. 2.</p> +</div> + +<p>Colour may also be introduced as a means of distinction. +Coloured glass may be set in the alternate spaces; but it +is necessary to remark that these coloured sectors will be +inferior in power to those which remain white. This +objection is, however, obviated to a large extent (especially +where the dioptric spherical mirror is used) by such an +arrangement as is shown in Fig. 4; where the two sectors, +WW, are left unassisted, while the two with the red +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223"></a>223</span> +screens are reinforced respectively by the two sectors of +mirror, MM.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:324px" + src="images/img223a.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f90">Fig. 3.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:269px" + src="images/img223b.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f90">Fig. 4.</p> +</div> + +<p>Another mode of holophotally producing the intermittent +light has been suggested by my father, and is shown in +Fig. 5. It consists of alternate and opposite sectors of +dioptric spherical mirror, MM, and of Fresnel’s fixed light +apparatus, AA. By the revolution of this composite frame +about the burner, the same immediate alternation of light +and darkness is produced, the first when the front of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224"></a>224</span> +fixed panel, and the second when the back of the mirror, +is presented to the eye of the sailor.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:271px" + src="images/img224.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f90">Fig. 5.</p> +</div> + +<p>One advantage of the method that I propose is this, +that while we are able to produce a plain intermittent +light; an intermittent light of variable period, ranging +from a brief flash to a steady illumination of half the +revolution; and finally, a light combining the immediate +occultation of the intermittent with combination and +change of colour, we can yet preserve comparative lightness +in the revolving parts, and consequent economy in the +driving machinery. It must, however, be noticed, that +none of these last methods are applicable to cases where +more than one radiant is employed: for these cases, either +my grandfather’s or Mr. Wilson’s contrivance must be +resorted to.</p> + +<p class="rt">1871.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44" href="#FnAnchor_44"><span class="fn">44</span></a> Read before the Royal Scottish Society of Arts on 27th March +1871, and awarded the Society’s Silver Medal.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page225"></a>225</span></p> +<h3>ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF +FORESTS<a name="FnAnchor_45" id="FnAnchor_45" href="#Footnote_45"><span class="sp">45</span></a></h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> opportunity of an experiment on a comparatively large +scale, and under conditions of comparative isolation, can +occur but rarely in such a science as Meteorology. Hence +Mr. Milne Home’s proposal for the plantation of Malta +seemed to offer an exceptional opportunity for progress. +Many of the conditions are favourable to the simplicity of +the result; and it seemed natural that, if a searching and +systematic series of observations were to be immediately set +afoot, and continued during the course of the plantation and +the growth of the wood, some light would be thrown on the +still doubtful question of the climatic influence of forests.</p> + +<p>Mr. Milne Home expects, as I gather, a threefold +result:—1st, an increased and better regulated supply of +available water; 2nd, an increased rainfall; and, 3rd, a +more equable climate, with more temperate summer heat +and winter cold.<a name="FnAnchor_46" id="FnAnchor_46" href="#Footnote_46"><span class="sp">46</span></a> As to the first of these expectations, +I suppose there can be no doubt that it is justified by +facts; but it may not be unnecessary to guard against +any confusion of the first with the second. Not only does +the presence of growing timber increase and regulate the +supply of running and spring water independently of any +change in the amount of rainfall, but as Boussingault found +at Marmato,<a name="FnAnchor_47" id="FnAnchor_47" href="#Footnote_47"><span class="sp">47</span></a> denudation of forest is sufficient to decrease +that supply, even when the rainfall has increased instead +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226"></a>226</span> +of diminished in amount. The second and third effects +stand apart, therefore, from any question as to the utility +of Mr. Milne Home’s important proposal; they are both, +perhaps, worthy of discussion at the present time, but I +wish to confine myself in the present paper to the examination +of the third alone.</p> + +<p>A wood, then, may be regarded either as a <i>superficies</i> or +as a <i>solid</i>; that is, either as a part of the earth’s surface +slightly elevated above the rest, or as a diffused and heterogeneous +body displacing a certain portion of free and +mobile atmosphere. It is primarily in the first character +that it attracts our attention, as a radiating and absorbing +surface, exposed to the sun and the currents of the air; +such that, if we imagine a plateau of meadow-land or bare +earth raised to the mean level of the forest’s exposed leaf-surface, +we shall have an agent entirely similar in kind, +although perhaps widely differing in the amount of action. +Now, by comparing a tract of wood with such a plateau +as we have just supposed, we shall arrive at a clear idea +of the specialities of the former. In the first place, then, +the mass of foliage may be expected to increase the radiating +power of each tree. The upper leaves radiate freely towards +the stars and the cold inter-stellar spaces, while the lower +ones radiate to those above and receive less heat in return; +consequently, during the absence of the sun, each tree cools +gradually downward from top to bottom. Hence we must +take into account not merely the area of leaf-surface actually +exposed to the sky, but, to a greater or less extent, the +surface of every leaf in the whole tree or the whole wood. +This is evidently a point in which the action of the forest +may be expected to differ from that of the meadow or +naked earth; for though, of course, inferior strata tend +to a certain extent to follow somewhat the same course as +the mass of inferior leaves, they do so to a less degree—conduction, +and the conduction of a very slow conductor, +being substituted for radiation.</p> + +<p>We come next, however, to a second point of difference. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227"></a>227</span> +In the case of the meadow, the chilled air continues to lie +upon the surface, the grass, as Humboldt says, remaining +all night submerged in the stratum of lowest temperature; +while in the case of trees, the coldest air is continually +passing down to the space underneath the boughs, or what +we may perhaps term the crypt of the forest. Here it is +that the consideration of any piece of woodland conceived +as a solid comes naturally in; for this solid contains a +portion of the atmosphere, partially cut off from the rest, +more or less excluded from the influence of wind, and lying +upon a soil that is screened all day from isolation by the +impending mass of foliage. In this way (and chiefly, I +think, from the exclusion of winds), we have underneath +the radiating leaf-surface a stratum of comparatively +stagnant air, protected from many sudden variations of +temperature, and tending only slowly to bring itself into +equilibrium with the more general changes that take place +in the free atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Over and above what has been mentioned, thermal +effects have been attributed to the vital activity of the +leaves in the transudation of water, and even to the respiration +and circulation of living wood. The whole actual +amount of thermal influence, however, is so small that I +may rest satisfied with mere mention. If these actions +have any effect at all, it must be practically insensible; and +the others that I have already stated are not only sufficient +validly to account for all the observed differences, but +would lead naturally to the expectation of differences very +much larger and better marked. To these observations +I proceed at once. Experience has been acquired upon +the following three points:—1, The relation between the +temperature of the trunk of a tree and the temperature of +the surrounding atmosphere; 2, The relation between the +temperature of the air under a wood and the temperature +of the air outside; and, 3, The relation between the temperature +of the air above a wood and the temperature of +the air above cleared land. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228"></a>228</span></p> + +<p>As to the first question, there are several independent +series of observations; and I may remark in passing, what +applies to all, that allowance must be made throughout for +some factor of specific heat. The results were as follows:—The +seasonal and monthly means in the tree and in the air +were not sensibly different. The variations in the tree, in +M. Becquerel’s own observations, appear as considerably +less than a fourth of those in the atmosphere, and he has +calculated, from observations made at Geneva between +1796 and 1798, that the variations in the tree were less than +a fifth of those in the air; but the tree in this case, besides +being of a different species, was seven or eight inches +thicker than the one experimented on by himself.<a name="FnAnchor_48" id="FnAnchor_48" href="#Footnote_48"><span class="sp">48</span></a> The +variations in the tree, therefore, are always less than those +in the air, the ratio between the two depending apparently +on the thickness of the tree in question and the rapidity +with which the variations followed upon one another. +The times of the maxima, moreover, were widely different: +in the air, the maximum occurs at 2 P.M. in winter, and +at 3 P.M. in summer; in the tree, it occurs in winter at +6 P.M., and in summer between 10 and 11 P.M. At nine +in the morning in the month of June, the temperatures of +the tree and of the air had come to an equilibrium. A +similar difference of progression is visible in the means, +which differ most in spring and autumn, and tend to +equalise themselves in winter and in summer. But it +appears most strikingly in the case of variations somewhat +longer in period than the daily ranges. The following +temperatures occurred during M. Becquerel’s observations +in the Jardin des Plantes:—</p> + +<table class="nobctr f90" width="70%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">Date.</td> + <td class="tc1">Temperature of<br />the Air.</td> + <td class="tc1">Temperature in<br />the Tree.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"> + <p>1859. Dec. 15,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 16,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 17,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 18,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 19,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 20,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 21,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 22,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 23,</p></td> +<td class="tc1"> + <p>26.78°</p> + <p>19.76°</p> + <p>17.78°</p> + <p>13.28°</p> + <p>12.02°</p> + <p>12.54°</p> + <p>38.30°</p> + <p>43.34°</p> + <p>44.06°</p></td> +<td class="tc1"> + <p>32.00°</p> + <p>32.00°</p> + <p>31.46°</p> + <p>30.56°</p> + <p>28.40°</p> + <p>25.34°</p> + <p>27.86°</p> + <p>30.92°</p> + <p>31.46°</p></td></tr> + +</table> + +<p>A moment’s comparison of the two columns will make +the principle apparent. The temperature of the air falls +nearly fifteen degrees in five days; the temperature of +the tree, sluggishly following, falls in the same time less +than four degrees. Between the 19th and the 20th the +temperature of the air has changed its direction of motion, +and risen nearly a degree; but the temperature of the tree +persists in its former course, and continues to fall nearly +three degrees farther. On the 21st there comes a sudden +increase of heat, a sudden thaw; the temperature of the +air rises twenty-five and a half degrees; the change at +last reaches the tree, but only raises its temperature by +less than three degrees; and even two days afterwards, +when the air is already twelve degrees above freezing point, +the tree is still half a degree below it. Take, again, the +following case:—</p> + +<table class="nobctr f90" width="70%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">Date.</td> + <td class="tc1">Temperature of<br />the Air.</td> + <td class="tc1">Temperature in<br />the Tree.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"> + <p>1859. July 13,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 14,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 15,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 16,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 17,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 18,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 3.5em;">” 19,</p></td> +<td class="tc1"> + <p>84.92°</p> + <p>82.58°</p> + <p>80.42°</p> + <p>79.88°</p> + <p>73.22°</p> + <p>68.54</p> + <p>65.66°</p></td> +<td class="tc1"> + <p>76.28°</p> + <p>78.62°</p> + <p>77.72°</p> + <p>78.44°</p> + <p>75.92°</p> + <p>74.30°</p> + <p>70.70°</p></td></tr> + +</table> + +<p class="noind">The same order reappears. From the 13th to the 19th +the temperature of the air steadily falls, while the temperature +of the tree continues apparently to follow the +course of previous variations, and does not really begin to +fall, is not really affected by the ebb of heat, until the +17th, three days at least after it had been operating in +the air.<a name="FnAnchor_49" id="FnAnchor_49" href="#Footnote_49"><span class="sp">49</span></a> Hence we may conclude that all variations of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230"></a>230</span> +the temperature of the air, whatever be their period, from +twenty-four hours up to twelve months, are followed in +the same manner by variations in the temperature of the +tree; and that those in the tree are always less in amount +and considerably slower of occurrence than those in the +air. This <i>thermal sluggishness</i>, so to speak, seems capable +of explaining all the phenomena of the case without any +hypothetical vital power of resisting temperatures below +the freezing point, such as is hinted at even by Becquerel.</p> + +<p>Réaumur, indeed, is said to have observed temperatures +in slender trees nearly thirty degrees higher than the +temperature of the air in the sun; but we are not informed +as to the conditions under which this observation was made, +and it is therefore impossible to assign to it its proper +value. The sap of the ice-plant is said to be materially +colder than the surrounding atmosphere; and there are +several other somewhat incongruous facts, which tend, at +first sight, to favour the view of some inherent power of +resistance in some plants to high temperatures, and in +others to low temperatures.<a name="FnAnchor_50" id="FnAnchor_50" href="#Footnote_50"><span class="sp">50</span></a> But such a supposition +seems in the meantime to be gratuitous. Keeping in view +the thermal redispositions, which must be greatly favoured +by the ascent of the sap, and the difference between the +condition as to temperature of such parts as the root, the +heart of the trunk, and the extreme foliage, and never +forgetting the unknown factor of specific heat, we may +still regard it as possible to account for all anomalies without +the aid of any such hypothesis. We may, therefore, I +think, disregard small exceptions, and state the result as +follows:—</p> + +<p>If, after every rise or fall, the temperature of the air +remained stationary for a length of time proportional to +the amount of the change, it seems probable—setting aside +all question of vital heat—that the temperature of the tree +would always finally equalise itself with the new temperature +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"></a>231</span> +of the air, and that the range in tree and atmosphere +would thus become the same. This pause, however, does +not occur: the variations follow each other without interval; +and the slow-conducting wood is never allowed enough time +to overtake the rapid changes of the more sensitive air. +Hence, so far as we can see at present, trees appear to be +simply bad conductors, and to have no more influence upon +the temperature of their surroundings than is fully accounted +for by the consequent tardiness of their thermal variations.</p> + +<p>Observations bearing on the second of the three points +have been made by Becquerel in France, by La Cour in +Jutland and Iceland, and by Rivoli at Posen. The results +are perfectly congruous. Becquerel’s observations<a name="FnAnchor_51" id="FnAnchor_51" href="#Footnote_51"><span class="sp">51</span></a> were +made under wood, and about a hundred yards outside in +open ground, at three stations in the district of Montargis, +Loiret. There was a difference of more than one degree +Fahrenheit between the mean annual temperatures in +favour of the open ground. The mean summer temperature +in the wood was from two to three degrees lower than the +mean summer temperature outside. The mean maxima +in the wood were also lower than those without by a little +more than two degrees. Herr La Cour<a name="FnAnchor_52" id="FnAnchor_52" href="#Footnote_52"><span class="sp">52</span></a> found the daily +range consistently smaller inside the wood than outside. +As far as regards the mean winter temperatures, there is +an excess in favour of the forest, but so trifling in amount +as to be unworthy of much consideration. Libri found that +the minimum winter temperatures were not sensibly lower +at Florence, after the Apennines had been denuded of +forest, than they had been before.<a name="FnAnchor_53" id="FnAnchor_53" href="#Footnote_53"><span class="sp">53</span></a> The disheartening +contradictoriness of his observations on this subject led +Herr Rivoli to the following ingenious and satisfactory +comparison.<a name="FnAnchor_54" id="FnAnchor_54" href="#Footnote_54"><span class="sp">54</span></a> Arranging his results according to the wind +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232"></a>232</span> +that blew on the day of observation, he set against each +other the variation of the temperature under wood from +that without, and the variation of the temperature of the +wind from the local mean for the month:—</p> + +<p> </p> +<table class="nobctr f90" style="border: 1px solid black; width: 70%; border-collapse: collapse;" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">Wind.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">N.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">N.E.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">E.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">S.E.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">S.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">S.W.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">W.</td> + <td class="tc1 bl bb">N.W.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3a">Var. in Wood</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+0.60</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+0.26</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+0.26</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+0.04</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">-0.04</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">-0.20</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+0.16</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+0.07</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3a">Var. in Wind</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">-0.30</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">-2.60</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">-3.30</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">-1.20</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+1.00</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+1.30</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+1.00</td> + <td class="tc3a bl">+1.00</td></tr> +</table> +<p> </p> + +<p>From this curious comparison, it becomes apparent +that the variations of the difference in question depend +upon the amount of variations of temperature which take +place in the free air, and on the slowness with which such +changes are communicated to the stagnant atmosphere of +woods; in other words, as Herr Rivoli boldly formulates +it, a forest is simply a bad conductor. But this is precisely +the same conclusion as we have already arrived at with +regard to individual trees; and in Herr Rivoli’s table, +what we see is just another case of what we saw in M. +Becquerel’s—the different progression of temperatures. +It must be obvious, however, that the thermal condition +of a single tree must be different in many ways from that +of a combination of trees and more or less stagnant air, +such as we call a forest. And accordingly we find, in the +case of the latter, the following new feature: The mean +yearly temperature of woods is lower than the mean +yearly temperature of free air, while they are decidedly +colder in summer, and very little, if at all, warmer in winter. +Hence, on the whole, forests are colder than cleared +lands. But this is just what might have been expected +from the amount of evaporation, the continued descent +of cold air, and its stagnation in the close and sunless +crypt of a forest; and one can only wonder here, as elsewhere, +that the resultant difference is so insignificant and +doubtful. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233"></a>233</span></p> + +<p>We come now to the third point in question, the thermal +influence of woods upon the air above them. It will be +remembered that we have seen reason to believe their +effect to be similar to that of certain other surfaces, except +in so far as it may be altered, in the case of the forest, +by the greater extent of effective radiating area, and by +the possibility of generating a descending cold current as +well as an ascending hot one. M. Becquerel is (so far as +I can learn) the only observer who has taken up the elucidation +of this subject. He placed his thermometers at +three points:<a name="FnAnchor_55" id="FnAnchor_55" href="#Footnote_55"><span class="sp">55</span></a> A and B were both about seventy feet +above the surface of the ground; but A was at the summit +of a chestnut tree, while B was in the free air, fifty feet +away from the other. C was four or five feet above the +ground, with a northern exposure; there was also a fourth +station to the south, at the same level as this last, but its +readings are very seldom referred to. After several years +of observation, the mean temperature at A was found to +be between one and two degrees higher than that at B. +The order of progression of differences is as instructive +here as in the two former investigations. The maximum +difference in favour of station A occurred between three +and five in the afternoon, later or sooner according as +there had been more or less sunshine, and ranged sometimes +as high as seven degrees. After this the difference kept +declining until sunrise, when there was often a difference +of a degree, or a degree and a half, upon the other side. +On cloudy days the difference tended to a minimum. +During a rainy month of April, for example, the difference +in favour of station A was less than half a degree; the +first fifteen days of May following, however, were sunny, +and the difference rose to more than a degree and a half.<a name="FnAnchor_56" id="FnAnchor_56" href="#Footnote_56"><span class="sp">56</span></a> +It will be observed that I have omitted up to the present +point all mention of station C. I do so because M. Becquerel’s +language leaves it doubtful whether the observations +made at this station are logically comparable with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234"></a>234</span> +those made at the other two. If the end in view were to +compare the progression of temperatures above the earth, +above a tree, and in free air, removed from all such radiative +and absorptive influences, it is plain that all three should +have been equally exposed to the sun or kept equally in +shadow. As the observations were made, they give us +no notion of the relative action of earth-surface and forest-surface +upon the temperature of the contiguous atmosphere; +and this, as it seems to me, was just the <i>crux</i> of the problem. +So far, however, as they go, they seem to justify the view +that all these actions are the same in kind, however they +may differ in degree. We find the forest heating the air +during the day, and heating it more or less according as +there has been more or less sunshine for it to absorb, and +we find it also chilling it during the night; both of which +are actions common to any radiating surface, and would +be produced, if with differences of amount and time, by +any other such surface raised to the mean level of the +exposed foliage.</p> + +<p>To recapitulate:</p> + +<p>1st. We find that single trees appear to act simply as +bad conductors.</p> + +<p>2nd. We find that woods, regarded as solids, are, on +the whole, slightly lower in temperature than the free air +which they have displaced, and that they tend slowly to +adapt themselves to the various thermal changes that take +place without them.</p> + +<p>3rd. We find forests regarded as surfaces acting like +any other part of the earth’s surface, probably with more +or less difference in amount and progression, which we +still lack the information necessary to estimate.</p> + +<p>All this done, I am afraid that there can be little doubt +that the more general climatic investigations will be long +and vexatious. Even in South America, with extremely +favourable conditions, the result is far from being definite. +Glancing over the table published by M. Becquerel in his +book on climates, from the observations of Humboldt, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235"></a>235</span> +Hall, Boussingault, and others, it becomes evident, I think, +that nothing can be founded upon the comparisons therein +instituted; that all reasoning, in the present state of our +information, is premature and unreliable. Strong statements +have certainly been made; and particular cases +lend themselves to the formation of hasty judgments. +“From the Bay of Cupica to the Gulf of Guayaquil,” says +M. Boussingault, “the country is covered with immense +forest and traversed by numerous rivers; it rains there +almost ceaselessly; and the mean temperature of this +moist district scarcely reaches 78.8° F.... At Payta +commence the sandy deserts of Priura and Sechura; to +the constant humidity of Choco succeeds almost at once +an extreme of dryness; and the mean temperature of the +coast increases at the same time by 1.8° F.”<a name="FnAnchor_57" id="FnAnchor_57" href="#Footnote_57"><span class="sp">57</span></a> Even in this +selected favourable instance it might be argued that the +part performed in the change by the presence or absence +of forest was comparatively small; there seems to have +been, at the same time, an entire change of soil; and, in +our present ignorance, it would be difficult to say by how +much this of itself is able to affect the climate. Moreover, +it is possible that the humidity of the one district is due +to other causes besides the presence of wood, or even that +the presence of wood is itself only an effect of some more +general difference or combination of differences. Be that as +it may, however, we have only to look a little longer at the +table before referred to, to see how little weight can be laid +on such special instances. Let us take five stations, all +in this very district of Choco. Hacquita is eight hundred +and twenty feet above Novita, and their mean temperatures +are the same. Alto de Mombu, again, is five hundred feet +higher than Hacquita, and the mean temperature has here +fallen nearly two degrees. Go up another five hundred feet +to Tambo de la Orquita, and again we find no fall in the +mean temperature. Go up some five hundred further to +Chami, and there is a fall in the mean temperature of nearly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236"></a>236</span> +six degrees. Such numbers are evidently quite untrustworthy; +and hence we may judge how much confidence +can be placed in any generalisation from these South +American mean temperatures.</p> + +<p>The question is probably considered too simply—too +much to the neglect of concurrent influences. Until we +know, for example, somewhat more of the comparative +radiant powers of different soils, we cannot expect any very +definite result. A change of temperature would certainly +be effected by the plantation of such a marshy district as +the Sologne, because, if nothing else were done, the roots +might pierce the impenetrable subsoil, allow the surface-water +to drain itself off, and thus dry the country. But +might not the change be quite different if the soil planted +were a shifting sand, which, <i>fixed</i> by the roots of the trees, +would become gradually covered with a vegetable earth, +and be thus changed from dry to wet? Again, the complication +and conflict of effects arises, not only from the +soil, vegetation, and geographical position of the place of +the experiment itself, but from the distribution of similar +or different conditions in its immediate neighbourhood, and +probably to great distances on every side. A forest, for +example, as we know from Herr Rivoli’s comparison, would +exercise a perfectly different influence in a cold country +subject to warm winds, and in a warm country subject to +cold winds; so that our question might meet with different +solutions even on the east and west coasts of Great Britain.</p> + +<p>The consideration of such a complexity points more +and more to the plantation of Malta as an occasion of +special importance; its insular position and the unity of +its geological structure both tend to simplify the question. +There are certain points about the existing climate, moreover, +which seem specially calculated to throw the influence +of woods into a strong relief. Thus, during four summer +months, there is practically no rainfall. Thus, again, the +northerly winds when stormy, and especially in winter, +tend to depress the temperature very suddenly; and thus, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237"></a>237</span> +too, the southerly and south-westerly winds, which raise +the temperature during their prevalence to from eighty-eight +to ninety-eight degrees, seldom last longer than a few +hours; insomuch that “their disagreeable heat and dryness +may be escaped by carefully closing the windows and doors +of apartments at their onset.”<a name="FnAnchor_58" id="FnAnchor_58" href="#Footnote_58"><span class="sp">58</span></a> Such sudden and short +variations seem just what is wanted to accentuate the +differences in question. Accordingly, the opportunity +seems one not lightly to be lost, and the British Association +or this Society itself might take the matter up and establish +a series of observations, to be continued during the next +few years. Such a combination of favourable circumstances +may not occur again for years; and when the whole subject +is at a standstill for want of facts, the present occasion +ought not to go past unimproved.</p> + +<p>Such observations might include the following:—</p> + +<p>The observation of maximum and minimum thermometers +in three different classes of situation—<i>videlicet</i>, in +the areas selected for plantation themselves, at places in +the immediate neighbourhood of those areas where the +external influence might be expected to reach its maximum, +and at places distant from those areas where the influence +might be expected to be least.</p> + +<p>The observation of rain-gauges and hygrometers at the +same three descriptions of locality.</p> + +<p>In addition to the ordinary hours of observation, special +readings of the thermometers should be made as often as +possible at a change of wind and throughout the course of +the short hot breezes alluded to already, in order to admit +of the recognition and extension of Herr Rivoli’s comparison.</p> + +<p>Observation of the periods and forces of the land and +sea breezes.</p> + +<p>Gauging of the principal springs, both in the neighbourhood +of the areas of plantation and at places far removed +from those areas.</p> + +<p class="rt">1873.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45" href="#FnAnchor_45"><span class="fn">45</span></a> Read before the Royal Society, Edinburgh, 19th May 1873, and +reprinted from the <i>Proceedings</i> R.S.E.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46" href="#FnAnchor_46"><span class="fn">46</span></a> <i>Jour. <span class="correction" title="originally 'Sbot.'">Scot.</span> Met. Soc.</i>, New Ser. xxvi. 35.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47" href="#FnAnchor_47"><span class="fn">47</span></a> Quoted by Mr. Milne Home.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48" href="#FnAnchor_48"><span class="fn">48</span></a> <i>Atlas Météorologique de l’Observatoire Impérial</i>, 1867.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49" href="#FnAnchor_49"><span class="fn">49</span></a> <i>Comptes Rendus de l’Académie</i>, 29th March 1869.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50" href="#FnAnchor_50"><span class="fn">50</span></a> Professor Balfour’s “Class Book of Botany,” Physiology, chap. +xii., p. 670.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51" href="#FnAnchor_51"><span class="fn">51</span></a> <i>Comptes Rendus</i>, 1867 and 1869.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52" href="#FnAnchor_52"><span class="fn">52</span></a> See his paper.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53" href="#FnAnchor_53"><span class="fn">53</span></a> <i>Annales de Chimie et de Physique</i>, xlv., 1830. A more detailed +comparison of the climates in question would be a most interesting +and important contribution to the subject.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54" href="#FnAnchor_54"><span class="fn">54</span></a> Reviewed in the <i>Austrian Meteorological Magazine</i>, vol. iv.; +p. 543.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55" href="#FnAnchor_55"><span class="fn">55</span></a> <i>Comptes Rendus</i>, 28th May 1860.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56" href="#FnAnchor_56"><span class="fn">56</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 20th May 1861.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57" href="#FnAnchor_57"><span class="fn">57</span></a> Becquerel, “Climats,” p. 141.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58" href="#FnAnchor_58"><span class="fn">58</span></a> Scoresby-Jackson’s “Medical Climatology.”</p> +</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page238"></a>238</span></p> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page239"></a>239</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>ESSAYS OF TRAVEL</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page240"></a>240</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page241"></a>241</span></p> +<hr class="art" /> +<h2>ESSAYS OF TRAVEL</h2> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<h3>DAVOS IN WINTER</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">A mountain</span> valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like +effect on the imagination, but a mountain valley, an Alpine +winter, and an invalid’s weakness make up among them a +prison of the most effective kind. The roads indeed are +cleared, and at least one footpath dodging up the hill; but to +these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are for him +no cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no unguided +rambles in the wood. His walks are cut and dry. In +five or six different directions he can push as far, and no +farther, than his strength permits; never deviating from the +line laid down for him and beholding at each repetition +the same field of wood and snow from the same corner of the +road. This, of itself, would be a little trying to the patience +in the course of months; but to this is added, by the heaped +mantle of the snow, an almost utter absence of detail and +an almost unbroken identity of colour. Snow, it is true, is +not merely white. The sun touches it with roseate and +golden lights. Its own crushed infinity of crystals, its +own richness of tiny sculpture, fills it, when regarded near +at hand, with wonderful depths of coloured shadow, and, +though wintrily transformed, it is still water, and has +watery tones of blue. But, when all is said, these fields +of white and blots of crude black forest are but a trite and +staring substitute for the infinite variety and pleasantness +of the earth’s face. Even a boulder, whose front is too +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242"></a>242</span> +precipitous to have retained the snow, seems, if you come +upon it in your walk, a perfect gem of colour, reminds you +almost painfully of other places, and brings into your head +the delights of more Arcadian days—the path across the +meadow, the hazel dell, the lilies on the stream, and the +scents, the colours, and the whisper of the woods. And +scents here are as rare as colours. Unless you get a gust +of kitchen in passing some hotel, you shall smell nothing +all day long but the faint and choking odour of frost. +Sounds, too, are absent: not a bird pipes, not a bough +waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes +by, the sleigh-bells ring, and that is all; you work all winter +through to no other accompaniment but the crunching of +your steps upon the frozen snow.</p> + +<p>It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be each one village +from one end to the other. Go where you please, houses +will still be in sight, before and behind you, and to the +right and left. Climb as high as an invalid is able, and it +is only to spy new habitations nested in the wood. Nor +is that all; for about the health resort the walks are +besieged by single people walking rapidly with plaids +about their shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys +trying to learn to jödel, and by German couples silently +and, as you venture to fancy, not quite happily, pursuing +love’s young dream. You may perhaps be an invalid who +likes to make bad verses as he walks about. Alas! no +muse will suffer this imminence of interruption—and at +the second stampede of jödellers you find your modest +inspiration fled. Or you may only have a taste for solitude; +it may try your nerves to have some one always in front +whom you are visibly overtaking, and some one always +behind who is audibly overtaking you, to say nothing of +a score or so who brush past you in an opposite direction. +It may annoy you to take your walks and seats in public +view. Alas! there is no help for it among the Alps. There +are no recesses, as in Gorbio Valley by the oil-mill; no +sacred solitude of olive gardens on the Roccabruna-road; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243"></a>243</span> +no nook upon St. Martin’s Cape, haunted by the voice +of breakers, and fragrant with the three-fold sweetness of +the rosemary and the sea-pines and the sea.</p> + +<p>For this publicity there is no cure, and no alleviation; +but the storms of which you will complain so bitterly +while they endure, chequer and by their contrast brighten +the sameness of the fair-weather scenes. When sun and +storm contend together—when the thick clouds are broken +up and pierced by arrows of golden daylight—there will +be startling rearrangements and transfigurations of the +mountain summits. A sun-dazzling spire of alp hangs +suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms and blackness; +or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and appear for the duration of +a glance bright like a constellation, and alone “in the unapparent.” +You may think you know the figure of these +hills; but when they are thus revealed, they belong no +longer to the things of earth—meteors we should rather +call them, appearances of sun and air that endure but for a +moment and return no more. Other variations are more +lasting, as when, for instance, heavy and wet snow has +fallen through some windless hours, and the thin, spiry +mountain pine-trees stand each stock-still and loaded with +a shining burthen. You may drive through a forest so +disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in +the cleft of the ravine, and all still except the jingle of +the sleigh bells, and you shall fancy yourself in some untrodden +northern territory—Lapland, Labrador, or Alaska.</p> + +<p>Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter +down-stairs in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum +of a meal by the glimmer of one lamp in the deserted +coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o’clock outside +in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh +takes you up and carries you on, and you reach the top +of the ascent in the first hour of the day. To trace the fires +of the sunrise as they pass from peak to peak, to see the +unlit tree-tops stand out soberly against the lighted sky, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244"></a>244</span> +to be for twenty minutes in a wonderland of clear, fading +shadows, disappearing vapours, solemn blooms of dawn, +hills half glorified already with the day and still half confounded +with the greyness of the western heaven—these +will seem to repay you for the discomforts of that early +start; but as the hour proceeds, and these enchantments +vanish, you will find yourself upon the farther side in yet +another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, with +such another long-drawn congeries of hamlets and such +another senseless watercourse bickering along the foot. +You have had your moment; but you have not changed +the scene. The mountains are about you like a trap; +you cannot foot it up a hillside and behold the sea as a +great plain, but live in holes and corners, and can change +only one for another.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<h3>HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">There</span> has come a change in medical opinion, and a change +has followed in the lives of sick folk. A year or two ago +and the wounded soldiery of mankind were all shut up +together in some basking angle of the Riviera, walking a +dusty promenade or sitting in dusty olive-yards within +earshot of the interminable and unchanging surf—idle +among spiritless idlers not perhaps dying, yet hardly living +either, and aspiring, sometimes fiercely, after livelier +weather and some vivifying change. These were certainly +beautiful places to live in, and the climate was wooing in +its softness. Yet there was a later shiver in the sunshine; +you were not certain whether you were being wooed; and +these mild shores would sometimes seem to you to be the +shores of death. There was a lack of a manly element; +the air was not reactive; you might write bits of poetry +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245"></a>245</span> +and practise resignation, but you did not feel that here +was a good spot to repair your tissue or regain your nerve. +And it appears, after all, that there was something just in +these appreciations. The invalid is now asked to lodge +on wintry Alps; a ruder air shall medicine him; the demon +of cold is no longer to be fled from, but bearded in his den. +For even Winter has his “dear domestic cave,” and in +those places where he may be said to dwell for ever tempers +his austerities.</p> + +<p>Any one who has travelled westward by the great transcontinental +railroad of America must remember the joy +with which he perceived, after the tedious prairies of +Nebraska and across the vast and dismal moorlands of +Wyoming, a few snowy mountain summits along the +southern sky. It is among these mountains in the new +State of Colorado that the sick man may find, not merely +an alleviation of his ailments, but the possibility of an +active life and an honest livelihood. There, no longer as +a lounger in a plaid, but as a working farmer, sweating at +his work, he may prolong and begin anew his life. Instead +of the bath-chair, the spade; instead of the regulated walk, +rough journeys in the forest, and the pure, rare air of the +open mountains for the miasma of the sick-room—these are +the changes offered him, with what promise of pleasure +and of self-respect, with what a revolution in all his hopes +and terrors, none but an invalid can know. Resignation, +the cowardice that apes a kind of courage and that lives +in the very air of health resorts, is cast aside at a breath +of such a prospect. The man can open the door; he can +be up and doing; he can be a kind of a man after all and +not merely an invalid.</p> + +<p>But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. We cannot +all of us go farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle +term, which combines the medical benefits of the new +system with the moral drawbacks of the old. Again the +invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; +again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246"></a>246</span> +at a great altitude, far among the mountains, with the +snow piled before his door and the frost flowers every +morning on his window. The mere fact is tonic to his +nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow +to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, +since he has wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not +so apt to shudder at a touch of chill. He came for that, +he looked for it, and he throws it from him with the thought.</p> + +<p>A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon +either hand that rise higher and higher and shoot up new +summits the higher you climb; a few noble peaks seen +even from the valley; a village of hotels; a world of +black and white—black pine-woods, clinging to the sides +of the valley, and white snow flouring it, and papering it +between the pine-woods, and covering all the mountains +with a dazzling curd; add a few score invalids marching +to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating on the ice-rinks, +possibly to music, or sitting under sunshades by the door +of the hotel—and you have the larger features of a mountain +sanatorium. A certain furious river runs curving down +the valley; its pace never varies, it has not a pool for as +far as you can follow it; and its unchanging, senseless +hurry is strangely tedious to witness. It is a river that a +man could grow to hate. Day after day breaks with the +rarest gold upon the mountain spires, and creeps, growing +and glowing, down into the valley. From end to end the +snow reverberates the sunshine; from end to end the air +tingles with the light, clear and dry like crystal. Only +along the course of the river, but high above it, there hangs +far into the noon one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard +to fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps +it is harder to believe that delicate, long-lasting phantom +of the atmosphere, a creature of the incontinent stream +whose course it follows. By noon the sky is arrayed in an +unrivalled pomp of colour—mild and pale and melting in the +north, but towards the zenith, dark with an intensity of +purple blue. What with this darkness of heaven and the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247"></a>247</span> +intolerable lustre of the snow, space is reduced again to +chaos. An English painter, coming to France late in life, +declared with natural anger that “the values were all +wrong.” Had he got among the Alps on a bright day he +might have lost his reason. And even to any one who has +looked at landscape with any care, and in any way through +the spectacles of representative art, the scene has a character +of insanity. The distant shining mountain peak is here +beside your eye; the neighbouring dull-coloured house +in comparison is miles away; the summit, which is all of +splendid snow, is close at hand; the nigh slopes, which +are black with pine-trees, bear it no relation, and might +be in another sphere. Here there are none of those delicate +gradations, those intimate, misty joinings-on and spreadings-out +into the distance, nothing of that art of air and light +by which the face of nature explains and veils itself in +climes which we may be allowed to think more lovely. +A glaring piece of crudity, where everything that is not +white is a solecism and defies the judgment of the eyesight; +a scene of blinding definition; a parade of daylight, almost +scenically vulgar, more than scenically trying, and yet +hearty and healthy, making the nerves to tighten and the +mouth to smile: such is the winter daytime in the Alps. +With the approach of evening all is changed. A mountain +will suddenly intercept the sun; a shadow fall upon the +valley; in ten minutes the thermometer will drop as many +degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle +into ghosts; and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be +rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fades towards +night through a surprising key of colours. The latest gold +leaps from the last mountain. Soon, perhaps, the moon +shall rise, and in her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed +and misted, and here and there a wisp of silver cloud upon +a hilltop, and here and there a warmly glowing window +in a house, between fire and starlight, kind and homely in +the fields of snow.</p> + +<p>But the valley is not seated so high among the clouds +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248"></a>248</span> +to be eternally exempt from changes. The clouds gather, +black as ink; the wind bursts rudely in; day after day +the mists drive overhead, the snowflakes flutter down in +blinding disarray; daily the mail comes in later from the +top of the pass; people peer through their windows and +foresee no end but an entire seclusion from Europe, and +death by gradual dry-rot, each in his indifferent inn; and +when at last the storm goes and the sun comes again, behold +a world of unpolluted snow, glossy like fur, bright like +daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls +of men. Or perhaps from across storied and malarious +Italy, a wind cunningly winds about the mountains and +breaks, warm and unclean, upon our mountain valley. +Every nerve is set ajar; the conscience recognises, at a +gust, a load of sins and negligences hitherto unknown; +and the whole invalid world huddles into its private chambers, +and silently recognises the empire of the Föhn.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<h3>ALPINE DIVERSIONS</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">There</span> will be no lack of diversion in an Alpine sanatorium. +The place is half English, to be sure, the local sheet appearing +in double column, text and translation; but it still +remains half German; and hence we have a band which +is able to play, and a company of actors able, as you will +be told, to act. This last you will take on trust, for the +players, unlike the local sheet, confine themselves to +German; and though at the beginning of winter they +come with their wig-boxes to each hotel in turn, long before +Christmas they will have given up the English for a bad job. +There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two +races; the German element seeking, in the interest of their +actors, to raise a mysterious item, the <i>Kur-taxe</i>, which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249"></a>249</span> +figures heavily enough already in the weekly bills, the +English element stoutly resisting. Meantime in the English +hotels home-played farces, <i>tableaux-vivants</i>, and even balls +enliven the evenings; a charity bazaar sheds genial consternation; +Christmas and New Year are solemnised with +Pantagruelian dinners, and from time to time the young +folks carol and revolve untunefully enough through the +figures of a singing quadrille. A magazine club supplies +you with everything, from the <i>Quarterly</i> to the <i>Sunday at +Home</i>. Grand tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, +billiards, and whist. Once and again wandering artists +drop into our mountain valley, coming you know not +whence, going you cannot imagine whither, and belonging +to every degree in the hierarchy of musical art, from the +recognised performer who announces a concert for the +evening, to the comic German family or solitary long-haired +German baritone, who surprises the guests at dinner-time +with songs and a collection. They are all of them good +to see; they, at least, are moving; they bring with them +the sentiment of the open road; yesterday, perhaps, they +were in Tyrol, and next week they will be far in Lombardy, +while all we sick folk still simmer in our mountain prison. +Some of them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May for +their own sake; some of them may have a human voice; +some may have that magic which transforms a wooden +box into a song-bird, and what we jeeringly call a fiddle +into what we mention with respect as a violin. From that +grinding lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, +accompanies the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, +there is surely a difference rather of kind than of degree +to that unearthly voice of singing that bewails and praises +the destiny of man at the touch of the true virtuoso. Even +that you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you will +own it impossible to enjoy it more keenly than here, <i>im +Schnee der Alpen</i>. A hyacinth in a pot, a handful of +primroses packed in moss, or a piece of music by some +one who knows the way to the heart of a violin, are things +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250"></a>250</span> +that, in this invariable sameness of the snows and frosty +air, surprise you like an adventure. It is droll, moreover, +to compare the respect with which the invalids attend a +concert, and the ready contempt with which they greet +the dinner-time performers. Singing which they would +hear with real enthusiasm—possibly with tears—from a +corner of a drawing-room, is listened to with laughter +when it is offered by an unknown professional and no +money has been taken at the door.</p> + +<p>Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a climate +the rinks must be intelligently managed; their mismanagement +will lead to many days of vexation and some petty +quarrelling, but when all goes well, it is certainly curious, +and perhaps rather unsafe, for the invalid to skate under +a burning sun, and walk back to his hotel in a sweat, +through long tracts of glare and passages of freezing shadow. +But the peculiar outdoor sport of this district is tobogganing. +A Scotsman may remember the low flat board, with the +front wheels on a pivot, which was called a <i>hurlie</i>; he +may remember this contrivance, laden with boys, as, +laboriously started, it ran rattling down the brae, and was, +now successfully, now unsuccessfully, steered round the +corner at the foot; he may remember scented summer +evenings passed in this diversion, and many a grazed skin, +bloody cockscomb, and neglected lesson. The toboggan +is to the hurlie what the sled is to the carriage; it is a +hurlie upon runners; and if for a grating road you substitute +a long declivity of beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy +career of the tobogganist. The correct position is to sit; +but the fantastic will sometimes sit hindforemost, or dare +the descent upon their belly or their back. A few steer +with a pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use +the feet. If the weight be heavy and the track smooth, +the toboggan takes the bit between its teeth; and to steer +a couple of full-sized friends in safety requires not only +judgment but desperate exertion. On a very steep track, +with a keen evening frost, you may have moments almost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251"></a>251</span> +too appalling to be called enjoyment; the head goes, the +world vanishes; your blind steed bounds below your +weight; you reach the foot, with all the breath knocked +out of your body, jarred and bewildered as though you +had just been subjected to a railway accident. Another +element of joyful horror is added by the formation of a +train; one toboggan being tied to another, perhaps to +the number of half a dozen, only the first rider being +allowed to steer, and all the rest pledged to put up their +feet and follow their leader, with heart in mouth, down +the mad descent. This, particularly if the track begins +with a headlong plunge, is one of the most exhilarating +follies in the world, and the tobogganing invalid is early +reconciled to somersaults.</p> + +<p>There is all manner of variety in the nature of the +tracks, some miles in length, others but a few yards, and +yet like some short rivers, furious in their brevity. All +degrees of skill and courage and taste may be suited in +your neighbourhood. But perhaps the true way to +toboggan is alone and at night. First comes the tedious +climb, dragging your instrument behind you. Next a +long breathing-space, alone with snow and pine-woods, +cold, silent, and solemn to the heart. Then you push +off; the toboggan fetches away; she begins to feel the +hill, to glide, to swim, to gallop. In a breath you are out +from under the pine-trees, and a whole heavenful of stars +reels and flashes overhead. Then comes a vicious effort; +for by this time your wooden steed is speeding like the +wind, and you are spinning round a corner, and the whole +glittering valley and all the lights in all the great hotels +lie for a moment at your feet; and the next you are racing +once more in the shadow of the night with close-shut teeth +and beating heart. Yet a little while and you will be +landed on the high-road by the door of your own hotel. +This, in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of +frost, in a night made luminous with stars and snow, and +girt with strange white mountains, teaches the pulse an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252"></a>252</span> +unaccustomed tune and adds a new excitement to the life +of man upon his planet.</p> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<h3>THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS</h3> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">To</span> any one who should come from a southern sanatorium +to the Alps, the row of sun-burned faces round the table +would present the first surprise. He would begin by looking +for the invalids, and he would lose his pains, for not one +out of five of even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness +on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its +strong reverberation from below colour the skin like an +Indian climate; the treatment, which consists mainly of the +open air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, and a tableful of +invalids comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful +of hunters. But although he may be thus surprised at the +first glance, his astonishment will grow greater, as he experiences +the effects of the climate on himself. In many +ways it is a trying business to reside upon the Alps: the +stomach is exercised, the appetite often languishes; the +liver may at times rebel; and because you have come so +far from metropolitan advantages, it does not follow that +you shall recover. But one thing is undeniable—that in +the rare air, clear, cold, and blinding light of Alpine winters, +a man takes a certain troubled delight in his existence +which can nowhere else be paralleled. He is perhaps no +happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, perhaps, +come out of him in work or exercise, yet he feels an enthusiasm +of the blood unknown in more temperate climates. +It may not be health, but it is fun.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more difficult to communicate on +paper than this baseless ardour, this stimulation of the +brain, this sterile joyousness of spirits. You wake every +morning, see the gold upon the snow-peaks, become filled +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253"></a>253</span> +with courage, and bless God for your prolonged existence. +The valleys are but a stride to you; you cast your shoe +over the hilltops; your ears and your heart sing; in the +words of an unverified quotation from the Scots psalms, you +feel yourself fit “on the wings of all the winds” to “come +flying all abroad.” Europe and your mind are too narrow +for that flood of energy. Yet it is notable that you are +hard to root out of your bed; that you start forth, singing, +indeed, on your walk, yet are unusually ready to turn +home again; that the best of you is volatile; and that +although the restlessness remains till night, the strength +is early at an end. With all these heady jollities, you are +half conscious of an underlying languor in the body; you +prove not to be so well as you had fancied; you weary +before you have well begun; and though you mount at +morning with the lark, that is not precisely a song-bird’s +heart that you bring back with you when you return with +aching limbs and peevish temper to your inn.</p> + +<p>It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy of Alpine +winters is its own reward. Baseless, in a sense, it is more +than worth more permanent improvements. The dream +of health is perfect while it lasts; and if, in trying to realise +it, you speedily wear out the dear hallucination, still every +day, and many times a day, you are conscious of a strength +you scarce possess, and a delight in living as merry as it +proves to be transient.</p> + +<p>The brightness—heaven and earth conspiring to be +bright—the levity and quiet of the air; the odd stirring +silence—more stirring than a tumult; the snow, the frost, +the enchanted landscape: all have their part in the effect +and on the memory, “<i>tous vous tapent sur la tête</i>”; and +yet when you have enumerated all, you have gone no +nearer to explain or even to qualify the delicate exhilaration +that you feel—delicate, you may say, and yet excessive, +greater than can be said in prose, almost greater than an +invalid can bear. There is a certain wine of France known +in England in some gaseous disguise, but when drunk in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254"></a>254</span> +the land of its nativity still as a pool, clean as river water, +and as heady as verse. It is more than probable that in +its noble natural condition this was the very wine of Anjou +so beloved by Athos in the “Musketeers.” Now, if the +reader has ever washed down a liberal second breakfast +with the wine in question, and gone forth, on the back of +these dilutions, into a sultry, sparkling noontide, he will +have felt an influence almost as genial, although strangely +grosser, than this fairy titillation of the nerves among the +snow and sunshine of the Alps. That also is a mode, we +need not say of intoxication, but of insobriety. Thus +also a man walks in a strong sunshine of the mind, and +follows smiling, insubstantial meditations. And whether +he be really so clever or so strong as he supposes, in either +case he will enjoy his chimera while it lasts.</p> + +<p>The influence of this giddy air displays itself in many +secondary ways. A certain sort of laboured pleasantry +has already been recognised, and may perhaps have been +remarked in these papers, as a sort peculiar to that climate. +People utter their judgments with a cannonade of syllables; +a big word is as good as a meal to them; and the turn of a +phrase goes further than humour or wisdom. By the professional +writer many sad vicissitudes have to be undergone. +At first he cannot write at all. The heart, it appears, +is unequal to the pressure of business, and the brain, left +without nourishment, goes into a mild decline. Next, +some power of work returns to him, accompanied by +jumping headaches. Last, the spring is opened, and there +pours at once from his pen a world of blatant, hustling +polysyllables, and talk so high as, in the old joke, to be +positively offensive in hot weather. He writes it in good +faith and with a sense of inspiration; it is only when he +comes to read what he has written that surprise and disquiet +seize upon his mind. What is he to do, poor man? All +his little fishes talk like whales. This yeasty inflation, +this stiff and strutting architecture of the sentence has +come upon him while he slept; and it is not he, it is the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255"></a>255</span> +Alps, who are to blame. He is not, perhaps, alone, which +somewhat comforts him. Nor is the ill without a remedy. +Some day, when the spring returns, he shall go down a +little lower in this world, and remember quieter inflections +and more modest language. But here, in the meantime, +there seems to swim up some outline of a new cerebral +hygiene and a good time coming, when experienced advisers +shall send a man to the proper measured level for the ode, +the biography, or the religious tract; and a nook may be +found between the sea and Chimborazo, where Mr. Swinburne +shall be able to write more continently, and Mr. +Browning somewhat slower.</p> + +<p>Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion of the brain? +It is a sort of congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, +when all goes well, to face the new day with such a bubbling +cheerfulness. It is certainly congestion that makes night +hideous with visions, all the chambers of a many-storied +caravanserai, haunted with vociferous nightmares, and +many wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the +morning. Upon that theory the cynic may explain the +whole affair—exhilaration, nightmares, pomp of tongue +and all. But, on the other hand, the peculiar blessedness +of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same +complaint, for the two effects are strangely similar; and +the frame of mind of the invalid upon the Alps is a sort +of intermittent youth, with periods of lassitude. The +fountain of Juventus does not play steadily in these parts; +but there it plays, and possibly nowhere else.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page256"></a>256</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page257"></a>257</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>STEVENSON AT PLAY</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page258"></a>258</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page259"></a>259</span></p> +<hr class="art" /> +<h2>STEVENSON AT PLAY</h2> + +<h4>INTRODUCTION BY MR. LLOYD OSBOURNE</h4> + +<div class="quote"> +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> an old note-book, soiled and dog-eared by much travelling, +yellow and musty with the long years it had lain hid +in a Samoan chest, the present writer came across the mimic +war correspondence here presented to the public. The +stirring story of these tin-soldier campaigns occupies the +greater share of the book, though interspersed with many +pages of scattered verse, not a little Gaelic idiom and verb, +a half-made will and the chaptering of a novel. This game +of tin soldiers, an intricate “Kriegspiel,” involving rules +innumerable, prolonged arithmetical calculations, constant +measuring with foot-rules, and the throwing of dice, sprang +from the humblest beginnings—a row of soldiers on either +side and a deadly marble. From such a start it grew in +size and complexity until it became mimic war indeed, +modelled closely upon real conditions and actual warfare, +requiring, on Stevenson’s part, the use of text-books and +long conversations with military invalids; on mine, all the +pocket-money derived from my publishing ventures as well +as a considerable part of my printing stock in trade.</p> + +<p>The abiding spirit of the child in Stevenson was seldom +shown in more lively fashion than during those days of +exile at Davos, where he brought a boy’s eagerness, a man’s +intellect, a novelist’s imagination, into the varied business +of my holiday hours; the printing press, the toy theatre, +the tin soldiers, all engaged his attention. Of these, however, +the tin soldiers most took his fancy; and the war +game was constantly improved and elaborated, until from +a few hours a “war” took weeks to play, and the critical +operations in the attic monopolised half our thoughts. This +attic was a most chilly and dismal spot, reached by a crazy +ladder, and unlit save for a single frosted window; so low +at the eaves and so dark that we could seldom stand upright, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260"></a>260</span> +nor see without a candle. Upon the attic floor a map was +roughly drawn in chalks of different colours, with mountains, +rivers, towns, bridges, and roads of two classes. Here we +would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and stiffening +knees, and an intentness, zest, and excitement that I shall +never forget. The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, +changed by measured evolutions from column +formation into line, with cavalry screens in front and massed +supports behind, in the most approved military fashion +of to-day. It was war in miniature, even to the making +and destruction of bridges, the entrenching of camps, good +and bad weather, with corresponding influence on the roads, +siege and horse artillery proportionately slow, as compared +to the speed of unimpeded foot and proportionately expensive +in the upkeep; and an exacting commissariat added to +the last touch of verisimilitude. Four men formed the regiment +or unit, and our shots were in proportion to our units +and amount of ammunition. The troops carried carts of +printers’ “ems”—twenty “ems” to each cart—and for +every shot taken an “em” had to be paid into the base, +from which fresh supplies could be slowly drawn in empty +carts returned for the purpose. As a large army often +contained thirty regiments, consuming a cart and a half of +ammunition in every engagement (not to speak of the +heavy additional expense of artillery), it will be seen what +an important part the commissariat played in the game, +and how vital to success became the line of communication +to the rear. A single cavalry brigade, if bold and lucky +enough, could break the line at the weakest link, and by +cutting off the sustenance of a vast army could force it to +fall back in the full tide of success. A well-devised flank +attack, the plucky destruction of a bridge, or the stubborn +defence of a town, might each become a factor in changing +the face of the war and materially alter the course of +campaigns.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed that the enemy ever knew your +precise strength, or that it could divine your intentions by +the simple expedient of looking at your side of the attic +and counting your regiments. Numerous numbered cards +dotted the country wherever the eye might fall; one, +perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another +a solitary horseman dragging some ammunition, another +nothing but a dummy that might paralyse the efforts of a +corps, and overawe it into a ruinous inactivity. To uncover +these cards and unmask the forces for which they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261"></a>261</span> +stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements +were governed by an elaborate and most vexatious +set of rules. It was necessary to feel your way amongst +these alarming pasteboards to obtain an inkling of your +opponent’s plans, and the first dozen moves were often +spent in little less. But even if you were befriended by +the dice, and your cavalry broke the enemy’s screen and +uncovered his front, you would learn nothing more than +could reasonably be gleaned with a field-glass. The only +result of a daring and costly activity might be such meagre +news as “the road is blocked with artillery and infantry +in column” or “you can perceive light horse-artillery +strongly supported.” It was only when the enemy began +to take his shots that you would begin to learn the number +of his regiments, and even then he often fired less than his +entitled share in order to maintain the mystery of his +strength.</p> + +<p>If the game possessed a weakness, it was the unshaken +courage of our troops, who faced the most terrific odds and +endured defeat upon defeat with an intrepidity rarely seen +on the actual field. An attempt was made to correct this +with the dice, but the innovation was so heart-breaking to +the loser, and so perpetual a menace to the best-laid plans, +that it had perforce to be given up. After two or three +dice-box panics our heroes were permitted to resume their +normal and unprecedented devotion to their cause, and +their generals breathed afresh. There was another defect +in our “Kriegspiel”: I was so much the better shot that +my marksmanship often frustrated the most admirable +strategy and the most elaborate of military schemes. It +was in vain that we—or rather my opponent—wrestled +with the difficulty and tried to find a substitute for the +deadly and discriminating pop-gun. It was all of no use. +Whatever the missile—sleeve-fink, marble, or button—I was +invariably the better shot, and that skill stood me in good +stead on many an ensanguined plain, and helped to counteract +the inequality between a boy of twelve and a man of +mature years. A wise discretion ruled with regard to the +<i>personnel</i> of the fighting line. Stevenson possessed a horde +of particularly chubby cavalrymen, who, when marshalled +in close formation at the head of the infantry, could bear +unscathed the most accurate and overwhelming fire, and +thus shelter their weaker brethren in the rear. This was +offset by his “Old Guard,” whose unfortunate peculiarity +of carrying their weapons at the charge often involved +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262"></a>262</span> +whole regiments in a common ruin. On my side there was +a multitude of flimsy Swiss, for whom I trembled whenever +they were called to action. These Swiss were so weak upon +their legs that the merest breath would mow them down in +columns, and so deficient in stamina that they would often +fall before they were hurt. Their ranks were burdened, too, +with a number of egregious puppets with musical instruments, +who never fell without entangling a few of their +comrades.</p> + +<p>Another improvement that was tried and soon again +given up was an effort to match the sickness of actual war. +Certain zones were set apart as unwholesome, especially +those near great rivers and lakes, and troops unfortunate +enough to find themselves in these miasmic plains had to +undergo the ordeal of the dice-box. Swiss or Guards, +musicians, Arabs, chubby cavalrymen or thin, all had to +pay Death’s toll in a new and frightful form. But we +rather overdid the miasma, so it was abolished by mutual +consent.</p> + +<p>The war which forms the subject of the present paper +was unusual in no respect save that its operations were +chronicled from day to day in a public press of Stevenson’s +imagination, and reported by daring correspondents on the +field. Nothing is more eloquent of the man than the +particularity and care with which this mimic war correspondence +was compiled; the author of the “Child’s +Garden” had never outgrown his love for childish things, +and it is typical of him that, though he mocks us at every +turn and loses no occasion to deride the puppets in the +play, he is everywhere faithful to the least detail of fact. +It must not be supposed that I was privileged to hear +these records daily read and thus draw my plans against +the morrow; on the contrary, they were sometimes held +back until the military news was staled by time or were +guardedly communicated with blanks for names and the +dead unnumbered. Potty, Pipes, and Piffle were very real +to me, and lived like actual people in that dim garret. I +can still see them through the mist of years; the formidable +General Stevenson, corpulent with solder, a detachable +midget who could be mounted upon a fresh steed whenever +his last had been trodden under foot, whose frame gave +evidence of countless mendings; the emaciated Delafield, +with the folded arms, originally a simple artilleryman, but +destined to reach the highest honours; Napoleon, with +the flaming clothes, whom fate had bound to a very fragile +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263"></a>263</span> +horse; Green, the simple patriot, who took his name from +his coat; and the redoubtable Lafayette in blue, alas! with +no Washington to help him.</p> + +<p>The names of that attic country fall pleasantly upon +the ear and brighten the dark and bloody page of war: +Scarlet, Glendarule, Sandusky, Mar, Tahema, and Savannah; +how sweetly they run! I must except my own (and solitary) +contribution to the map, Samuel City, which sounds out of +key with these mouthfuls of melody, though none the less +an important point. Yallobally I shall always recall with +bitterness, for it was there I first felt the thorn of a vindictive +press. The reader will see what little cause I had +to love the <i>Yallobally Record</i>, a scurrilous sheet that often +made my heart ache, for all I pretended to laugh and see +the humour of its attacks. It was indeed a relief when I +learned I might exert my authority and suppress its publication—and +even hang the editor—which I did, I fear, +with unseemly haste. It will be noticed that the story of +the war begins on the tenth day, the earlier moves being +without interest save to the combatants themselves, passed +as they were in uncovering the cards on either side; and +in learning, with more or less success, the forces for which +they stood. This was an essential but scarcely stirring +branch of tin-soldiering, and has been accordingly unreported +as too tedious even for the columns of the <i>Yallobally +Record</i>. When the veil had been somewhat lifted +and the shadowy armies discerned with some precision, the +historian takes his pen and awaits the clash of arms.</p> + +<p class="rt sc">Lloyd Osbourne</p> +</div> + + +<p> </p> +<h5>WAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM STEVENSON’S +NOTE-BOOK</h5> + +<p><span class="sc">Glendarule Times</span>.—10th. <i>Scarlet</i>.—“The advance +of the enemy continues along three lines, a light column +moving from Tahema on Grierson, and the main body +concentrating on Garrard from the Savannah and Yallobally +roads. Garrard and Grierson have both been evacuated. +A small force, without artillery, is alone in the neighbourhood +of Cinnabar, and some of that has fallen back on +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264"></a>264</span> +Glentower by the pass. The brave artillery remains in +front of Scarlet, and was reinforced this morning with some +ammunition. All day infantry has been moving eastward +on Sandusky. The greatest depression prevails.”</p> + +<p><i>Editorial Comment</i>.—General Stevenson may, or may +not, be a capable commander. It would be unjust to pronounce +in the meantime. Still, the attempt to seize Mar +was disastrously miscalculated, and, as we all know, the +column has fallen back on Sandusky with cruel loss. Nor +is it possible to deny that the attempt to hold Grierson, +and keep an army in the west, was idle. Our correspondent +at Scarlet mentions the passage of troops moving eastward +through that place, and the retreat of another column on +Glentower. These are the last wrecks of that Army of +the West, from which great things were once expected. +With the exception of the Yolo column, which is without +guns, all our forces are now concentrated in the province of +Sandusky; Blue Mountain Province is particularly deserted, +and nothing has been done to check, even for an hour, the +advance of our numerous and well-appointed foes.</p> + +<p>11th. <i>Scarlet</i>.—The horse-artillery returned through +Scarlet on the Glendarule road; hideous confusion reigns; +were the enemy to fall upon us now, the best opinions +regard our position as hopeless. Authentic news has been +received of the desertion of Cinnabar.</p> + +<p><i>Sandusky</i>.—The enemy has again appeared, threatening +Mar, and the column moving to the relief of the Yolo +column has stopped in its advance in consequence. General +Stevenson moved out a column with artillery, and crushed +a flanking party of the enemy’s great centre army on +Scarlet, Garrard, and Savannah road; no loss was sustained +on our side; the enemy’s loss is officially calculated +at four hundred killed or wounded.</p> + +<p><i>Scarlet</i>.—At last the moment has arrived. The enemy, +with a strong column of horse and horse-artillery, occupied +Grierson this morning. This, with his Army of the Centre +moving steadily forward upon Garrard, places all the troops +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265"></a>265</span> +in and around this place in imminent danger of being +entirely cut off, or being forced to retreat before overwhelming +forces across the Blue Mountains, a course, according +to all military men, involving the total destruction of +General Potty’s force. Piffle’s whole corps, with the heavy +artillery, continued its descent on the left bank of the +Sandusky river, while Potty, dashing through Scarlet at the +hand-gallop, and among the cheers of the populace, moved +off along the Grierson road, collecting infantry as he +moved, and riding himself at the head of the horse-artillery.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Note</span>.—General Potty was an airy, amiable, affected +creature, the very soul of bravery and levity. He had +risen rapidly by virtue of his pleasing manners; but his +application was small, and he lacked self-reliance at the +Council Board. Piffle called him a parrot; he returned +the compliment by calling Piffle “the hundred-weight of +bricks.” They were scarce on speaking terms.</p> + +<p>Half an hour after, he had driven the fore-guard of the +enemy out of Grierson without the loss of a trooper on +our side; the enemy’s loss is reckoned at 1,600 men. +I telegraph at this juncture before returning to the field. +So far the work is done; Potty has behaved nobly. But +he remains isolated by the retreat of Piffle, with a large +force in front, and another large force advancing on his +unprotected flank.</p> + +<p><i>Editorial Comment</i>.—We have been successful in two +skirmishes, but the situation is felt to be critical, and is +by some supposed to be desperate. Stevenson’s skirmish +on the 11th did not check the advance of the Army of the +Centre; it is impossible to predict the result of Potty’s +success before Grierson. The Yolo column appears to +meet with no resistance; but it is terribly committed, +and is, it must be remembered, quite helpless for offensive +purposes, without the co-operation of Stevenson from +Sandusky. How that can be managed, while the enemy +hold the pass behind Mar, is more than we can see. Some +shrewd, but perhaps too hopeful, critics perceive a deep +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266"></a>266</span> +policy in the inactivity of our troops about Sandusky, and +believe that Stevenson is luring on the cautious Osbourne +to his ruin. We will hope so; but this does not explain +Piffle’s senseless counter-marchings around Scarlet, nor the +horribly outflanked and unsupported position of Potty on +the line of the Cinnabar river. If General Osbourne were +a child, we might hope for the best; there is no doubt +that he has been careless about Mar and Yolo, and that he +was yesterday only saved from a serious disaster by a fluke, +and the imperfection of our scout system; but the situation +to the west and centre wears a different complexion; there +his steady, well-combined advance, carrying all before him, +contrasts most favourably with the timid and divided +counsels of our Stevensons, Piffles, and Pottys.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:500px; height:396px" + src="images/img266.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f80"><i>From the original sketch in Stevenson’s Note-book</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">Yallobally Record</span>.—“That incompetent shuffler, +General Osbourne, has again put his foot into it. Blundering +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267"></a>267</span> +into Grierson with a lot of unsupported horse, he has +got exactly what he deserved. The whole command was +crushed by that wide-awake fellow, Potty, and a lot of +guns and ammunition lie ignominiously deserted on our +own side of the river. All this through mere chuckle-headed +incompetence and the neglect of the most elementary +precautions, within a day’s march of two magnificent +armies, either of which, under any sane, soldierly man, is +capable of marching right through to Glendarule.</p> + +<p>“This is the last scandal. Yesterday, it was a whole +regiment cut off between the Garrard road and the Sandusky +river, and cut off without firing or being able to fire a single +shot in self-defence. It is an open secret that the men +behind Mar are starving, and that the whole east and the +city of Savannah were within a day of being deserted. +How long is this disorganisation to go on? How long is +that bloated bondholder to go prancing round on horseback, +wall-eyed and muddle-headed, while his men are starved +and butchered, and the forces of this great country are at +the mercy of clever rogues like Potty, or respectable +mediocrities like Stevenson?”</p> + +<p>General Piffle’s force was, I learn, attacked this morning +from across the river by the whole weight of the enemy’s +centre. Supports were being hurried forward. Ammunition +was scarce. A feeling of anxiety, not unmixed with +hope, is the rule.</p> + +<p><i>Noon</i>.—I am now back in Scarlet, as being more +central to both actions now raging, one along the line of +the Sandusky between General Piffle and the Army of the +Centre, the other toward Grierson between Potty and the +corps of Generals Green and Lafayette. News has come +from both quarters. Piffle, who was at one time thought +to be overwhelmed, has held his ground on the Sandusky +highroad; and by last advices his whole supports had +come into line, and he hoped, by a last effort, to carry the +day. His losses have been severe; they are estimated at +2,600 killed and wounded; but it appears from the reports +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268"></a>268</span> +of captives that the enemy’s losses must amount to 3,000 +at least. The fate of the engagement still trembles in the +balance. From the battle at Grierson, the news is both +encouraging and melancholy. The enemy has once more +been driven across the rivers, and even some distance +behind the town of Grierson itself on the Tahema road; +he has certainly lost 2,400 men, principally horse; but he +has succeeded in carrying off his guns and ammunition in +the face of our attack, and his immense reserves are close +at hand. Both Green and Lafayette are sent wounded +to the rear; it is unknown who now commands their column. +These successes, necessary as they were felt to be, were +somewhat dearly purchased. Two thousand six hundred +men are <i>hors de combat</i>; and the chivalrous Potty is +himself seriously hurt. This has cast a shade of anxiety +over our triumph; and though the light column is still +pushing its advantage under Lieutenant-General Pipes, +it is felt that nothing but a complete success of the main +body under Piffle can secure us from the danger of complete +investment.</p> + +<p>14th. <i>Scarlet</i>.—The engagement ended last night by +the complete evacuation of Grierson. Pipes cleared the +whole country about that town in splendid style, and the +army encamped on the field of battle; sadly reduced indeed, +but victorious for the moment. The enemy, since their +first appearance at Grierson, have lost 4,400 men, and have +been beaten decisively back. There is now not a man on +our side of the Sandusky; and our loss of 2,600 is +serious indeed, but, seeing how much has been accomplished, +not excessive. The enemy’s horse was cut to +pieces.</p> + +<p>Piffle slept on the ground that he had held all day. +In the afternoon he had once more driven back the head +of the enemy’s columns, inflicting a further loss of 3,200 +killed and wounded at the lowest computation; but the +enemy’s camp-fires can still be plainly made out with a +field-glass, in the same position as the night before. This +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269"></a>269</span> +is scarcely to be called success, although it is certainly not +failure.</p> + +<p><i>Sandusky</i>.—All quiet at Sandusky; the army has fallen +back into the city, and large reserves are still massed +behind.</p> + +<p><i>Editorial Comment</i>.—The battle of Grierson is a distinct +success; the enemy, with a heavy loss, have been beaten +back to their own side. As to the vital engagement on +the Sandusky and the heavy fighting before Yolo, it is +plain that we must wait for further news of both. In +neither case has any decided advantage crowned our arms, +and if we are to judge by the expressions of the commander-in-chief +to our Sandusky correspondent, the course of the +former still leaves room for the most serious apprehensions. +General Potty, we are glad to assure our readers, will be +once more in the saddle before many days. It is an odd +coincidence that all the principal commanders in the battle +of Grierson were at one period or another of the day carried +to the rear; and that none of the three is seriously hurt. +Green and Lafayette were shot down, it appears, within +a few moments of each other. It was reported that they +had been having high words as to the reckless advance over +the Sandusky, each charging the blame upon the other; +but it seems certain that the fault was Lafayette’s, who was +in chief command, and was present in Grierson itself at the +time of the fatal manœuvre. The result would have been +crushing, had not General Potty been left for some hours +utterly without ammunition; Commissary Scuttlebutt is +loudly blamed. To-morrow’s news is everywhere awaited +with an eagerness approaching to agony.</p> + +<p>15th. <i>Scarlet</i>.—Late last night, orders reached General +Pipes to fall back on this place, where his reserves were +diverted to support Piffle, hard-pressed on the Sandusky. +This morning the manœuvre was effected in good order, +the enemy following us through Grierson and capturing +one hundred prisoners. The battle was resumed on the +Sandusky with the same fury; and it is still raging as I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270"></a>270</span> +write. The enemy’s Army of the Centre is commanded, +as we learn from stragglers, by General Napoleon; they +boast of large supports arriving, both from Savannah and +Tahema directions. The slaughter is something appalling; +the whole of Potty’s infantry corps has marched to support +Piffle; and as we have now no more men within a day’s +ride, it is feared the enemy may yet manage to carry +Garrard and command the line of the river.</p> + +<p><i>Sandusky</i>.—This morning, General Stevenson marched +out of town to the southward on the Savannah and Sandusky +road. It was fully expected that he would have mounted +the Sandusky river to support Piffle and engage the enemy’s +Army of the Centre on the flank; and the present manœuvre +is loudly criticised. Not only is the integrity of the line +of the Sandusky ventured, but Stevenson’s own force is +now engaged in a most awkward country, with a difficult +bridge in front. To add, if possible, to our anxiety, it is +reported that General Delafield, in yesterday’s engagement, +lost 3,200 men, killed and wounded. He held his ground, +however, and by the last advices had killed 800 and taken +1,400 prisoners, with which he had fallen back again on +Yolo itself. This retrogression, it seems, is in accordance +with his original orders: he was either to hold Yolo, or +if possible advance on Savannah via Brierly. This last +he judged unwise, so that he was obliged to cling to Yolo +itself. This also is seriously criticised in the best-informed +circles. Osbourne himself is reported to be in Savannah.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Yallobally Record</span>.—“We have never concealed +our opinion that Osbourne was a bummer and a scallywag; +but the entire collapse of his campaign beats the worst that +we imagined possible. We have received, at the same +moment, news of Green and Lafayette’s column being beaten +ignominiously back again across the Sandusky river and +out of Grierson, a place on our own side; and next of the +appearance of a large body of troops at Yolo, in the very +heart of this great land, where they seem to have played +the very devil, taking prisoners by the hundred and marching +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271"></a>271</span> +with arrogant footsteps on the sacred soil of the province +of Savannah. General Napoleon, the only commander who +has not yet disgraced himself, still fights an uphill battle +in the centre, inflicting terrific losses and upholding the +honour of his country single-handed. The infamous +Osbourne is shaking in his spectacles at Savannah. He +was roundly taken to task by a public-spirited reporter, +and babbled meaningless excuses; he did not know, he +said, that the force now falling in on us at Yolo was so +large. It was his business to know. What is he paid for? +That force has been ten days at least turning the east of +the Mar Mountains, a week at least on our own side of the +frontier. Where were Osbourne’s wits? Will it be believed, +the column at Lone Bluff is again short of ammunition? +This old man of the sea, whom all the world knows +to be an ass and whom we can prove to be a coward, is +apparently a peculator also. If we were to die to-morrow, +the word Osbourne would be found engraven backside +foremost on our hearts.”</p> + +<p>Note. <i>The Tergiversation of the Army of the West</i>.—The +delay of the Army of the West, and the timorous +counsels of Green and Lafayette, were the salvation of +Potty, Pipes, and Piffle. This is the third time we hear +of this great army crossing the river. It never should +have left hold. Lafayette had an overwhelming force at +his back; and with a little firmness, a little obstinacy even, +he might have swallowed up the thin lines opposed to him. +On this day, the 16th, when we hear of his leaving Grierson +for the third time, his headquarters should have been in +Scarlet, and his guns should have enfiladed the weak posts +of Piffle.</p> + +<p><i>Sandusky. Noon</i>.—Great gloom here. As everyone predicted, +Stevenson has already lost 600 men in the marshes +at the mouth of the Sandusky, men simply sacrificed. +His wilful conduct in not mounting the river, following on +his melancholy defeat before Mar, and his long and fatal +hesitation as to the Armies of the West and Centre, fill +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"></a>272</span> +up the measure of his incapacity. His uncontrolled temper +and undisguised incivility, not only to the Press, but to +fellow-soldiers of the stamp of Piffle, have alienated from +him even the sympathy that sometimes improperly consoles +demerit.</p> + +<p><i>Editorial</i>.—We leave our correspondents to speak for +themselves, reserving our judgment with a heavy heart. +Piffle has the sympathy of the nation.</p> + +<p><i>Scarlet</i>. 9 <span class="sc">P.M</span>.—The attack has ceased. Napoleon is +moving off southward. Our fellows smartly pursued and +cut off 1,600 men; in spreading along the other side of +the Sandusky they fell on a flanking column of the enemy’s +Army of the West and sent it to the right-about with a +loss of 800 left upon the field. This shows how perilously +near to a junction these two formidable armies were, and +should increase our joy at Napoleon’s retreat. That +movement is variously explained, but many suppose it is +due to some advance from Sandusky.</p> + +<p><i>Sandusky</i>.8 <span class="sc">P.M</span>.—Stevenson this afternoon occupied +the angle between the Glendarule and the Sandusky; his +guns command the Garrard and Savannah highroad, the +only line of retreat for General Napoleon’s guns, and he +has already hopelessly defeated and scattered a strong +body of supports advancing from Savannah to the aid of +that commander. The enemy lost 1,600 men; it is thought +that this success and Stevenson’s present position involve +the complete destruction or the surrender of the enemy’s +Army of the Centre. The enemy have retired from the +passes behind Mar; but it is thought they have moved too +late to save Savannah. Pleasant news from Colonel Delafield, +who, with a loss of 600, has destroyed thrice that +number of the enemy before Yolo.</p> + +<p>17th. <i>Scarlet</i>.—The enemy turned last night, inflicting +losses on the combined forces of Generals Pipes and Piffle, +amounting together to 1,600 men. But his retreat still +continues, harassed by our cavalry and guns. The rest of +the troops out of Cinnabar have arrived, via Glentower, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"></a>273</span> +at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Everyone is in high +spirits. Potty has resumed command of his division; +I met him half an hour ago at lunch, when he expressed +himself delighted with the campaign.</p> + +<p><i>Sandusky</i>.—A great victory must be announced. Today +Stevenson passed the Sandusky, and occupied the +right bank of the Glendarule and the country in front of +Savannah. General Napoleon, in full retreat upon that +place, found himself cut off, and, after a desperate struggle, +in which 2,600 fell, surrendered with 6,000 men. The +wrecks of his army are scattered far and wide, and his guns +are lying deserted on the Garrard road. At the very +moment while Napoleon was surrendering his sword to +General Stevenson, the head of our colours cut off 1,400 +men before Savannah, which was under the fire of our guns, +and destroyed a convoy on the Mar and Savannah highroad. +This completes the picture; the enemy have now only one +bridge over the Glendarule not swept by our artillery. +Delafield has had another partial success; with a loss of +1,000 he has cut off 1,200 and made 400 prisoners, but a +strong force ts reported on the Yolo and Yallobally road, +which, by placing him between two fires, may soon render +his hold on the Yolo untenable.</p> + +<p>Note.—General Napoleon. His real name was Clamborough. +The son of a well-known linen-draper in Yolo, +he was educated at the military college of Savannah. His +chief fault was an overwhelming vanity, which betrayed +itself in his unfortunate assumption of a pseudonym, and +in the gorgeous Oriental costumes by which he rendered +himself conspicuous and absurd. He received early warning +of Stevenson’s advance from Sandusky, but refused to +be advised, and did not begin to retreat until his army was +already circumvented. A characteristic anecdote is told +of the surrender. “General,” said Napoleon to his captor, +“you have to-day immortalised your name.” “Sir,” returned +Stevenson, whose brutality of manner was already +proverbial, “if you had taken as much trouble to direct +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274"></a>274</span> +your army as your tailor to make your clothes, our positions +might have been reversed.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:500px; height:500px" + src="images/img274.jpg" + alt="" /> +<p class="f80">From the original sketch in Stevenson’s Note-book</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Editorial Comment</i>.—Unlike many others, we have never +lost confidence in General Stevenson; indeed, as our +readers may remember, we have always upheld him as a +capable, even a great commander. Some little ruffle at +Scarlet did occur, but it was, no doubt, chargeable to the +hasty Potty; and now, by one of the finest manœuvres +on record, the head general of our victorious armies has +justified our most hopeful prophecies and aspirations. +There is not, perhaps, an officer in the army who would +not have chosen the obvious and indecisive move up the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275"></a>275</span> +Sandusky, which even our correspondent, able as he is, +referred to with apparent approval. Had Stevenson done +that, the brave enemy who chooses to call himself Napoleon +might have been defeated twelve hours earlier, and there +would have been less sacrifice of life in the divisions of +Potty and the ignorant Piffle. But the enemy’s retreat +would not have been cut off; his general would not now +have been a prisoner in our camp, nor should our cannon, +advanced boldly into the country of our foes, thunder +against the gates of Savannah and cut off the supplies from +the army behind Mar. A glance at the map will show the +authority of our position; not a loaf of bread, not an ounce +of powder can reach Savannah or the enemy’s Army of +the East, but it must run the gauntlet of our guns. And +this is the result produced by the turning movement at +Yolo, General Stevenson’s long inactivity in Sandusky, and +his advance at last, the one right movement and in the +one possible direction.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Yallobally Record</span>.—“The humbug who had the +folly and indecency to pick up the name of Napoleon second-hand +at a sale of old pledges, has been thrashed and is a +prisoner. Except the Army of the West, and the division +on the Mar road, which is commanded by an old woman, +we have nothing on foot but scattered, ragamuffin regiments. +Savannah is under fire; that will teach Osbourne +to skulk in cities instead of going to the front with the poor +devils whom he butchers by his ignorance and starves +with his peculations. What we want to know is, when is +Osbourne to be shot?”</p> + +<p>Note.—The <i>Record</i> editor, a man of the name of +McGuffog, was subsequently hanged by order of General +Osbourne. Public opinion endorsed this act of severity. +My great-uncle, Mr. Phelim Settle, was present and saw +him with the nightcap on and a file of his journals around +his neck; when he was turned off, the applause, according +to Mr. Settle, was deafening. He was a man, as the extracts +prove, not without a kind of vulgar talent. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"></a>276</span></p> + +<p><span class="sc">Yallobally Evening Herald</span>.—“It would be idle +to disguise the fact that the retreat of our Army of the +Centre, and the accidental capture of the accomplished +soldier whose modesty conceals itself under the pseudonym +of Napoleon, have created a slight though baseless feeling +of alarm in this city. Nearer the field the troops are quite +steady, the inhabitants enthusiastic, and the loyal and indefatigable +Osbourne multiplies his bodily presence. The +events of yesterday were much exaggerated by some papers, +and the publication of one rowdy sheet, suspected of receiving +pay from the enemy, has been suspended by an order +from headquarters. Our Army of the West still advances +triumphantly unresisted into the heart of the enemy’s +country; the force at Yolo, which is a mere handful and +quite without artillery, will probably be rooted out to-morrow. +Addresses and congratulations pour in to General +Osbourne; subscriptions to the great testimonial Osbourne +statue are received at the <i>Herald</i> office every day between +the hours of 10 and 4.”</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Abstract of Six Days’ Fighting, from the 19th to +the 24th, from the Glendarule Times Saturday +Special</span>.—“This week has been, on the whole, unimportant; +there are few changes in the aspect of the field +of war, and perhaps the most striking fact is the collapse +of Colonel Delafield’s Yolo column. Fourteen hundred +killed and eighteen hundred prisoners is assuredly a serious +consideration for our small army; yet the good done by +that expedition is not wiped away by the present defeat; +large reinforcements of troops and much ammunition have +been directed into the far east, and the city of Savannah and +the enemy’s forces in the pass have thus been left without +support. Delafield himself has reached Mar, now in our +hands, and the cavalry and stores of the expedition, all +safe, are close behind him. Yolo is a name that will never +be forgotten. Our forces are now thus disposed: Potty, +with the brave artillery, lies behind the south-east shoulder +of the Blue Mountains, on the Sandusky and Samuel City +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277"></a>277</span> +road; Piffle, with the Army of the Centre, has fallen back +into Sandusky itself; while Stevenson still holds the same +position across the Sandusky river, his advance to which +will constitute his chief claim to celebrity. Savannah was +bombarded from the 18th to the 20th, inclusive; 4,000 +men fell in its defence. Osbourne himself, directing operations, +was seriously wounded and sent to Yallobally; and +on the evening of the 20th the city surrendered, only 600 +men being found within its walls. A heavy contribution +was raised: but the general himself, fearing to expose his +communications, remains in the same position and has not +even occupied the fallen city.</p> + +<p>“In the meantime the army from the pass has been +slowly drawing down to the support of Savannah, suffering +cruelly at every step. Yesterday (24th) Mar was occupied +by a corps of our infantry, who fell on the rear of the retreating +enemy, inflicting heavy loss.”</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Note</span>.—Retreat of the Mar column. The army which +so long and so usefully held the passes behind Mar, over the +neck of Long Bluff, did not begin to retreat until the enemy +had already occupied Mar and begun to engage their outposts. +Supplies had already been cut off by the advanced +position of Stevenson. The men were short of bread. The +roads were heavy; the horses starving. The rear of the +column was continually and disastrously engaged with the +enemy pouring after. It is perhaps the saddest chapter in +the history of the war. My grandmother, Mrs. Hankey +(<i>née</i> Pillworthy), then a young girl on a mountain farm on +the line of the retreat, distinctly remembers giving a soda +biscuit, which was greedily received, to Colonel Diggory +Jacks, then in command of our division, and lending him +an umbrella, which was never returned. This incident, +trivial as it may be thought, emphatically depicts the +destitution of our brave soldiers.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, in the west, the enemy are slowly +passing the rivers and advancing with their main body +on Scarlet, and with a single corps on Glentower. Cinnabar +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"></a>278</span> +was occupied on the 21st in the morning, and a heavy +contribution raised. The situation may thus be stated: +In the centre we are the sole arbiters, commanding the +roads and holding a position which can only be described +as authoritative. In the east, Delafield’s corps has been +destroyed; but the enemy’s army of the pass, on the other +hand, is in a critical position and may, in the course of a +few days or so, be forced to lay down its arms. In the west, +nothing as yet is decided, and the movement through the +Glentower Pass somewhat hampers General Potty’s position.</p> + +<p>The comparative losses during these days are very encouraging, +and compare pleasingly with the cost of the early +part of the campaign. The enemy have lost 12,800 men, +killed, wounded, and prisoners, as against 4,800 on our +side.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Yallobally Herald.</span>—Interview from General Osbourne +with a special reporter.—“I met the wounded hero +some miles out of Yallobally, still working, even as he +walked, and surrounded by messengers from every quarter. +After the usual salutations, he inquired what paper I represented, +and received the name of the <i>Herald</i> with satisfaction. +‘It is a decent paper,’ he said. ‘It does not +seek to obstruct a general in the exercise of his discretion.’ +He spoke hopefully of the west and east, and explained +that the collapse of our centre was not so serious as might +have been imagined. ‘It is unfortunate,’ he said, ‘but if +Green succeeds in his double advance on Glendarule, and +if our army can continue to keep up even the show of +resistance in the province of Savannah, Stevenson dare not +advance upon the capital; that would expose his communications +too seriously for such a cautious and often +cowardly commander. I call him cowardly,’ he added, +‘even in the face of the desperate Yolo expedition, for you +see he is withdrawing all along the west, and Green, though +now in the heart of his country, encounters no resistance.’ +The General hopes soon to recover; his wound, though +annoying, presents no character of gravity.” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279"></a>279</span></p> + +<p><span class="sc">Note.</span>—General Osbourne’s perfect sincerity is doubtful. +He must have known that Green was hopelessly short +of ammunition. “Unfortunate,” as an epithet describing +the collapse of the Army of the Centre, is perhaps without +parallel in military criticism. It was not unfortunate, it +was ruinous. Stevenson was a man of uneven character, +whom his own successes rendered timid; this timidity it +was that delayed the end; but the war was really over +when General Napoleon surrendered his sword on the +afternoon of the 17th.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page280"></a>280</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page281"></a>281</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>THE DAVOS PRESS</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page282"></a>282</span></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%;"> +<p class="noind"><i>In the Reproductions which follow +of Moral Emblems, etc., by R. L. +Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, the +tint shows the actual size of the +paper on which the pamphlets were +printed</i></p> +</div> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page283"></a>283</span></p> + +<div class="mar20 noind"> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="vr f250">NOTICE.</p> + +<p>Today is published by <i>S. L. Osbourne & Co.</i></p> + +<p class="vr f250">ILLUSTRATED</p> + +<p class="ar f150">BLACK CANYON,</p> + +<p><i>or</i></p> + +<p class="f130">Wild Adventures in the FAR WEST.</p> + +<p>AN</p> + +<p>Instructive and amusing TALE written by</p> + +<p><i>SAMUEL LLOYD OSBOURNE</i></p> + +<p class="vr">PRICE 6D.</p> + +<p><b>OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Although <i>Black Canyon</i> is rather shorter +than ordinary for that kind of story, it is an +excellent work. We cordially recommend it +to our readers.</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Weekly Messenger.</i></p> + +<p>S. L. Osbourne’s new work (<i>Black Canyon</i>) is +splendidly illustrated. In the story, the characters +are bold and striking. It reflects the +highest honor on its writer.</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Morning Call.</i></p> + +<p>A very remarkable work. Every page produces +an effect. The end is as singular as the +beginning. I never saw such a work before.</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>R. L. Stevenson.</i></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page284"></a>284</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page285"></a>285</span></p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="ar f150">BLACK CANYON,</p> + +<p><i>or</i></p> + +<p class="f130">Wild Adventures in the</p> +<p class="f130 vr">FAR WEST</p> + +<p>A</p> + +<p>Tale of Instruction and Amusement<br /> +for the Young.</p> + + +<p><i>BY</i></p> + +<p><i>SAMUEL OSBOURNE</i></p> + + +<p class="vr"><b>ILLUSTRATED.</b></p> + + +<p><i>Printed by the Author.</i></p> + +<p>Davos-Platz.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page286"></a>286</span></p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Chapter I.</i></p> + + +<p class="noind">In this forest we see, in a misty +morning, a camp fire! Sitting +lazily around it are three men. +The oldest is evidently a sailor. +The sailor turns to the fellow +next to him and says, “blast +my eyes if I know where we is.” +“I’s rather think we’re in the vecenty +of tho Rocky Mount’ins.” +Remarked the young man.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the bushes parted. +‘WHAT!’ they all exclaim, ‘<i>Not +BLACK EAGLE?</i>’</p> + +<p class="noind">Who is Black Eagle? We shall +see.</p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Chapter II.</i></p> + +<p class="noind">James P. Drake was a gambler! +Not in cards, but <i>in lost luggage</i>! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287"></a>287</span> +In America, all baggage etc. lost +on trains and not reclaimed is +put up to auction <i>unopened</i>.</p> + +<p class="noind">James was one who always expected +to find a fortune in some +one of these bags.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img style="border:0; width:60px; height:67px" + src="images/img287a.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="noind">One day he was at the auction +house as usual, when a +small and exceedingly +light trunk was put up for sale. +He bought and opened it.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>It was empty! NO! A little bit of +paper</i> was in the bottom with +this written on it.</p> + +<p class="center1 vr">IDAHO</p> + +<div class="figcenter1"> +<img style="border:0; width:200px; height:116px" + src="images/img287b.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page288"></a>288</span></p> + +<p class="noind">Being an intelligent young man +he knew that this was <i>a clue for +finding Hidden TREASURE</i>! +Then after a while he made this: +<i>In Black Canyon, Idaho, 570 feet +west of some mark, 10 feet below +a tree Treasure will be found. +Beware of Black Eagle (Indian).</i> +But he forgot the (1).</p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Chapter III.</i></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img style="border:0; width:80px; height:61px" + src="images/img288.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="noind">James at once took two friends +into his secret: an old +sailor (Jack), and a +young frontiersman.</p> + +<p class="noind">They all agreed that they must +start for Black Canyon at once. +The frontiersman said he had +heard of Black Canyon in Idaho. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289"></a>289</span> +But who could Black Eagle be?</p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Chapter IV.</i></p> + +<p class="noind">Lost! Certainly lost! Lost in the +Far West! The Frontiersman +had lost them in a large forest. +They had travelled for about a +month, first by water (See page +4) then by stage, then by horse. + +<span class="figright"> +<img style="border:0; width:150px; height:63px" + src="images/img289a.jpg" + alt="" /> +</span> + +This was their +third day in it. +Just after their +morning meal the +bushes parted.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img style="border:0; width:120px; height:69px" + src="images/img289b.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="noind"><i>An Indian stood +before them! (See 1st Chap.)</i> +He merely said + +<span class="figright"> +<img style="border:0; width:80px; height:74px" + src="images/img289c.jpg" + alt="" /> +</span> + +<span class="figleft"> +<img style="border:0; width:110px; height:73px" + src="images/img289d.jpg" + alt="" /> +</span> + +‘<i>COME</i>.’ They take up +their arms and do so.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page290"></a>290</span></p> + +<p class="center1" style="clear: both;">Chapter V.</p> + +<p>After following him for four +hours, he stopped, turned around +and said, “Rest, eat you fellows.” +They did so. In about an hour +they started again. After walking +ten miles they heard the +roaring of an immense cataract. +Suddenly they find themselves +face to face <i>with a long deep gorge +or canyon. ‘Black Canyon,’</i> they +all cry. ‘<i>Stop</i>,’ says the Indian. +He pushes a stone aside. It uncovers +the mouth of a small cave. +The Indian struck a light with +<i>two sticks</i>. They follow him into +this cave for about a mile when +the cave opens into an immense +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291"></a>291</span> +Grotto. The Indian whistled, <i>a +bear and dog appeared</i>. “Bring +meat, Nero,” said the Indian.</p> + +<p class="noind">The bear at once brought a deer. +Which they cooked and ate. +Then the Indian said, <i>”Show me +the Treasure clue.” His eyes flashed +when he saw it.</i></p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Chapter VI.</i></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img style="border:0; width:110px; height:61px" + src="images/img291a.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="noind">MIDNIGHT! <i>The +Indian is about to +light a fuse to a cask + +<span class="figleft"> +<img style="border:0; width:110px; height:58px" + src="images/img291b.jpg" + alt="" /> +</span> + +of gunpowder! But +James sees him and +shoots him before he is able to light +the fuse.</i></p> + +<p class="noind">He ran to the side of the dying +Indian who made this confession. +“I am not an Indian. 10 years +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292"></a>292</span> +ago I met G. Gidean, a man who +found a quantity of gold here. Before +be died, he sent that clue to +a friend <i>who never received it</i>. I +knew the gold was here. I have +hunted 10 years for it, your clue +showed me where IT was,” <i>(here +Black Eagle told it to James.) +Then Black Eagle DIED</i>.</p> + +<p class="center1"><i>Chapter VII.</i></p> + +<p>20 years have passed! James is + +<span class="figleft"> <img style="border:0; width:110px; height:64px" + src="images/img292a.jpg" alt="" /></span> + +the same as ever. Jack + +<span class="figright"> <img style="border:0; width:90px; height:37px" + src="images/img292b.jpg" alt="" /></span> + +is owner of a yacht.</p> + +<p><span class="figleft"> <img style="border:0; width:80px; height:51px" + src="images/img292c.jpg" alt="" /></span> +The Frontiersman owns a +large cattle and hog ranch.</p> + + +<p class="center1" style="clear: both;"><b>Finis.</b></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page293"></a>293</span></p> + +<p class="f150 ar center pt2">NOT I,</p> + +<p class="f130 ar center">And Other POEMS,</p> + +<p class="f130 ar center"><i>BY</i></p> + +<p class="center1"><b>Robert Louis Stevenson,</b></p> + +<p class="center1"><b>Author of</b></p> + +<p class="center pt2"><i>The Blue Scalper, Travels<br /> +with a Donkey etc.</i><br /> +PRICE 6d.<br /></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page294"></a>294</span></p> +<p class="center pt2">Dedicated to<br /> + +<i>Messrs. R. & R. CLARKE</i></p> +<p class="center">by<br /> +<i>S.L.Osbourne</i><br /> +Davos<br /> +1881</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page295"></a>295</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:53px" + src="images/img295.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Not I.</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + + <p class="i1">Some like drink</p> + <p class="i1">In a pint pot,</p> + <p class="i1"> Some like to think;</p> + <p class="i1">Some not.</p> + +<p class="s">Strong Dutch Cheese,</p> +<p>Old Kentucky Rye,</p> + <p class="i1">Some like these;</p> + <p class="i2">Not I.</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page296"></a>296</span></p> + +<div class="poemr center pt2"> + + <p>Some like Poe</p> +<p>And others like Scott,</p> + <p>Some like Mrs. Stowe;</p> + <p>Some not.</p> + + <p class="s">Some like to laugh,</p> + <p>Some like to cry.</p> + <p>Some like chaff;</p> + <p>Not I.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:50px; height:58px" + src="images/img296.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page297"></a>297</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Here, perfect to a wish,</p> +<p>We offer, not a dish,</p> + <p class="i3">But just the platter:</p> +<p>A book that’s not a book,</p> +<p>A pamphlet in the look</p> + <p class="i3">But not the matter.</p> + +<p class="s">I own in disarray;</p> +<p>As to the flowers of May</p> + <p class="i3">The frosts of Winter,</p> +<p>To my poetic rage,</p> +<p>The smallness of the page</p> + <p class="i3">And of the printer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page298"></a>298</span></p> + +<p class="s">As seamen on the seas</p> +<p>With song and dance descry</p> +<p>Adown the morning breeze</p> +<p>An islet in the sky:</p> +<p>In Araby the dry,</p> +<p>As o’er the sandy plain</p> +<p>The panting camels cry</p> +<p>To smell the coming rain.</p> + +<p class="s">So all things over earth</p> +<p>A common law obey</p> +<p>And rarity and worth</p> +<p>Pass, arm in arm, away;</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page299"></a>299</span></p> +<p class="s">And even so, today,</p> +<p>The printer and the bard,</p> +<p>In pressless Davos, pray</p> +<p>Their sixpenny reward.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><img style="border:0; width:50px; height:58px" + src="images/img299.jpg" alt="" /></p> + +<p>The pamphlet here presented</p> +<p>Was planned and printed by</p> +<p>A printer unindent-ed,</p> +<p>A bard whom all decry.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page300"></a>300</span></p> +<p class="s">The author and the printer,</p> +<p>With various kinds of skill,</p> +<p>Concocted it in Winter</p> +<p>At Davos on the Hill.</p> + +<p class="s">They burned the nightly taper</p> +<p>But now the work is ripe</p> +<p>Observe the costly paper,</p> +<p>Remark the perfect type!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:80px; height:34px" + src="images/img300.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center f80">Begun FEB ended OCT 1881</p> + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page301"></a>301</span></p> + +<p class="f130 ar center pt2">MORAL</p> +<p class="f150 ar center">EMBLEMS</p> + +<p class="f80 center">A</p> + +<p class="center1"><b>Collection of Cuts and Verses.</b></p> + +<p class="center1"><b><i>By</i></b></p> + +<p class="center"><i>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.</i><br /> + +Author of<br /> + +<i>The Blue Scalper, Travels with a Donkey, +Treasure Island, Not I etc.</i><br /></p> + +<p class="pt2 center">Printers:<br /> + +<b>S. L. OSBOURNE & COMPANY.</b><br /> + +Davos-Platz.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page302"></a>302</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:277px" + src="images/img302.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page303"></a>303</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>See how the children in the print</p> +<p>Bound on the book to see what’s in’t!</p> +<p>O, like these pretty babes, may you</p> +<p>Seize and <i>apply</i> this volume too!</p> +<p>And while your eye upon the cuts</p> +<p>With harmless ardour open and shuts,</p> +<p>Reader, may your immortal mind</p> +<p>To their sage lessons not be blind.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page304"></a>304</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:289px" + src="images/img304.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page305"></a>305</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Reader, your soul upraise to see,</p> +<p>In yon fair cut designed by me,</p> +<p>The pauper by the highwayside</p> +<p>Vainly soliciting from pride.</p> +<p>Mark how the Beau with easy air</p> +<p>Contemps the anxious rustic’s prayer,</p> +<p>And casting a disdainful eye,</p> +<p>Goes gaily gallivanting by.</p> +<p>He from the poor averts his head....</p> +<p>He will regret it when he’s dead.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page306"></a>306</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:320px; height:247px" + src="images/img306.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page307"></a>307</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>A Peak in Darien</i>.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Broad gazing on untrodden lands,</p> +<p>See where adventurous Cortez stands;</p> +<p>While in the heavens above his head,</p> +<p>The Eagle seeks its daily bread.</p> +<p>How aptly fact to fact replies:</p> +<p>Heroes and Eagles, hills and skies.</p> +<p>Ye, who contemn the fatted slave,</p> +<p>Look on this emblem and be brave</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page308"></a>308</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:320px; height:286px" + src="images/img308.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page309"></a>309</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>See in the print, how moved by whim</p> +<p>Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim,</p> +<p>Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat,</p> +<p>To noose that individual’s hat.</p> +<p>The sacred Ibis in the distance</p> +<p>Joys to observe his bold resistance.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page310"></a>310</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:250px; height:171px" + src="images/img310.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page311"></a>311</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Mark, printed on the opposing page,</p> +<p>The unfortunate effects of rage.</p> +<p>A man (who might be you or me)</p> +<p>Hurls another into the sea.</p> +<p>Poor soul, his unreflecting act</p> +<p>His future joys will much contract,</p> +<p>And he will spoil his evening toddy</p> +<p>By dwelling on that mangled body.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page312"></a>312</span></p> + +<p class="center">Works recently issued by</p> + +<p class="f130 ar center pt2">SAMUEL OSBOURNE & CO.</p> +<p class="f130 ar center">DAVOS.</p> + +<p>NOT I and other poems, by Robert +Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>A volume of enchanting poetry.</i></p> + +<p>BLACK CANYON or wild adventures +in the Far West, by S. Osbourne.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>A beautiful gift-book.</i></p> + +<p><i>To be obtained from the Publishers and +all respectable BOOK-SELLERS.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page313"></a>313</span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:232px" + src="images/img313.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center"><b>Stevenson’s Moral Emblems.</b></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Edition de Luxe: 5 full-page Illustrations.</i></p> + +<p class="center pt05"><b>Price 9 PENCE.</b></p> + +<p>The above speciman cut, illustrates a new +departure in the business of OSBOURNE +& Co.</p> + +<p>Wood engraving, designed and executed +by Mr. & Mrs. Stevenson and printed under +the PERSONAL supervision of +Mr. Osbourne, now form a branch of their +business.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314"></a>314</span> + +<p> </p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315"></a>315</span> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:350px; height:85px" + src="images/img315a.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center">Today is published by <i>S. L. Osbourne & Co.</i><br /> + +A</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">Second Collection Of</p> + +<p class="f130 ar center pt05">MORAL</p> + +<p class="f150 ar center">EMBLEMS.</p> + +<p class="center">By<br /> +<i>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.</i></p> + +<p class="noind"><i>Edition de Luxe</i>, tall paper, (extra fine) first +impression. Price 10 pence.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>Popular Edition</i>, for the Million, small paper, +cuts slightly worn, a great bargain, 8 pence.</p> + +<p class="center">NOTICE!!!</p> + +<p class="noind">A literary curiosity: Part of the M. S. of +‘<i>Black Canyon</i>.’ Price 1s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="noind">Apply to</p> + +<p class="f130 ar center">SAMUEL OSBOURNE & C<span class="sp">o</span></p> + +<p class="center">Buol Chalet (Villa Stein,) Davos.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:50px; height:51px" + src="images/img315b.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page316"></a>316</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page317"></a>317</span></p> + +<p class="f130 ar center pt2">MORAL</p> +<p class="f150 ar center">EMBLEMS</p> + +<p class="f80 center">A Second</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Collection of Cuts and Verses.</b></p> + +<p class="center"><b><i>By</i></b></p> + +<p class="center"><i>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.</i><br /> +Author of<br /> +<i>Latter-day Arabian Nights, Travels<br /> +with a Donkey, Not I, &c.</i></p> + +<p class="vr center">Printers:</p> + +<p class="vr center" style="font-size: 110%;">S. L. OSBOURNE & COMPANY.</p> +<p class="center">Davos-Platz.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page318"></a>318</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:320px; height:203px" + src="images/img318.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page319"></a>319</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>With storms a-weather, rocks a-lee,</p> +<p>The dancing skiff puts forth to sea.</p> +<p>The lone dissenter in the blast</p> +<p>Recoils before the sight aghast.</p> +<p>But she, although the heavens be black,</p> +<p>Holds on upon the starboard tack.</p> +<p>For why? although today she sink</p> +<p>Still safe she sails in printers’ ink,</p> +<p>And though today the seamen drown,</p> +<p>My cut shall hand their memory down.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page320"></a>320</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:265px" + src="images/img320.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page321"></a>321</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The careful angler chose his nook</p> +<p>At morning by the lilied brook,</p> +<p>And all the noon his rod he plied</p> +<p>By that romantic riverside.</p> +<p>Soon as the evening hours decline</p> +<p>Tranquilly he’ll return to dine,</p> +<p>And breathing forth a pious wish,</p> +<p>Will cram his belly full of fish.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page322"></a>322</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:286px" + src="images/img322.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page323"></a>323</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The Abbot for a walk went out</p> +<p>A wealthy cleric, very stout,</p> +<p>And Robin has that Abbot stuck</p> +<p>As the red hunter spears the buck.</p> +<p>The djavel or the javelin</p> +<p>Has, you observe, gone bravely in,</p> +<p>And you may hear that weapon whack</p> +<p>Bang through the middle of his back.</p> +<p><i>Hence we may learn that abbots should</i></p> +<p><i>Never go walking in a wood.</i></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page324"></a>324</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:301px" + src="images/img324.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page325"></a>325</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The frozen peaks he once explored,</p> +<p>But now he’s dead and by the board.</p> +<p>How better far at home to have stayed</p> +<p>Attended by the parlour maid,</p> +<p>And warmed his knees before the fire</p> +<p>Until the hour when folks retire!</p> +<p><i>So, if you would be spared to friends.</i></p> +<p><i>Do nothing but for business ends.</i></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page326"></a>326</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:298px" + src="images/img326.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page327"></a>327</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Industrious pirate! see him sweep</p> +<p>The lonely bosom of the deep,</p> +<p>And daily the horizon scan</p> +<p>From Hatteras or Matapan.</p> +<p>Be sure, before that pirate’s old,</p> +<p>He will have made a pot of gold,</p> +<p>And will retire from all his labours</p> +<p>And be respected by his neighbors.</p> +<p><i>You also scan your life’s horizon</i></p> +<p><i>For all that you can clap your eyes on.</i></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page328"></a>328</span></p> + +<p class="center pt2">Works recently issued by</p> + +<p class="center ar f150">SAMUEL OSBOURNE & C<span class="sp">o</span>.<br /> + +DAVOS.</p> + +<p class="noind">NOT I and other poems, by Robert +Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>A volume of enchanting poetry.</i></p> + +<p class="noind">BLACK CANYON or wild adventures +in the Far West, by S. L. Osbourne.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>A beautiful gift-book.</i></p> + +<p class="noind">MORAL EMBLEMS, (first Series.) by +Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="noind"><i>Has only to be seen to be admired.</i></p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="noind"><i>To be obtained from the Publishers and +all respectable Book-sellers.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page329"></a>329</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>A Martial Elegy for some lead Soldiers.</p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p>For certain soldiers lately dead</p> +<p>Our-reverent dirge shall here be said.</p> +<p>Them, when their martial leader called,</p> +<p>No dread preparative appalled;</p> +<p>But leaden hearted, leaden heeled,</p> +<p>I marked them steadfast in the field</p> +<p>Death grimly sided with the foe,</p> +<p>And smote each leaden hero low.</p> +<p>Proudly they perished one by one:</p> +<p>The dread Pea-cannon’s work was done</p> +<p>O not for them the tears we shed,</p> +<p>Consigned to their congenial lead;</p> +<p>But while unmoved their sleep they take,</p> +<p>We mourn for their dear Captain’s sake,</p> +<p>For their dear Captain, who shall smart</p> +<p>Both in his pocket and his heart,</p> +<p>Who saw his heros shed their gore</p> +<p>And lacked a shilling to buy more!</p> + <p class="i3">Price 1 penny. (1st Edition.)</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page330"></a>330</span></p> + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page331"></a>331</span></p> + +<p class="center f80">Today is published by SAMUEL OSBOURNE & Co.<br /> + +THE</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="f200 cn">GRAVER</span> <span class="f80">and the</span> <span class="f200 cn">PEN</span></p> + +<p class="center f80">OR</p> + +<p class="center f130 vr">Scenes from Nature with Ap-</p> +<p class="center f90">propriate Verses<br /> + +by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON author of the ‘EMBLEMS.’</p> + +<hr class="short1" /> + +<p>‘The Graver and the Pen’ is a most strikingly illustrated +little work and the poetry so pleasing that when +it is taken up to be read is finished before it is set down.</p> + +<p>It contains 5 full-page illustrations (all of the first +class) and 11 pages of poetry finely printed on superb +paper (especially obtained from C. G. Squintani & Co. +London) with the title on the cover in red letters.</p> + +<p>Small 8vo. Granite paper cover with coloured title</p> + +<hr class="short1" /> +<p class="center"><i>Price Ninepence per Copy</i>.</p> +<hr class="short1" /> + +<p class="center">Splendid chance for an energetic publisher!!!</p> + +<p class="noind">For Sale—Copyright of ‘Black Canyon’ price 1 / 3/4</p> + +<p class="noind">Autograph of Mr. R. L. Stevenson price -/3, ditto of Mr. +S. L. Osbourne price 1/- each.</p> + +<p class="noind">If copies of the ‘Graver,’ ‘Emblems,’ or ‘Black Canyon’ +are wanted apply to the publisher, 17 Harlot Row Edinburgh.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page332"></a>332</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page333"></a>333</span></p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>THE</h2> + +<h2>GRAVER & THE PEN.</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page334"></a>334</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page335"></a>335</span></p> +<p class="center">THE</p> + +<p class="center f130 cn"><i>GRAVER & THE PEN</i>,</p> + +<p class="center f80">or</p> + +<p class="center f130 vr">Scenes from Nature with</p> + +<p class="center">Appropriate Verses<br /> +BY<br /> +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p> + +<p class="center f80">author of</p> + +<p class="noind">‘The New Arabian Nights,’ ‘Moral Emblems,’ +‘Not I,’ ‘Treasure Island,’ etc.</p> + +<p class="center ar" style="font-size: 115%;"><i>Illustrated.</i></p> + +<p class="center1 sc">Edinburgh</p> + +<p class="center ar" style="font-size: 115%;"><i>S. L. Osbourne & Company</i></p> + +<p class="center">No. 17 <span class="sc">Heriot Row</span>.</p> + +<p class="noind f90">[It was only by the kindness of Mr. <span class="sc">Crerar</span> of Kingussie +that we are able to issue this little work—having allowed +us to print with his own press when ours was broken.]</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page336"></a>336</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page337"></a>337</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="center1 sc">Proem.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + + <p class="i1">Unlike the common run of men,</p> +<p>I wield a double power to please,</p> +<p>And use the <span class="sc">Graver</span> and the <span class="sc">Pen</span></p> + <p class="i1">With equal aptitude and ease.</p> + +<p class="s">I move with that illustrious crew,</p> + <p class="i1">The ambidextrous Kings of Art;</p> + <p class="i1">And every mortal thing I do</p> +<p>Brings ringing money in the mart.</p> + +<p class="s">Hence, to the morning hour, the mead,</p> + <p class="i1">The forest and the stream perceive</p> +<p class="i05">Me wandering as the muses lead——</p> + <p class="i1">Or back returning in the eve.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page338"></a>338</span></p> + +<p class="s">Two muses like two maiden aunts,</p> + <p class="i2">The engraving and the singing muse,</p> +<p>Follow, through all my favorite haunts,</p> + <p class="i2">My devious traces in the dews.</p> + +<p class="s">To guide and cheer me, each attends;</p> + <p class="i2">Each speeds my rapid task along;</p> +<p>One to my cuts her ardour lends,</p> + <p class="i2">One breathes her magic in my song.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:60px; height:73px" + src="images/img338.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page339"></a>339</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page340"></a>340</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:280px; height:351px" + src="images/img340.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page341"></a>341</span></p> +<p class="center1 f130 vr"><i>The Precarious Mill.</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Alone above the stream it stands,</p> +<p>Above the iron hill,</p> +<p>The topsy-turvy, tumble-down,</p> +<p>Yet habitable mill.</p> + +<p class="s">Still as the ringing saws advance</p> +<p>To slice the humming deal,</p> +<p>All day the pallid miller hears</p> +<p>The thunder of the wheel.</p> + +<p class="s">He hears the river plunge and roar</p> +<p>As roars the angry mob;</p> +<p>He feels the solid building quake,</p> +<p>The trusty timbers throb.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page342"></a>342</span></p> + +<p class="s">All night beside the fire he cowers:</p> +<p>He hears the rafters jar:</p> +<p>O why is he not in a proper house</p> +<p>As decent people are!</p> + +<p class="s">The floors are all aslant, he sees,</p> +<p>The doors are all a-jam;</p> +<p>And from the hook above his head</p> +<p>All crooked swings the ham.</p> + +<p class="s">“Alas,” he cries and shakes his head,</p> +<p>“I see by every sign,</p> +<p>There soon will be the deuce to pay,</p> +<p>With this estate of mine.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page343"></a>343</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page344"></a>344</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:250px; height:417px" + src="images/img344.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page345"></a>345</span></p> + +<p class="center1 f130 vr"><i>The Disputatious Pines.</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The first pine to the second said:</p> +<p>“My leaves are black, my branches red;</p> +<p>I stand upon this moor of mine,</p> +<p>A hoar, <i>unconquerable pine</i>.”</p> + +<p class="s">The second sniffed and answered: “Pooh,</p> +<p>I am as good a pine as you.”</p> + +<p class="s">“Discourteous tree” the first replied,</p> +<p>“The tempest in my boughs had cried,</p> +<p>The hunter slumbered in my shade,</p> +<p>A hundred years ere you were made.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page346"></a>346</span></p> + +<p class="s">The second smiled as he returned:</p> +<p>“I shall be here when you are burned.”</p> + +<p class="s">So far dissension ruled the pair,</p> +<p>Each turned on each a frowning air,</p> +<p>When flickering from the bank anigh,</p> +<p>A flight of martens met their eye.</p> +<p>Sometime their course they watched; and then</p> +<p>They nodded off to sleep again.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page347"></a>347</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page348"></a>348</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:320px; height:256px" + src="images/img348.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page349"></a>349</span></p> + +<p class="center1 f130 vr"><i>The Tramps</i>.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Now long enough has day endured,</p> +<p>Or King Apollo Palinured,</p> +<p>Seaward be steers his panting team,</p> +<p>And casts on earth his latest gleam.</p> + +<p class="s">But see! the Tramps with jaded eye</p> +<p>Their destined provinces espy.</p> +<p>Long through the hills their way they took,</p> +<p>Long camped beside the mountain brook;</p> +<p>’Tis over; now with rising hope</p> +<p>They pause upon the downward slope,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page350"></a>350</span></p> +<p>And as their aching bones they rest,</p> +<p>Their anxious captain scans the west.</p> + +<p class="s">So paused Alaric on the Alps</p> +<p>And ciphered up the Roman scalps.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page351"></a>351</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page352"></a>352</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:309px" + src="images/img352.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page353"></a>353</span></p> + +<p class="center1 f130 vr"><i>The Foolhardy Geographer.</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The howling desert miles around,</p> +<p>The tinkling brook the only sound—</p> +<p>Wearied with all his toils and feats,</p> +<p>The traveller dines on potted meats;</p> +<p>On potted meats and princely wines,</p> +<p>Not wisely but too well he dines.</p> + +<p class="s">The brindled Tiger loud may roar,</p> +<p>High may the hovering Vulture soar,</p> +<p>Alas! regardless of them all,</p> +<p>Soon shall the empurpled glutton sprawl—</p> +<p>Soon, in the desert’s hushed repose,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page354"></a>354</span></p> +<p>Shall trumpet tidings through his nose!</p> +<p>Alack, unwise! that nasal song</p> +<p>Shall be the Ounce’s dinner-gong!</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="s">A blemish in the cut appears;</p> +<p>Alas! it cost both blood and tears.</p> +<p>The glancing graver swerved aside,</p> +<p>Fast flowed the artist’s vital tide!</p> +<p>And now the apolegetic bard</p> +<p>Demands indulgence for his pard!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page355"></a>355</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page356"></a>356</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:280px; height:493px" + src="images/img356.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page357"></a>357</span></p> + +<p class="center1 f130 vr"><i>The Angler & the Clown.</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The echoing bridge you here may see,</p> +<p>The pouring lynn, the waving tree,</p> +<p>The eager angler fresh from town—</p> +<p>Above, the contumelious clown.</p> +<p>‘The angler plies his line and rod,</p> +<p>The clodpole stands with many a nod,—</p> +<p>With many a nod and many a grin,</p> +<p>He sees him cast his engine in.</p> + +<p class="s">“What have you caught?” the peasant cries.</p> + +<p class="s">“Nothing as yet,” the Fool replies.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page358"></a>358</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page359"></a>359</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h4>MORAL TALES</h4> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page360"></a>360</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page361"></a>361</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:400px; height:294px" + src="images/img361.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center ar">Rob and Ben</p> + +<p class="center ar">or</p> + +<p class="center ar">The <span style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">PIRATE</span> and the <span style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">APOTHECARY</span>.</p> + +<p class="center ar">Scene the First.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page362"></a>362</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page363"></a>363</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:400px; height:293px" + src="images/img363.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center ar">Rob and Ben</p> + +<p class="center ar">or</p> + +<p class="center ar">The <span style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">PIRATE</span> and the <span style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">APOTHECARY</span>.</p> + +<p class="center ar">Scene the Second.</p> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page364"></a>364</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:400px; height:292px" + src="images/img364.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center ar">Rob and Ben</p> + +<p class="center ar">or</p> + +<p class="center ar">The <span style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">PIRATE</span> and the <span style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">APOTHECARY</span>.</p> + +<p class="center ar">Scene the Third.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page365"></a>365</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page366"></a>366</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page367"></a>367</span></p> + +<h4>ROBIN AND BEN: OR, THE PIRATE +AND THE APOTHECARY</h4> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Come lend me an attentive ear</p> +<p>A startling moral tale to hear,</p> +<p>Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben,</p> +<p>And different destinies of men.</p> + +<p class="s">Deep in the greenest of the vales</p> +<p>That nestle near the coast of Wales,</p> +<p>The heaving main but just in view,</p> +<p>Robin and Ben together grew,</p> +<p>Together worked and played the fool,</p> +<p>Together shunned the Sunday school,</p> +<p>And pulled each other’s youthful noses</p> +<p>Around the cots, among the roses.</p> + +<p class="s">Together but unlike they grew;</p> +<p>Robin was rough, and through and through</p> +<p>Bold, inconsiderate, and manly,</p> +<p>Like some historic Bruce or Stanley.</p> +<p>Ben had a mean and servile soul,</p> +<p>He robbed not, though he often stole.</p> +<p>He sang on Sunday in the choir,</p> +<p>And tamely capped the passing Squire.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page368"></a>368</span></p> +<p class="s">At length, intolerant of trammels—</p> +<p>Wild as the wild Bithynian camels,</p> +<p>Wild as the wild sea-eagles—Bob</p> +<p>His widowed dam contrives to rob,</p> +<p>And thus with great originality</p> +<p>Effectuates his personality.</p> +<p>Thenceforth his terror-haunted flight</p> +<p>He follows through the starry night;</p> +<p>And with the early morning breeze,</p> +<p>Behold him on the azure seas.</p> +<p>The master of a trading dandy</p> +<p>Hires Robin for a go of brandy;</p> +<p>And all the happy hills of home</p> +<p>Vanish beyond the fields of foam.</p> + +<p class="s">Ben, meanwhile, like a tin reflector,</p> +<p>Attended on the worthy rector;</p> +<p>Opened his eyes and held his breath,</p> +<p>And flattered to the point of death;</p> +<p>And was at last, by that good fairy,</p> +<p>Apprenticed to the Apothecary.</p> + +<p class="s">So Ben, while Robin chose to ro</p> +<p>A rising chemist was at home,</p> +<p>Tended his shop with learnéd air,</p> +<p>Watered his drugs and oiled his hair,</p> +<p>And gave advice to the unwary,</p> +<p>Like any sleek apothecary.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page369"></a>369</span></p> +<p class="s">Meanwhile upon the deep afar</p> +<p>Robin the brave was waging war,</p> +<p>With other tarry desperadoes</p> +<p>About the latitude of Barbadoes.</p> +<p>He knew no touch of craven fear;</p> +<p>His voice was thunder in the cheer;</p> +<p>First, from the main-to’-gallan’ high,</p> +<p>The skulking merchantman to spy—</p> +<p>The first to bound upon the deck,</p> +<p>The last to leave the sinking wreck.</p> +<p>His hand was steel, his word was law,</p> +<p>His mates regarded him with awe.</p> +<p>No pirate in the whole profession</p> +<p>Held a more honourable position.</p> + +<p class="s">At length, from years of anxious toil,</p> +<p>Bold Robin seeks his native soil;</p> +<p>Wisely arranges his affairs,</p> +<p>And to his native dale repairs.</p> +<p>The Bristol <i>Swallow</i> sets him down</p> +<p>Beside the well-remembered town.</p> +<p>He sighs, he spits, he marks the scene,</p> +<p>Proudly he treads the village green;</p> +<p>And free from pettiness and rancour,</p> +<p>Takes lodgings at the ‘Crown and Anchor.’</p> + +<p class="s">Strange when a man so great and good,</p> +<p>Once more in his home-country stood,</p> +<p>Strange that the sordid clowns should show</p> +<p>A dull desire to have him go.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page370"></a>370</span></p> +<p class="s">His clinging breeks, his tarry hat,</p> +<p>The way he swore, the way he spat,</p> +<p>A certain quality of manner,</p> +<p>Alarming like the pirate’s banner—</p> +<p>Something that did not seem to suit all—</p> +<p>Something, O call it bluff, not brutal—</p> +<p>Something at least, howe’er it’s called,</p> +<p>Made Robin generally black-balled.</p> + +<p class="s">His soul was wounded; proud and glum,</p> +<p>Alone he sat and swigged his rum,</p> +<p>And took a great distaste to men</p> +<p>Till he encountered Chemist Ben.</p> +<p>Bright was the hour and bright the day,</p> +<p>That threw them in each other’s way;</p> +<p>Glad were their mutual salutations,</p> +<p>Long their respective revelations.</p> +<p>Before the inn in sultry weather</p> +<p>They talked of this and that together;</p> +<p>Ben told the tale of his indentures,</p> +<p>And Rob narrated his adventures.</p> +<p>Last, as the point of greatest weight,</p> +<p>The pair contrasted their estate,</p> +<p>And Robin, like a boastful sailor,</p> +<p>Despised the other for a tailor.</p> + +<p class="s">‘See,’ he remarked, ‘with envy, see</p> +<p>A man with such a fist as me!</p> +<p>Bearded and ringed, and big, and brown,</p> +<p>I sit and toss the stingo down.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page371"></a>371</span></p> +<p>Hear the gold jingle in my bag—</p> +<p>All won beneath the Jolly Flag!’</p> + +<p class="pt2">Ben moralised and shook his head:</p> +<p>‘You wanderers earn and eat your bread.</p> +<p>The foe is found, beats or is beaten,</p> +<p>And either how, the wage is eaten.</p> +<p>And after all your pully-hauly</p> +<p>Your proceeds look uncommon small-ly.</p> +<p>You had done better here to tarry</p> +<p>Apprentice to the Apothecary.</p> +<p>The silent pirates of the shore</p> +<p>Eat and sleep soft, and pocket more</p> +<p>Than any red, robustious ranger</p> +<p>Who picks his farthings hot from danger.</p> +<p>You clank your guineas on the board;</p> +<p>Mine are with several bankers stored.</p> +<p>You reckon riches on your digits,</p> +<p>You dash in chase of Sals and Bridgets,</p> +<p>You drink and risk delirium tremens,</p> +<p>Your whole estate a common seaman’s!</p> +<p>Regard your friend and school companion,</p> +<p>Soon to be wed to Miss Trevanion</p> +<p>(Smooth, honourable, fat and flowery,</p> +<p>With Heaven knows how much land in dowry)</p> +<p>Look at me—am I in good case?</p> +<p>Look at my hands, look at my face;</p> +<p>Look at the cloth of my apparel;</p> +<p>Try me and test me, lock and barrel;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page372"></a>372</span></p> +<p>And own, to give the devil his due,</p> +<p>I have made more of life than you.</p> +<p>Yet I nor sought nor risked a life;</p> +<p>I shudder at an open knife;</p> +<p>The perilous seas I still avoided</p> +<p>And stuck to land whate’er betided.</p> +<p>I had no gold, no marble quarry,</p> +<p>I was a poor apothecary,</p> +<p>Yet here I stand, at thirty-eight,</p> +<p>A man of an assured estate.’</p> + +<p class="s">‘Well,’ answered Robin—‘well, and how?’</p> + +<p class="s">The smiling chemist tapped his brow.</p> +<p>‘Rob,’ he replied,’this throbbing brain</p> +<p>Still worked and hankered after gain.</p> +<p>By day and night, to work my will,</p> +<p>It pounded like a powder mill;</p> +<p>And marking how the world went round</p> +<p>A theory of theft it found.</p> +<p>Here is the key to right and wrong:</p> +<p><i>Steal little but steal all day long</i>;</p> +<p>And this invaluable plan</p> +<p>Marks what is called the Honest Man.</p> +<p>When first I served with Doctor Pill,</p> +<p>My hand was ever in the till.</p> +<p>Now that I am myself a master</p> +<p>My gains come softer still and faster.</p> +<p>As thus: on Wednesday, a maid</p> +<p>Came to me in the way of trade.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page373"></a>373</span></p> +<p>Her mother, an old farmer’s wife,</p> +<p>Required a drug to save her life.</p> +<p>‘At once, my dear, at once,’ I said,</p> +<p>Patted the child upon the head,</p> +<p>Bade her be still a loving daughter,</p> +<p>And filled the bottle up with water.</p> + +<p class="s">‘Well, and the mother?’ Robin cried.</p> + +<p class="s">‘O she!’ said Ben, ‘I think she died.’</p> + +<p class="s">‘Battle and blood, death and disease,</p> +<p>Upon the tainted Tropic seas—</p> +<p>The attendant sharks that chew the cud—</p> +<p>The abhorred scuppers spouting blood—</p> +<p>The untended dead, the Tropic sun—</p> +<p>The thunder of the murderous gun—</p> +<p>The cut-throat crew—the Captain’s curse—</p> +<p>The tempest blustering worse and worse—</p> +<p>These have I known and these can stand,</p> +<p>But you, I settle out of hand!’</p> + +<p class="s">Out flashed the cutlass, down went </p> +<p>Dead and rotten, there and then.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page374"></a>374</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page375"></a>375</span></p> + +<h4>THE BUILDER’S DOOM</h4> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>In eighteen twenty Deacon Thin</p> +<p>Feu’d the land and fenced it in,</p> +<p>And laid his broad foundations down</p> +<p>About a furlong out of town.</p> + +<p class="s">Early and late the work went on.</p> +<p>The carts were toiling ere the dawn;</p> +<p>The mason whistled, the hodman sang;</p> +<p>Early and late the trowels rang;</p> +<p>And Thin himself came day by day</p> +<p>To push the work in every way.</p> +<p>An artful builder, patent king</p> +<p>Of all the local building ring,</p> +<p>Who was there like him in the quarter</p> +<p>For mortifying brick and mortar,</p> +<p>Or pocketing the odd piastre</p> +<p>By substituting lath and plaster?</p> +<p>With plan and two-foot rule in hand,</p> +<p>He by the foreman took his stand,</p> +<p>With boisterous voice, with eagle glance</p> +<p>To stamp upon extravagance.</p> +<p>Far thrift of bricks and greed of guilders,</p> +<p>He was the Buonaparte of Builders.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page376"></a>376</span></p> +<p class="s">The foreman, a desponding creature,</p> +<p>Demurred to here and there a feature:</p> +<p>‘For surely, sir—with your permeession—</p> +<p>Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion...’</p> +<p>The builder goggled, gulped and stared,</p> +<p>The foreman’s services were spared.</p> +<p>Thin would not count among his minions</p> +<p>A man of Wesleyan opinions.</p> + +<p class="s">‘Money is money,’ so he said.</p> +<p>‘Crescents are crescents, trade is trade.</p> +<p>Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons</p> +<p>Built, I believe, for different reasons—</p> +<p>Charity, glory, piety, pride—</p> +<p>To pay the men, to please a bride,</p> +<p>To use their stone, to spite their neighbours,</p> +<p>Not for a profit on their labours.</p> +<p>They built to edify or bewilder;</p> +<p>I build because I am a builder.</p> +<p>Crescent and street and square I build,</p> +<p>Plaster and paint and carve and gild.</p> +<p>Around the city see them stand,</p> +<p>These triumphs of my shaping hand,</p> +<p>With bulging walls, with sinking floors,</p> +<p>With shut, impracticable doors,</p> +<p>Fickle and frail in every part,</p> +<p>And rotten to their inmost heart.</p> +<p>There shall the simple tenant find</p> +<p>Death in the falling window-blind,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page377"></a>377</span></p> +<p>Death in the pipe, death in the faucit,</p> +<p>Death in the deadly water-closet!</p> +<p>A day is set for all to die:</p> +<p><i>Caveat emptor!</i> what care I?’</p> + +<p class="s">As to Amphion’s tuneful kit</p> +<p>Troy rose, with towers encircling it;</p> +<p>As to the Mage’s brandished wand</p> +<p>A spiry palace clove the sand;</p> +<p>To Thin’s indomitable financing,</p> +<p>That phantom crescent kept advancing.</p> +<p>When first the brazen bells of churches</p> +<p>Called clerk and parson to their perches,</p> +<p>The worshippers of every sect</p> +<p>Already viewed it with respect;</p> +<p>A second Sunday had not gone</p> +<p>Before the roof was rattled on:</p> +<p>And when the fourth was there, behold</p> +<p>The crescent finished, painted, sold!</p> + +<p class="s">The stars proceeded in their courses,</p> +<p>Nature with her subversive forces,</p> +<p>Time, too, the iron-toothed and sinewed;</p> +<p>And the edacious years continued.</p> +<p>Thrones rose and fell; and still the crescent,</p> +<p>Unsanative and now senescent,</p> +<p>A plastered skeleton of lath,</p> +<p>Looked forward to a day of wrath.</p> +<p>In the dead night, the groaning timber</p> +<p>Would jar upon the ear of slumber,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page378"></a>378</span></p> +<p>And, like Dodona’s talking oak,</p> +<p>Of oracles and judgments spoke.</p> +<p>When to the music fingered well</p> +<p>The feet of children lightly fell,</p> +<p>The sire, who dozed by the decanters,</p> +<p>Started, and dreamed of misadventures.</p> +<p>The rotten brick decayed to dust;</p> +<p>The iron was consumed by rust;</p> +<p>Each tabid and perverted mansion</p> +<p>Hung in the article of declension.</p> + +<p class="s">So forty, fifty, sixty passed;</p> +<p>Until, when seventy came at last,</p> +<p>The occupant of number three</p> +<p>Called friends to hold a jubilee.</p> +<p>Wild was the night; the charging rack</p> +<p>Had forced the moon upon her back;</p> +<p>The wind piped up a naval ditty;</p> +<p>And the lamps winked through all the city.</p> +<p>Before that house, where lights were shining,</p> +<p>Corpulent feeders, grossly dining,</p> +<p>And jolly clamour, hum and rattle,</p> +<p>Fairly outvoiced the tempest’s battle.</p> +<p>As still his moistened lip he fingered,</p> +<p>The envious policeman lingered;</p> +<p>While far the infernal tempest sped,</p> +<p>And shook the country folks in bed,</p> +<p>And tore the trees and tossed the ships,</p> +<p>He lingered and he licked his lips.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page379"></a>379</span></p> +<p>Lo, from within, a hush! the host</p> +<p>Briefly expressed the evening’s toast;</p> +<p>And lo, before the lips were dry,</p> +<p>The Deacon rising to reply!</p> +<p>‘Here in this house which once I built,</p> +<p>Papered and painted, carved and gilt,</p> +<p>And out of which, to my content,</p> +<p>I netted seventy-five per cent.;</p> +<p>Here at this board of jolly neighbours,</p> +<p>I reap the credit of my labours.</p> +<p>These were the days—I will say more—</p> +<p>These were the grand old days of yore!</p> +<p>The builder laboured day and night;</p> +<p>He watched that every brick was right;</p> +<p>The decent men their utmost did;</p> +<p>And the house rose—a pyramid!</p> +<p>These were the days, our provost knows,</p> +<p>When forty streets and crescents rose,</p> +<p>The fruits of my creative noddle,</p> +<p>All more or less upon a model,</p> +<p>Neat and commodious, cheap and dry,</p> +<p>A perfect pleasure to the eye!</p> +<p>I found this quite a country quarter;</p> +<p>I leave it solid lath and mortar.</p> +<p>In all, I was the single actor—</p> +<p>And am this city’s benefactor!</p> +<p>Since then, alas! both thing and name,</p> +<p>Shoddy across the ocean came—</p> +<p>Shoddy that can the eye bewilder</p> +<p>And makes me blush to meet a builder!</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"></a>380</span></p> +<p>Had this good house, in frame or fixture,</p> +<p>Been tempered by the least admixture</p> +<p>Of that discreditable shoddy,</p> +<p>Should we to-day compound our toddy,</p> +<p>Or gaily marry song and laughter</p> +<p>Below its sempiternal rafter?</p> +<p>Not so!’ the Deacon cried.</p> + + <p class="i9 s">The mansion</p> +<p>Had marked his fatuous expansion.</p> +<p>The years were full, the house was fated,</p> +<p>The rotten structure crepitated!</p> + +<p class="s">A moment, and the silent guests</p> +<p>Sat pallid as their dinner vests.</p> +<p>A moment more, and root and branch,</p> +<p>That mansion fell in avalanche,</p> +<p>Story on story, floor on floor,</p> +<p>Roof, wall and window, joist and door,</p> +<p>Dead weight of damnable disaster,</p> +<p>A cataclysm of lath and plaster.</p> + +<p class="s"><i>Siloam did not choose a sinner—</i></p> +<p><i>All were not builders at the dinner.</i></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page381"></a>381</span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom: 0;"> +<img style="border:0; width:400px; height:324px" + src="images/img381.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="f80 center">LORD NELSON AND HIS TAR.</p> +<div class="pt3"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"></a>382</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:481px; height:700px" + src="images/img382.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page383"></a>383</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img style="border:0; width:489px; height:700px" + src="images/img383.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="f80 center">(<i>Facsimile of Letter addressed by R. L. Stevenson, in his Tenth +Year, to his Aunt Miss Balfour.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page384"></a>384</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="f80 center">PRINTED BY<br /> +CASSELL & CO., LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE,<br /> +LONDON, E.C.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<div class="pg"> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON - SWANSTON EDITION VOL. XXII (OF 25)***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 31291-h.txt or 31291-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/2/9/31291">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/2/9/31291</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/31291-h/images/img1.jpg b/31291-h/images/img1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e697ed --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img1.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img2.jpg b/31291-h/images/img2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c171212 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img2.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img221.jpg b/31291-h/images/img221.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1867e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img221.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img222.jpg b/31291-h/images/img222.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..08aef27 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img222.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img223a.jpg b/31291-h/images/img223a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..025d722 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img223a.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img223b.jpg b/31291-h/images/img223b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ef74f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img223b.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img224.jpg b/31291-h/images/img224.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5356b67 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img224.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img266.jpg b/31291-h/images/img266.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eeb2e3c --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img266.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img274.jpg b/31291-h/images/img274.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5839a6f --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img274.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img287a.jpg b/31291-h/images/img287a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..da5cb25 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img287a.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img287b.jpg b/31291-h/images/img287b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..88836ae --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img287b.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img288.jpg b/31291-h/images/img288.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a19c04 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img288.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img289a.jpg b/31291-h/images/img289a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..27c38c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img289a.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img289b.jpg b/31291-h/images/img289b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..52a8864 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img289b.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img289c.jpg b/31291-h/images/img289c.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bee897 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img289c.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img289d.jpg b/31291-h/images/img289d.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e9da4d --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img289d.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img291a.jpg b/31291-h/images/img291a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9be0638 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img291a.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img291b.jpg b/31291-h/images/img291b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f878d7e --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img291b.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img292a.jpg b/31291-h/images/img292a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f26a116 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img292a.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img292b.jpg b/31291-h/images/img292b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e7a78b --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img292b.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img292c.jpg b/31291-h/images/img292c.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..467a29c --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img292c.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img295.jpg b/31291-h/images/img295.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ed38aa --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img295.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img296.jpg b/31291-h/images/img296.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6e9b01 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img296.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img299.jpg b/31291-h/images/img299.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6072e8f --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img299.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img3.jpg b/31291-h/images/img3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c189a10 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img3.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img300.jpg b/31291-h/images/img300.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..449b95d --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img300.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img302.jpg b/31291-h/images/img302.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1828751 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img302.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img304.jpg b/31291-h/images/img304.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..408e738 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img304.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img306.jpg b/31291-h/images/img306.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aeb17ae --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img306.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img308.jpg b/31291-h/images/img308.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9cfbce --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img308.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img310.jpg b/31291-h/images/img310.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b0869a --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img310.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img313.jpg b/31291-h/images/img313.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d57c34 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img313.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img315a.jpg b/31291-h/images/img315a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae0de9f --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img315a.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img315b.jpg b/31291-h/images/img315b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e876e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img315b.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img318.jpg b/31291-h/images/img318.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7cf3bb --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img318.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img320.jpg b/31291-h/images/img320.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6da90fc --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img320.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img322.jpg b/31291-h/images/img322.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4ef530 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img322.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img324.jpg b/31291-h/images/img324.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..687af6f --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img324.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img326.jpg b/31291-h/images/img326.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..93c6826 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img326.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img338.jpg b/31291-h/images/img338.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..da2c957 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img338.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img340.jpg b/31291-h/images/img340.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1116afe --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img340.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img344.jpg b/31291-h/images/img344.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a400719 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img344.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img348.jpg b/31291-h/images/img348.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b601e46 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img348.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img352.jpg b/31291-h/images/img352.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0286db3 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img352.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img356.jpg b/31291-h/images/img356.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ecbfbb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img356.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img361.jpg b/31291-h/images/img361.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c057765 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img361.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img363.jpg b/31291-h/images/img363.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f53a25 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img363.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img364.jpg b/31291-h/images/img364.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..22dc797 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img364.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img381.jpg b/31291-h/images/img381.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e80b3c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img381.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img382.jpg b/31291-h/images/img382.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d679f38 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img382.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img383.jpg b/31291-h/images/img383.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9db50b --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img383.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img4.jpg b/31291-h/images/img4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a30b57f --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img4.jpg diff --git a/31291-h/images/img5.jpg b/31291-h/images/img5.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d48bad0 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291-h/images/img5.jpg diff --git a/31291.txt b/31291.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5a0f07 --- /dev/null +++ b/31291.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10091 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - +Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson + + +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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) + Juvenilia and Other Papers; The Pentland Rising; Sketches; College Papers; Notes and Essays Chiefly of the Road; Criticisms; An Appeal to the Clergy of the Church Of Scotland; The Charity Bazaar; The Light-Keeper; On a New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses; On the Thermal Influence of Forests; Essays of Travel; War Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-Book + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 16, 2010 [eBook #31291] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS +STEVENSON - SWANSTON EDITION VOL. XXII (OF 25)*** + + +E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 31291-h.htm or 31291-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31291/31291-h/31291-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31291/31291-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + Letters following a carat (^) were originally printed in + superscript. + + A list of corrections is at the end of this e-book + + + + + + THE WORKS OF + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + SWANSTON EDITION + VOLUME XXII + + _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five + Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies + have been printed, of which only Two Thousand + Copies are for sale._ + + _This is No._ .......... + +[Illustration: R. L. S. SPEARING FISH IN THE BOW OF THE SCHOONER +"EQUATOR"] + + THE WORKS OF + ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON + + VOLUME TWENTY-TWO + + + LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND + WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL + AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM + HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN + AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII + + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + + +CONTENTS + + JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS + + THE PENTLAND RISING + + PAGE + I. THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT 3 + II. THE BEGINNING 6 + III. THE MARCH OF THE REBELS 8 + IV. RULLION GREEN 13 + V. A RECORD OF BLOOD 17 + + + SKETCHES + + I. THE SATIRIST 25 + II. NUITS BLANCHES 27 + III. THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES 30 + IV. NURSES 34 + V. A CHARACTER 37 + + + COLLEGE PAPERS + + I. EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824 41 + II. THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY 45 + III. DEBATING SOCIETIES 53 + IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS 58 + V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE 63 + + + NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD + + I. A RETROSPECT 71 + II. COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK 80 + III. ROADS 90 + IV. NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN 97 + V. ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES 103 + VI. AN AUTUMN EFFECT 112 + VII. A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY 132 + VIII. FOREST NOTES 142 + + + CRITICISMS + + I. LORD LYTTON'S "FABLES IN SONG" 171 + II. SALVINI'S MACBETH 180 + III. BAGSTER'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" 186 + + + AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 199 + + THE CHARITY BAZAAR 213 + + THE LIGHT-KEEPER 217 + + ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES 220 + + ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS 225 + + + ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + I. DAVOS IN WINTER 241 + II. HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS 244 + III. ALPINE DIVERSIONS 248 + IV. THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS 252 + + + STEVENSON AT PLAY + + INTRODUCTION BY LLOYD OSBOURNE 259 + + WAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM STEVENSON'S NOTE-BOOK 263 + + + THE DAVOS PRESS + + MORAL EMBLEMS, ETC.: FACSIMILES + + ADVERTISEMENT OF BLACK CANYON + + BLACK CANYON, OR WILD ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST + + NOT I, AND OTHER POEMS + + MORAL EMBLEMS + + ADVERTISEMENT OF MORAL EMBLEMS: EDITION DE LUXE + + ADVERTISEMENT OF MORAL EMBLEMS: SECOND COLLECTION + + MORAL EMBLEMS: SECOND COLLECTION + + A MARTIAL ELEGY FOR SOME LEAD SOLDIERS + + ADVERTISEMENT OF THE GRAVER AND THE PEN + + THE GRAVER AND THE PEN + + + MORAL TALES + + ROBIN AND BEN; OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY + + THE BUILDER'S DOOM + + + + +JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS + + + + + THE PENTLAND RISING + + A PAGE OF HISTORY + 1666 + + +A cloud of witnesses ly here, Who for Christ's interest did appear. + +_Inscription on Battle-field at Rullion Green._ + + + EDINBURGH + + ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 PRINCES STREET + 1866 + +_Facsimile of original Title-page_ + + + + +THE PENTLAND RISING + +I + +THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT + + "Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost see, + This tomb doth show for what some men did die." + + _Monument, Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh_, 1661-1668.[1] + + +Two hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, the memory +whereof has been in great measure lost or obscured by the deep tragedies +which followed it. It is, as it were, the evening of the night of +persecution--a sort of twilight, dark indeed to us, but light as the +noonday when compared with the midnight gloom which followed. This fact, +of its being the very threshold of persecution, lends it, however, an +additional interest. + +The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were "out of measure +increased," says Bishop Burnet, "by the new incumbents who were put in +the places of the ejected preachers, and were generally very mean and +despicable in all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard; +they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were openly vicious. +They ... were indeed the dreg and refuse of the northern parts. Those of +them who arose above contempt or scandal were men of such violent +tempers that they were as much hated as the others were despised."[2] It +was little to be wondered at, from this account, that the country-folk +refused to go to the parish church, and chose rather to listen to outed +ministers in the fields. But this was not to be allowed, and their +persecutors at last fell on the method of calling a roll of the +parishioners' names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of twenty +shillings Scots to the name of each absenter. In this way very large +debts were incurred by persons altogether unable to pay. Besides this, +landlords were fined for their tenants' absences, tenants for their +landlords', masters for their servants', servants for their masters', +even though they themselves were perfectly regular in their attendance. +And as the curates were allowed to fine with the sanction of any common +soldier, it may be imagined that often the pretexts were neither very +sufficient nor well proven. + +When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, and household +utensils were seized upon, or a number of soldiers, proportionate to his +wealth, were quartered on the offender. The coarse and drunken privates +filled the houses with woe; snatched the bread from the children to feed +their dogs; shocked the principles, scorned the scruples, and blasphemed +the religion of their humble hosts; and when they had reduced them to +destitution, sold the furniture, and burned down the roof-tree which was +consecrated to the peasants by the name of Home. For all this attention +each of these soldiers received from his unwilling landlord a certain +sum of money per day--three shillings sterling, according to _Naphtali._ +And frequently they were forced to pay quartering money for more men +than were in reality "cessed on them." At that time it was no strange +thing to behold a strong man begging for money to pay his fines, and +many others who were deep in arrears, or who had attracted attention in +some other way, were forced to flee from their homes, and take refuge +from arrest and imprisonment among the wild mosses of the uplands.[3] + +One example in particular we may cite: + +John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was, unfortunately for +himself, a Nonconformist. First he was fined in four hundred pounds +Scots, and then through cessing he lost nineteen hundred and +ninety-three pounds Scots. He was next obliged to leave his house and +flee from place to place, during which wanderings he lost his horse. His +wife and children were turned out of doors, and then his tenants were +fined till they too were almost ruined. As a final stroke, they drove +away all his cattle to Glasgow and sold them.[4] Surely it was time that +something were done to alleviate so much sorrow, to overthrow such +tyranny. + +About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person calling himself +Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the people to revolt. He displayed +some documents purporting to be from the northern Covenanters, and +stating that they were prepared to join in any enterprise commenced by +their southern brethren. The leader of the persecutors was Sir James +Turner, an officer afterwards degraded for his share in the matter. "He +was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk, and that was very +often," said Bishop Burnet. "He was a learned man, but had always been +in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders. He told me he had +no regard to any law, but acted, as he was commanded, in a military +way."[5] + +This was the state of matters, when an outrage was committed which gave +spirit and determination to the oppressed countrymen, lit the flame of +insubordination, and for the time at least recoiled on those who +perpetrated it with redoubled force. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] "Theater of Mortality," p. 10; Edin. 1713. + + [2] "History of My Own Times," beginning 1660, by Bishop Gilbert + Burnet, p. 158. + + [3] Wodrow's "Church History," Book II. chap. i. sect. 1. + + [4] Crookshank's "Church History," 1751, second ed. p. 202. + + [5] Burnet, p. 348. + + + + +II + +THE BEGINNING + + I love no warres, If it must be + I love no jarres, Warre we must see + Nor strife's fire. (So fates conspire), + May discord cease, May we not feel + Let's live in peace: The force of steel: + This I desire. This I desire. + + T. JACKSON, 1651.[6] + + +Upon Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George Deanes and three +other soldiers set upon an old man in the clachan of Dairy and demanded +the payment of his fines. On the old man's refusing to pay, they forced +a large party of his neighbours to go with them and thresh his corn. The +field was a certain distance out of the clachan, and four persons, +disguised as countrymen, who had been out on the moors all night, met +this mournful drove of slaves, compelled by the four soldiers to work +for the ruin of their friend. However, chilled to the bone by their +night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded to the +village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the +room where they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were about +to roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too much for +them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene of this gross +outrage, and at first merely requested that the captive should be +released. On the refusal of the two soldiers who were in the front room, +high words were given and taken on both sides, and the other two rushed +forth from an adjoining chamber and made at the countrymen with drawn +swords. One of the latter, John M'Lellan of Barscob, drew a pistol and +shot the corporal in the body. The pieces of tobacco-pipe with which it +was loaded, to the number of ten at least, entered him, and he was so +much disturbed that he never appears to have recovered, for we find long +afterwards a petition to the Privy Council requesting a pension for him. +The other soldiers then laid down their arms, the old man was rescued, +and the rebellion was commenced.[7] + +And now we must turn to Sir James Turner's memoirs of himself; for, +strange to say, this extraordinary man was remarkably fond of literary +composition, and wrote, besides the amusing account of his own +adventures just mentioned, a large number of essays and short +biographies, and a work on war, entitled "Pallas Armata." The following +are some of the shorter pieces: "Magick," "Friendship," "Imprisonment," +"Anger," "Revenge," "Duells," "Cruelty," "A Defence of some of the +Ceremonies of the English Liturgie--to wit--Bowing at the Name of Jesus, +The frequent repetition of the Lord's Prayer and Good Lord deliver us, +Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets, Cannonicall Coats," etc. From +what we know of his character we should expect "Anger" and "Cruelty" to +be very full and instructive. But what earthly right he had to meddle +with ecclesiastical subjects it is hard to see. + +Upon the 12th of the month he had received some information concerning +Gray's proceedings, but as it was excessively indefinite in its +character, he paid no attention to it. On the evening of the 14th, +Corporal Deanes was brought into Dumfries, who affirmed stoutly that he +had been shot while refusing to sign the Covenant--a story rendered +singularly unlikely by the after conduct of the rebels. Sir James +instantly despatched orders to the cessed soldiers either to come to +Dumfries or meet him on the way to Dairy, and commanded the thirteen or +fourteen men in the town with him to come at nine next morning to his +lodging for supplies. + +On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at Dumfries with 50 horse +and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, and Gray, who commanded, with a +considerable troop, entered the town, and surrounded Sir James Turner's +lodging. Though it was between eight and nine o'clock, that worthy, +being unwell, was still in bed, but rose at once and went to the window. + +Neilson and some others cried, "You may have fair quarter." + +"I need no quarter," replied Sir James; "nor can I be a prisoner, seeing +there is no war declared." On being told, however, that he must either +be a prisoner or die, he came down, and went into the street in his +night-shirt. Here Gray showed himself very desirous of killing him, but +he was overruled by Corsack. However, he was taken away a prisoner, +Captain Gray mounting him on his own horse, though, as Turner naively +remarks, "there was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a +farre better one of mine." A large coffer containing his clothes and +money, together with all his papers, were taken away by the rebels. They +robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his +horse, drank the King's health at the market cross, and then left +Dumfries.[8] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [6] Fuller's "Historie of the Holy Warre," fourth ed. 1651. + + [7] Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 17. + + [8] Sir J. Turner's "Memoirs," pp. 148-50. + + + + +III + +THE MARCH OF THE REBELS + + "Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads, + At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads; + Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want, + Because with them we signed the Covenant." + + _Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton._[9] + + +On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the Council at +Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this "horrid rebellion." In +the absence of Rothes, Sharpe presided--much to the wrath of some +members; and as he imagined his own safety endangered, his measures were +most energetic. Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the guards round +the city were doubled, officers and soldiers were forced to take the +oath of allegiance, and all lodgers were commanded to give in their +names. Sharpe, surrounded with all these guards and precautions, +trembled--trembled as he trembled when the avengers of blood drew him +from his chariot on Magus Muir,--for he knew how he had sold his trust, +how he had betrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must their +chiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst thunderbolts be +forged. But even in his fear the apostate Presbyterian was unrelenting, +unpityingly harsh; he published in his manifesto no promise of pardon, +no inducement to submission. He said, "If you submit not you must die," +but never added, "If you submit you may live!"[10] + +Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At Carsphairn they were +deserted by Captain Gray, who, doubtless in a fit of oblivion, neglected +to leave behind him the coffer containing Sir James's money. Who he was +is a mystery, unsolved by any historian; his papers were evidently +forgeries--that, and his final flight, appear to indicate that he was an +agent of the Royalists, for either the King or the Duke of York was +heard to say, "That, if he might have his wish, he would have them all +turn rebels and go to arms."[11] + +Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn and marched onwards. + +Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn, frequently at the +best of which their halting-place could boast. Here many visits were +paid to him by the ministers and officers of the insurgent force. In his +description of these interviews he displays a vein of satiric severity, +admitting any kindness that was done to him with some qualifying +souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury, mistake, or +folly, which it was his chance to suffer or to hear. He appears, +notwithstanding all this, to have been on pretty good terms with his +cruel "phanaticks," as the following extract sufficiently proves: + +"Most of the foot were lodged about the church or churchyard, and order +given to ring bells next morning for a sermon to be preached by Mr. +Welch. Maxwell of Morith, and Major M'Cullough invited me to heare 'that +phanatick sermon' (for soe they merrilie called it). They said that +preaching might prove an effectual meane to turne me, which they +heartilie wished. I answered to them that I was under guards, and that +if they intended to heare that sermon, it was probable I might likewise, +for it was not like my guards wold goe to church and leave me alone at +my lodgeings. Bot to what they said of my conversion, I said it wold be +hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I founde them in a merrie humour, I +said, if I did not come to heare Mr. Welch preach, then they might fine +me in fortie shillings Scots, which was double the suome of what I had +exacted from the phanatics."[12] + +This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the month. The +following is recounted by this personage with malicious glee, and +certainly, if authentic, it is a sad proof of how chaff is mixed with +wheat, and how ignorant, almost impious, persons were engaged in this +movement; nevertheless we give it, for we wish to present with +impartiality all the alleged facts to the reader: + +"Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank gaue me a visite; I +called for some ale purposelie to heare one of them blesse it. It fell +Mr. Robinsone to seeke the blessing, who said one of the most bombastick +graces that ever I heard in my life. He summoned God Almightie very +imperiouslie to be their secondarie (for that was his language). 'And +if,' said he, 'thou wilt not be our Secondarie, we will not fight for +thee at all, for it is not our cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt +not fight for our cause and thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to +fight for it. They say,' said he, 'that Dukes, Earles, and Lords are +coming with the King's General against us, bot they shall be nothing bot +a threshing to us.' This grace did more fullie satisfie me of the folly +and injustice of their cause, then the ale did quench my thirst."[13] + +Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside alehouse, or in +some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, who had now taken the +command, would review the horse and foot, during which time Turner was +sent either into the alehouse or round the shoulder of the hill, to +prevent him from seeing the disorders which were likely to arise. He +was, at last, on the 25th day of the month, between Douglas and Lanark, +permitted to behold their evolutions. "I found their horse did consist +of four hundreth and fortie, and the foot of five hundreth and +upwards.... The horsemen were armed for most part with suord and +pistoll, some onlie with suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith +(scythe), forke, and suord; and some with suords great and long." He +admired much the proficiency of their cavalry, and marvelled how they +had attained to it in so short a time.[14] + +At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of this great +wapinshaw, they were charged--awful picture of depravity!--with the +theft of a silver spoon and a nightgown. Could it be expected that while +the whole country swarmed with robbers of every description, such a rare +opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues--that among a thousand +men, even though fighting for religion, there should not be one Achan in +the camp? At Lanark a declaration was drawn up and signed by the chief +rebels. In it occurs the following: + +"The just sense whereof"--the sufferings of the country--"made us +choose, rather to betake ourselves to the fields for self-defence, than +to stay at home, burdened daily with the calamities of others, and +tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery."[15] + +The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony the epitaph +at the head of this chapter seems to refer. + +A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark to +Bathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the wearied army +stopped. But at twelve o'clock the cry, which served them for a trumpet, +of "Horse! horse!" and "Mount the prisoner!" resounded through the +night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from their well-earned rest +to toil onwards in their march. The wind howled fiercely over the +moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. Chilled to the bone, +worn out with long fatigue, sinking to the knees in mire, onward they +marched to destruction. One by one the weary peasants fell off from +their ranks to sleep, and die in the rain-soaked moor, or to seek some +house by the wayside wherein to hide till daybreak. One by one at first, +then in gradually increasing numbers, at every shelter that was seen, +whole troops left the waning squadrons, and rushed to hide themselves +from the ferocity of the tempest. To right and left nought could be +descried but the broad expanse of the moor, and the figures of their +fellow-rebels seen dimly through the murky night, plodding onwards +through the sinking moss. Those who kept together--a miserable +few--often halted to rest themselves, and to allow their lagging +comrades to overtake them. Then onward they went again, still hoping for +assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; onward again, through the wind, +and the rain, and the darkness--onward to their defeat at Pentland, and +their scaffold at Edinburgh. It was calculated that they lost one half +of their army on that disastrous night-march. + +Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four miles from +Edinburgh, where they halted for the last time.[16] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [9] "A Cloud of Witnesses," p. 376. + + [10] Wodrow, pp. 19, 20. + + [11] "A Hind Let Loose," p. 123. + + [12] Turner, p. 163. + + [13] Turner, p. 198. + + [14] _Ibid._ p. 167. + + [15] Wodrow, p. 29. + + [16] Turner, Wodrow, and "Church History" by James Kirkton, an outed + minister of the period. + + + + +IV + +RULLION GREEN + + "From Covenanters with uplifted hands, + From Remonstrators with associate bands, + Good Lord, deliver us!" + + _Royalist Rhyme_, KIRKTON, p. 127. + + +Late on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four days before +Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, merchants in Haddington, +beheld four men, clad like West-country Whigamores, standing round some +object on the ground. It was at the two-mile cross, and within that +distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they discovered +that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained +winding-sheet.[17] Many thought that this apparition was a portent of +the deaths connected with the Pentland Rising. + +On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they left +Colinton and marched to Rullion Green. There they arrived about sunset. +The position was a strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of +the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between them lies a narrow band of +flat marshy ground. On the highest of the two mounds--that nearest the +Pentlands, and on the left hand of the main body--was the greater part +of the cavalry, under Major Learmont; on the other Barscob and the +Galloway gentlemen; and in the centre Colonel Wallace and the weak, +half-armed infantry. Their position was further strengthened by the +depth of the valley below, and the deep chasm-like course of the Rullion +Burn. + +The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden lights and blue +shadows on their snow-clad summits, slanted obliquely into the rich +plain before them, bathing with rosy splendour the leafless, +snow-sprinkled trees, and fading gradually into shadow in the distance. +To the south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and +bracken; the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot +of its gorge; the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into +blue indistinctness in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire +hills. In sooth, that scene was fair, and many a yearning glance was +cast over that peaceful evening scene from the spot where the rebels +awaited their defeat; and when the fight was over, many a noble fellow +lifted his head from the blood-stained heather to strive with darkening +eyeballs to behold that landscape, over which, as over his life and his +cause, the shadows of night and of gloom were falling and thickening. + +It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring cry was +raised: "The enemy! Here come the enemy!" + +Unwilling to believe their own doom--for our insurgents still hoped for +success in some negotiations for peace which had been carried on at +Colinton--they called out, "They are some of our own." + +"They are too blacke" (_i.e._ numerous), "fie! fie! for ground to draw +up on," cried Wallace, fully realising the want of space for his men, +and proving that it was not till after this time that his forces were +finally arranged.[18] + +First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist horse sent +obliquely across the hill to attack the left wing of the rebels. An +equal number of Learmont's men met them, and, after a struggle, drove +them back. The course of the Rullion Burn prevented almost all pursuit, +and Wallace, on perceiving it, despatched a body of foot to occupy both +the burn and some ruined sheep walls on the farther side. + +Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at the foot of the +hill, on the top of which were his foes. He then despatched a mingled +body of infantry and cavalry to attack Wallace's outpost, but they also +were driven back. A third charge produced a still more disastrous +effect, for Dalzell had to check the pursuit of his men by a +reinforcement. + +These repeated checks bred a panic in the Lieutenant-General's ranks, +for several of his men flung down their arms. Urged by such fatal +symptoms, and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed +in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of the insurgent +army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches of the firelocks, +shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lent to the approaching army +a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant breathing flame into +the darkness. + +Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried aloud, "The God of +Jacob! The God of Jacob!" and prayed with uplifted hands for +victory.[19] + +But still the Royalist troops closed in. + +Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined to capture +him with his own hands. Accordingly he charged forward, presenting his +pistols. Paton fired, but the balls hopped off Dalzell's buff coat and +fell into his boot. With the superstition peculiar to his age, the +Nonconformist concluded that his adversary was rendered bullet-proof by +enchantment, and, pulling some small silver coins from his pocket, +charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell, seeing this, and supposing, it is +likely, that Paton was putting in larger balls, hid behind his servant, +who was killed.[20] + +Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of Wallace was enveloped +in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor--tightening, closing, +crushing every semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils. +The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and +though, as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a general +flight was the result. + +But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach or wail the +death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for the peace, the +liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in +the field of death for long, and when at last they were buried by +charity, the peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their graves, and +cast them once more upon the open heath for the sorry value of their +winding-sheets! + + + _Inscription on stone at Rullion Green_ + + HERE AND NEAR TO THIS PLACE LYES THE REVEREND M^R JOHN CROOKSHANK AND + M^R ANDREW M^CCORMICK MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL AND ABOUT FIFTY OTHER + TRUE COVENANTED PRESBYTERIANS WHO WERE KILLED IN THIS PLACE IN THEIR + OWN INOCENT SELF DEFENCE AND DEFFENCE OF THE COVENANTED WORK OF + REFORMATION BY THOMAS DALZEEL OF BINS UPON THE 28 OF NOVEMBER 1666. + REV. 12. 11. ERECTED SEPT. 28 1738. + + + _Back of stone_: + + A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here, + Who for Christ's Interest did appear, + For to restore true Liberty, + O'erturned then by tyranny. + And by proud Prelats who did Rage + Against the Lord's own heritage. + They sacrificed were for the laws + Of Christ their king, his noble cause. + These heroes fought with great renown + By falling got the Martyr's crown.[21] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [17] Kirkton, p. 244. + + [18] Kirkton. + + [19] Turner. + + [20] Kirkton. + + [21] Kirkton. + + + + +V + +A RECORD OF BLOOD + + "They cut his hands ere he was dead, + And after that struck off his head. + His blood under the altar cries + For vengeance on Christ's enemies." + + _Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of Clermont._[22] + + +Master Andrew Murray, an outed minister, residing in the Potterrow, on +the morning after the defeat, heard the sounds of cheering and the march +of many feet beneath his window. He gazed out. With colours flying, and +with music sounding, Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. But his +banners were dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners were marched within +his ranks. The old man knew it all. That martial and triumphant strain +was the death-knell of his friends and of their cause, the rust-hued +spots upon the flags were the tokens of their courage and their death, +and the prisoners were the miserable remnant spared from death in battle +to die upon the scaffold. Poor old man! he had outlived all joy. Had he +lived longer he would have seen increasing torment and increasing woe; +he would have seen the clouds, then but gathering in mist, cast a more +than midnight darkness over his native hills, and have fallen a victim +to those bloody persecutions which, later, sent their red memorials to +the sea by many a burn. By a merciful Providence all this was spared to +him--he fell beneath the first blow; and ere four days had passed since +Rullion Green, the aged minister of God was gathered to his fathers.[23] + +When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to Sir Alexander +Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard his house. Disliking their +occupation, the soldiers gave him an ugly time of it. All the night +through they kept up a continuous series of "alarms and incursions," +"cries of 'Stand!' 'Give fire!'" etc., which forced the prelate to flee +to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was +denied him at home.[24] Now, however, when all danger to himself was +past, Sharpe came out in his true colours, and scant was the justice +likely to be shown to the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate +was by. The prisoners were lodged in Haddo's Hole, a part of St. Giles' +Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it +spoken, they were amply supplied with food.[25] + +Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of quarter which had +been given on the field of battle should protect the lives of the +miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, the greatest lawyer, gave no +opinion--certainly a suggestive circumstance,--but Lord Lee declared +that this would not interfere with their legal trial; "so to bloody +executions they went."[26] To the number of thirty they were condemned +and executed; while two of them, Hugh M'Kail, a young minister, and +Neilson of Corsack, were tortured with the boots. + +The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodies were +dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country; "the +heads of Major M'Culloch and the two Gordons," it was resolved, says +Kirkton, "should be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two +Hamiltons and Strong's head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain +Arnot's sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh. The armes of all the ten, +because they hade with uplifted hands renewed the Covenant at Lanark, +were sent to the people of that town to expiate that crime, by placing +these arms on the top of the prison."[27] Among these was John Neilson, +the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner's life at Dumfries; in return +for which service Sir James attempted, though without success, to get +the poor man reprieved. One of the condemned died of his wounds between +the day of condemnation and the day of execution. "None of them," says +Kirkton, "would save their life by taking the declaration and renouncing +the Covenant, though it was offered to them.... But never men died in +Scotland so much lamented by the people, not only spectators, but those +in the country. When Knockbreck and his brother were turned over, they +clasped each other in their armes, and so endured the pangs of death. +When Humphrey Colquhoun died, he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, but +like a heavenly minister, relating his comfortable Christian +experiences, and called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm, +and read John iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration of all. But +most of all, when Mr. M'Kail died, there was such a lamentation as was +never known in Scotland before; not one dry cheek upon all the street, +or in all the numberless windows in the mercate place." [28] + +The following passage from this speech speaks for itself and its author: + +"Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor think on the +world's consolations. Farewell to all my friends, whose company hath +been refreshful to me in my pilgrimage. I have done with the light of +the sun and the moon; welcome eternal light, eternal life, everlasting +love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that sits +upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the Lord, O my soul, +that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the blood of His Son, and healed +all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye His angels that excel in strength, +ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!" +[29] + +After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth in the +following words of touching eloquence: + +"And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my +intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father +and mother, friends and relations! Farewell the world and all delights! +Farewell meat and drink! Farewell sun, moon, and stars!--Welcome God and +Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant! +Welcome blessed Spirit of grace and God of all consolation! Welcome +glory! Welcome eternal life! Welcome Death!"[30] + +At Glasgow too, where some were executed, they caused the soldiers to +beat the drums and blow the trumpets on their closing ears. Hideous +refinement of revenge! Even the last words which drop from the lips of a +dying man--words surely the most sincere and the most unbiassed which +mortal mouth can utter--even these were looked upon as poisoned and as +poisonous. "Drown their last accents," was the cry, "lest they should +lead the crowd to take their part, or at the least to mourn their +doom!"[31] But, after all, perhaps it was more merciful than one would +think--unintentionally so, of course; perhaps the storm of harsh and +fiercely jubilant noises, the clanging of trumpets, the rattling of +drums, and the hootings and jeerings of an unfeeling mob, which were the +last they heard on earth, might, when the mortal fight was over, when +the river of death was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of +the angels, tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they had reached. + +Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some even of the +peasantry, though these were confined to the shire of Mid-Lothian, +pursued, captured, plundered, and murdered the miserable fugitives who +fell in their way. One strange story have we of these times of blood and +persecution: Kirkton the historian and popular tradition tell us alike +of a flame which often would arise from the grave, in a moss near +Carnwath, of some of those poor rebels: of how it crept along the +ground; of how it covered the house of their murderer; and of how it +scared him with its lurid glare. + +Hear Daniel Defoe:[32] + +"If the poor people were by these insupportable violences made +desperate, and driven to all the extremities of a wild despair, who can +justly reflect on them when they read in the Word of God 'That +oppression makes a wise man mad'? And therefore were there no other +original of the insurrection known by the name of the Rising of +Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions of those +times might have justified to all the world, nature having dictated to +all people a right of defence when illegally and arbitrarily attacked in +a manner not justifiable either by laws of nature, the laws of God, or +the laws of the country." + +Bear this remonstrance of Defoe's in mind, and though it is the fashion +of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to contemn, the noble +band of Covenanters,--though the bitter laugh at their old-world +religious views, the curl of the lip at their merits, and the chilling +silence on their bravery and their determination, are but too rife +through all society,--be charitable to what was evil and honest to what +was good about the Pentland insurgents, who fought for life and liberty, +for country and religion, on the 28th of November 1666, now just two +hundred years ago. + + EDINBURGH, 28_th November_ 1866. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [22] "Cloud of Witnesses," p. 389; Edin. 1765. + + [23] Kirkton, p. 247. + + [24] Kirkton, p. 254. + + [25] _Ibid._ p. 247. + + [26] _Ibid._ pp. 247, 248. + + [27] _Ibid._ p. 248. + + [28] Kirkton, p. 249. + + [29] "Naphtali," p. 205; Glasgow, 1721. + + [30] Wodrow, p. 59. + + [31] Kirkton, p. 246. + + [32] Defoe's "History of the Church of Scotland." + + + + +SKETCHES + + + + +SKETCHES + +I + +THE SATIRIST + + +My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. He was by +habit and repute a satirist. If he did occasionally condemn anything or +anybody who richly deserved it, and whose demerits had hitherto escaped, +it was simply because he condemned everything and everybody. While I was +with him he disposed of St. Paul with an epigram, shook my reverence for +Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of the Almighty Himself, +on the score of one or two out of the ten commandments. Nothing escaped +his blighting censure. At every sentence he overthrew an idol, or +lowered my estimation of a friend. I saw everything with new eyes, and +could only marvel at my former blindness. How was it possible that I had +not before observed A's false hair, B's selfishness, or C's boorish +manners? I and my companion, methought, walked the streets like a couple +of gods among a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemed to bear +openly upon his brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I half expected +that these miserable beings, like the people of Lystra, would recognise +their betters and force us to the altar; in which case, warned by the +fate of Paul and Barnabas, I do not know that my modesty would have +prevailed upon me to decline. But there was no need for such churlish +virtue. More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no divinity in +our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more in the way of observing +than healing their infirmities, we were content to pass them by in +scorn. + +I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even from interest, +but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from the case. To +understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose yourself walking down the +street with a man who continues to sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of +vitriol. You would be much diverted with the grimaces and contortions of +his victims; and at the same time you would fear to leave his arm until +his bottle was empty, knowing that, when once among the crowd, you would +run a good chance yourself of baptism with his biting liquor. Now my +companion's vitriol was inexhaustible. + +It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge that I was being +anointed already out of the vials of his wrath, that made me fall to +criticising the critic, whenever we had parted. + +After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough into his +neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring to go +farther and discover what is really true. He is content to find that +things are not what they seem, and broadly generalises from it that they +do not exist at all. He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they +are; and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue +altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no man is wholly good; +but he has not even suspected that there is another equally true, to +wit, that no man is wholly bad. Like the inmate of a coloured star, he +has eyes for one colour alone. He has a keen scent after evil, but his +nostrils are plugged against all good, as people plugged their nostrils +before going about the streets of the plague-struck city. + +Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of +good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat +in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but +my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, +wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want +light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not wish to see +the good, because he is happier without it. I recollect that when I +walked with him, I was in a state of divine exaltation, such as Adam and +Eve must have enjoyed when the savour of the fruit was still unfaded +between their lips; and I recognise that this must be the man's habitual +state. He has the forbidden fruit in his waistcoat pocket, and can make +himself a god as often and as long as he likes. He has raised himself +upon a glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the summit of +ambition; and he envies neither King nor Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest, +content in an elevation as high as theirs, and much more easily +attained. Yes, certes, much more easily attained. He has not risen by +climbing himself, but by pushing others down. He has grown great in his +own estimation, not by blowing himself out, and risking the fate of +Aesop's frog, but simply by the habitual use of a diminishing glass on +everybody else. And I think altogether that his is a better, a safer, +and a surer recipe than most others. + +After all, however, looking back on what I have written, I detect a +spirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I have been comparing +myself with our satirist, and all through, I have had the best of the +comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mental as physical; and I +do not think my readers, who have all been under his lash, will blame me +very much for giving the headsman a mouthful of his own sawdust. + + + + +II + +NUITS BLANCHES + + +If any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless night, it +should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly child that woke from +his few hours' slumber with the sweat of a nightmare on his brow, to lie +awake and listen and long for the first signs of life among the silent +streets. These nights of pain and weariness are graven on my mind; and +so when the same thing happened to me again, everything that I heard or +saw was rather a recollection than a discovery. + +Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, I listened +eagerly for anything to break the sepulchral quiet. But nothing came, +save, perhaps, an emphatic crack from the old cabinet that was made by +Deacon Brodie, or the dry rustle of the coals on the extinguished fire. +It was a calm; or I know that I should have heard in the roar and +clatter of the storm, as I have not heard it for so many years, the wild +career of a horseman, always scouring up from the distance and passing +swiftly below the window; yet always returning again from the place +whence first he came, as though, baffled by some higher power, he had +retraced his steps to gain impetus for another and another attempt. + +As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the rumbling of a +carriage a very great way off, that drew near, and passed within a few +streets of the house, and died away as gradually as it had arisen. This, +too, was as a reminiscence. + +I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black belt of the +garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here and there a +lighted window. How often before had my nurse lifted me out of bed and +pointed them out to me, while we wondered together if, there also, there +were children that could not sleep, and if these lighted oblongs were +signs of those that waited like us for the morning. + +I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the great deep well of +the staircase. For what cause I know not, just as it used to be in the +old days that the feverish child might be the better served, a peep of +gas illuminated a narrow circle far below me. But where I was, all was +darkness and silence, save the dry monotonous ticking of the clock that +came ceaselessly up to my ear. + +The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of reproduction on +the pictures of my memory, was the arrival of that time for which, all +night through, I waited and longed of old. It was my custom, as the +hours dragged on, to repeat the question, "When will the carts come in?" +and repeat it again and again until at last those sounds arose in the +street that I have heard once more this morning. The road before our +house is a great thoroughfare for early carts. I know not, and I never +have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they go. But I +know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they stream +continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking of wheels and the +same clink of horses' feet. It was not for nothing that they made the +burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really the first +throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to +hear them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp a +hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. They have the +freshness of the daylight life about them. You can hear the carters +cracking their whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one +another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter +comes up to you through the darkness. There is now an end of mystery and +fear. Like the knocking at the door in _Macbeth_,[33] or the cry of the +watchman in the _Tour de Nesle_, they show that the horrible caesura is +over and the nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking and +the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir itself among the +streets. + +In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by the officious +knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve years older than I had +dreamed myself all night. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [33] See a short essay of De Quincey's. + + + + +III + +THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES + + +It is all very well to talk of death as "a pleasant potion of +immortality"; but the most of us, I suspect, are of "queasy stomachs," +and find it none of the sweetest.[34] The graveyard may be cloak-room to +Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive vestibule +in itself, however fair may be the life to which it leads. And though +Enoch and Elias went into the temple through a gate which certainly may +be called Beautiful, the rest of us have to find our way to it through +Ezekiel's low-bowed door and the vault full of creeping things and all +manner of abominable beasts. Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of +mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an +alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It was +in obedience to this wise regulation that the other morning found me +lighting my pipe at the entrance to Old Greyfriars', thoroughly sick of +the town, the country, and myself. + +Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying a spade in +hands still crusted with the soil of graves. Their very aspect was +delightful to me; and I crept nearer to them, thinking to pick up some +snatch of sexton gossip, some "talk fit for a charnel,"[35] something, +in fine, worthy of that fastidious logician, that adept in coroner's +law, who has come down to us as the patron of Yaughan's liquor, and the +very prince of gravediggers. Scots people in general are so much wrapped +up in their profession that I had a good chance of overhearing such +conversation: the talk of fishmongers running usually on stockfish and +haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I could repeat stories and speeches +that positively smell of the graveyard. But on this occasion I was +doomed to disappointment. My two friends were far into the region of +generalities. Their profession was forgotten in their electorship. +Politics had engulfed the narrower economy of gravedigging. "Na, na," +said the one, "ye're a' wrang." "The English and Irish Churches," +answered the other, in a tone as if he had made the remark before, and +it had been called in question--"The English and Irish Churches have +_impoverished_ the country." + +"Such are the results of education," thought I as I passed beside them +and came fairly among the tombs. Here, at least, there were no +commonplace politics, no diluted this-morning's leader, to distract or +offend me. The old shabby church showed, as usual, its quaint extent of +roofage and the relievo skeleton on one gable, still blackened with the +fire of thirty years ago. A chill dank mist lay over all. The Old +Greyfriars' churchyard was in perfection that morning, and one could go +round and reckon up the associations with no fear of vulgar +interruption. On this stone the Covenant was signed. In that vault, as +the story goes, John Knox took hiding in some Reformation broil. From +that window Burke the murderer looked out many a time across the tombs, +and perhaps o' nights let himself down over the sill to rob some +new-made grave. Certainly he would have a selection here. The very walks +have been carried over forgotten resting-places; and the whole ground is +uneven, because (as I was once quaintly told) "when the wood rots it +stands to reason the soil should fall in," which, from the law of +gravitation, is certainly beyond denial. But it is round the boundary +that there are the finest tombs. The whole irregular space is, as it +were, fringed with quaint old monuments, rich in death's-heads and +scythes and hour-glasses, and doubly rich in pious epitaphs and Latin +mottoes--rich in them to such an extent that their proper space has run +over, and they have crawled end-long up the shafts of columns and +ensconced themselves in all sorts of odd corners among the sculpture. +These tombs raise their backs against the rabble of squalid +dwelling-houses, and every here and there a clothes-pole projects +between two monuments its fluttering trophy of white and yellow and red. +With a grim irony they recall the banners in the Invalides, banners as +appropriate perhaps over the sepulchres of tailors and weavers as these +others above the dust of armies. Why they put things out to dry on that +particular morning it was hard to imagine. The grass was grey with drops +of rain, the headstones black with moisture. Yet, in despite of weather +and common-sense, there they hung between the tombs; and beyond them I +could see through open windows into miserable rooms where whole families +were born and fed, and slept and died. At one a girl sat singing merrily +with her back to the graveyard; and from another came the shrill tones +of a scolding woman. Every here and there was a town garden full of +sickly flowers, or a pile of crockery inside upon the window-seat. But +you do not grasp the full connection between these houses of the dead +and the living, the unnatural marriage of stately sepulchres and squalid +houses, till, lower down, where the road has sunk far below the surface +of the cemetery, and the very roofs are scarcely on a level with its +wall, you observe that a proprietor has taken advantage of a tall +monument and trained a chimney-stack against its back. It startles you +to see the red, modern pots peering over the shoulder of the tomb. + +A man was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away the drift of bones +that permeates the thin brown soil; but my first disappointment had +taught me to expect little from Greyfriars' sextons, and I passed him by +in silence. A slater on the slope of a neighbouring roof eyed me +curiously. A lean black cat, looking as if it had battened on strange +meats, slipped past me. A little boy at a window put his finger to his +nose in so offensive a manner that I was put upon my dignity, and turned +grandly off to read old epitaphs and peer through the gratings into the +shadow of vaults. + +Just then I saw two women coming down a path, one of them old, and the +other younger, with a child in her arms. Both had faces eaten with +famine and hardened with sin, and both had reached that stage of +degradation, much lower in a woman than a man, when all care for dress +is lost. As they came down they neared a grave, where some pious friend +or relative had laid a wreath of immortelles, and put a bell glass over +it, as is the custom. The effect of that ring of dull yellow among so +many blackened and dusty sculptures was more pleasant than it is in +modern cemeteries, where every second mound can boast a similar coronal; +and here, where it was the exception and not the rule, I could even +fancy the drops of moisture that dimmed the covering were the tears of +those who laid it where it was. As the two women came up to it, one of +them kneeled down on the wet grass and looked long and silently through +the clouded shade, while the second stood above her, gently oscillating +to and fro to lull the muling baby. I was struck a great way off with +something religious in the attitude of these two unkempt and haggard +women; and I drew near faster, but still cautiously, to hear what they +were saying. Surely on them the spirit of death and decay had descended; +I had no education to dread here: should I not have a chance of seeing +nature? Alas! a pawnbroker could not have been more practical and +commonplace, for this was what the kneeling woman said to the woman +upright--this and nothing more: "Eh, what extravagance!" + +O nineteenth century, wonderful art thou indeed--wonderful, but +wearisome in thy stale and deadly uniformity. Thy men are more like +numerals than men. They must bear their idiosyncrasies or their +professions written on a placard about their neck, like the scenery in +Shakespeare's theatre. The precepts of economy have pierced into the +lowest ranks of life; and there is now a decorum in vice, a +respectability among the disreputable, a pure spirit of Philistinism +among the waifs and strays of thy Bohemia. For lo! thy very gravediggers +talk politics; and thy castaways kneel upon new graves, to discuss the +cost of the monument and grumble at the improvidence of love. + +Such was the elegant apostrophe that I made as I went out of the gates +again, happily satisfied in myself, and feeling that I alone of all whom +I had seen was able to profit by the silent poem of these green mounds +and blackened headstones. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [34] "Religio Medici," Part ii. + + [35] "Duchess of Malfi." + + + + +IV + +NURSES + + +I knew one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she waited for +death. It was pleasant enough, high up above the lane, and looking forth +upon a hill-side, covered all day with sheets and yellow blankets, and +with long lines of underclothing fluttering between the battered posts. +There were any number of cheap prints, and a drawing by one of "her +children," and there were flowers in the window, and a sickly canary +withered into consumption in an ornamental cage. The bed, with its +checked coverlid, was in a closet. A great Bible lay on the table; and +her drawers were full of "scones," which it was her pleasure to give to +young visitors such as I was then. + +You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary, and the +cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and that died, were +all indications of the want that ate into her heart. I think I know a +little of what that old woman felt; and I am as sure as if I had seen +her, that she sat many an hour in silent tears, with the big Bible open +before her clouded eyes. + +If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain that had +linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be wrenched suddenly +through, and sometimes, which is infinitely worse, to be torn gradually +off through years of growing neglect, or perhaps growing dislike! She +had, like the mother, overcome that natural repugnance--repugnance which +no man can conquer--towards the infirm and helpless mass of putty of the +earlier stage. She had spent her best and happiest years in tending, +watching, and learning to love like a mother this child, with which she +has no connection and to which she has no tie. Perhaps she refused some +sweetheart (such things have been), or put him off and off, until he +lost heart and turned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this +creature that had wound itself about her heart. And the end of it +all,--her month's warning, and a present perhaps, and the rest of the +life to vain regret. Or, worse still, to see the child gradually +forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect on the +plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat her as a +servant whom he had treated a few years before as a mother. She sees the +Bible or the Psalm-book, which with gladness and love unutterable in her +heart she had bought for him years ago out of her slender savings, +neglected for some newer gift of his father, lying in dust in the +lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and the act applauded for its +unfeeling charity. Little wonder if she becomes hurt and angry, and +attempts to tyrannise and to grasp her old power back again. We are not +all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us human beings +with feelings and tempers of our own. + +And so in the end, behold her in the room that I described. Very likely +and very naturally, in some fling of feverish misery or recoil of +thwarted love, she has quarrelled with her old employers and the +children are forbidden to see her or to speak to her; or at best she +gets her rent paid and a little to herself, and now and then her late +charges are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) to pay her a short +visit. How bright these visits seem as she looks forward to them on her +lonely bed! How unsatisfactory their realisation, when the forgetful +child, half wondering, checks with every word and action the outpouring +of her maternal love! How bitter and restless the memories that they +leave behind! And for the rest, what else has she?--to watch them with +eager eyes as they go to school, to sit in church where she can see them +every Sunday, to be passed some day unnoticed in the street, or +deliberately cut because the great man or the great woman are with +friends before whom they are ashamed to recognise the old woman that +loved them. + +When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear to her! +Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to herself in the dark, with +the fire burnt out for want of fuel, and the candle still unlit upon the +table. + +And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers--mothers in +everything but the travail and the thanks. It is for this that they have +remained virtuous in youth, living the dull life of a household servant. +It is for this that they refused the old sweetheart, and have no +fireside or offspring of their own. + +I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no more +nurses, and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; for what can +be more hardening and demoralising than to call forth the tenderest +feelings of a woman's heart and cherish them yourself as long as you +need them, as long as your children require a nurse to love them, and +then to blight and thwart and destroy them, whenever your own use for +them is at an end? This may be Utopian; but it is always a little thing +if one mother or two mothers can be brought to feel more tenderly to +those who share their toil and have no part in their reward. + + + + +V + +A CHARACTER + + +The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and squat. So +far there is nothing in him to notice, but when you see his eyes, you +can read in these hard and shallow orbs a depravity beyond measure +depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the pure, disinterested love of +Hell for its own sake. The other night, in the street, I was watching an +omnibus passing with lit-up windows, when I heard some one coughing at +my side as though he would cough his soul out; and turning round, I saw +him stopping under a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him and +his whole face convulsed. It seemed as if he could not live long; and so +the sight set my mind upon a train of thought, as I finished my cigar up +and down the lighted streets. + +He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his thirst for +evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in wickedness. He is dumb; +but he will not let that hinder his foul trade, or perhaps I should say, +his yet fouler amusement, and he has pressed a slate into the service of +corruption. Look at him, and he will sign to you with his bloated head, +and when you go to him in answer to the sign, thinking perhaps that the +poor dumb man has lost his way, you will see what he writes upon his +slate. He haunts the doors of schools, and shows such inscriptions as +these to the innocent children that come out. He hangs about +picture-galleries, and makes the noblest pictures the text for some +silent homily of vice. His industry is a lesson to ourselves. Is it not +wonderful how he can triumph over his infirmities and do such an amount +of harm without a tongue? Wonderful industry--strange, fruitless, +pleasureless toil? Must not the very devil feel a soft emotion to see +his disinterested and laborious service? Ah, but the devil knows better +than this: he knows that this man is penetrated with the love of evil +and that all his pleasure is shut up in wickedness: he recognises him, +perhaps, as a fit type for mankind of his satanic self, and watches over +his effigy as we might watch over a favourite likeness. As the business +man comes to love the toil, which he only looked upon at first as a +ladder towards other desires and less unnatural gratifications, so the +dumb man has felt the charm of his trade and fallen captivated before +the eyes of sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is +hideous and loathsome; for even vice has her Hoersel and her devotees, +who love her for her own sake. + + + + +COLLEGE PAPERS + + + + +COLLEGE PAPERS + +I + +EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824 + + +On the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of the _Lapsus +Linguae; or, the College Tatler_; and on the 7th the first number +appeared. On Friday the 2nd of April "_Mr. Tatler_ became speechless." +Its history was not all one success; for the editor (who applies to +himself the words of Iago, "I am nothing if I am not critical") +over-stepped the bounds of caution, and found himself seriously +embroiled with the powers that were. There appeared in No. XVI. a most +bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie, in which he was compared to +Falstaff, charged with puffing himself, and very prettily censured for +publishing only the first volume of a class-book, and making all +purchasers pay for both. Sir John Leslie took up the matter angrily, +visited Carfrae the publisher, and threatened him with an action, till +he was forced to turn the hapless _Lapsus_ out of doors. The maltreated +periodical found shelter in the shop of Huie, Infirmary Street; and NO. +XVII. was duly issued from the new office. NO. XVII. beheld _Mr. +Tatler's_ humiliation, in which, with fulsome apology and not very +credible assurances of respect and admiration, he disclaims the article +in question, and advertises a new issue of NO. XVI. with all +objectionable matter omitted. This, with pleasing euphemism, he terms in +a later advertisement, "a new and improved edition." This was the only +remarkable adventure of _Mr. Tatler's_ brief existence; unless we +consider as such a silly Chaldee manuscript in imitation of +_Blackwood_, and a letter of reproof from a divinity student on the +impiety of the same dull effusion. He laments the near approach of his +end in pathetic terms. "How shall we summon up sufficient courage," says +he, "to look for the last time on our beloved little devil and his +inestimable proof-sheet? How shall we be able to pass No. 14 Infirmary +Street and feel that all its attractions are over? How shall we bid +farewell for ever to that excellent man, with the long greatcoat, wooden +leg and wooden board, who acts as our representative at the gate of +_Alma Mater?_" But alas! he had no choice: _Mr. Tatler_, whose career, +he says himself, had been successful, passed peacefully away, and has +ever since dumbly implored "the bringing home of bell and burial." + +_Alter et idem_. A very different affair was the _Lapsus Linguae_ from +the _Edinburgh University Magazine_. The two prospectuses alone, laid +side by side, would indicate the march of luxury and the repeal of the +paper duty. The penny bi-weekly broadside of session 1823-4 was almost +wholly dedicated to Momus. Epigrams, pointless letters, amorous verses, +and University grievances are the continual burthen of the song. But +_Mr. Tatler_ was not without a vein of hearty humour; and his pages +afford what is much better: to wit, a good picture of student life as it +then was. The students of those polite days insisted on retaining their +hats in the class-room. There was a cab-stance in front of the College; +and "Carriage Entrance" was posted above the main arch, on what the +writer pleases to call "coarse, unclassic boards." The benches of the +"Speculative" then, as now, were red; but all other Societies (the +"Dialectic" is the only survivor) met downstairs, in some rooms of which +it is pointedly said that "nothing else could conveniently be made of +them." However horrible these dungeons may have been, it is certain that +they were paid for, and that far too heavily for the taste of session +1823-4, which found enough calls upon its purse for porter and toasted +cheese at Ambrose's, or cranberry tarts and ginger-wine at Doull's. +Duelling was still a possibility; so much so that when two medicals fell +to fisticuffs in Adam Square, it was seriously hinted that single combat +would be the result. Last and most wonderful of all, Gall and Spurzheim +were in every one's mouth; and the Law student, after having exhausted +Byron's poetry and Scott's novels, informed the ladies of his belief in +phrenology. In the present day he would dilate on "Red as a rose is +she," and then mention that he attends Old Greyfriars', as a tacit claim +to intellectual superiority. I do not know that the advance is much. + +But _Mr. Tatler's_ best performances were three short papers in which he +hit off pretty smartly the idiosyncrasies of the "_Divinity_," the +"_Medical_," and the "_Law_" of session 1823-4. The fact that there was +no notice of the "_Arts_" seems to suggest that they stood in the same +intermediate position as they do now--the epitome of student-kind. _Mr. +Tatler's_ satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, and has not grown +superannuated in _all_ its limbs. His descriptions may limp at some +points, but there are certain broad traits that apply equally well to +session 1870-71. He shows us the _Divinity_ of the period--tall, pale, +and slender--his collar greasy, and his coat bare about the seams--"his +white neckcloth serving four days, and regularly turned the +third,"--"the rim of his hat deficient in wool,"--and "a weighty volume +of theology under his arm." He was the man to buy cheap "a snuff-box, or +a dozen of pencils, or a six-bladed knife, or a quarter of a hundred +quills," at any of the public sale-rooms. He was noted for cheap +purchases, and for exceeding the legal tender in halfpence. He haunted +"the darkest and remotest corner of the Theatre Gallery." He was to be +seen issuing from "aerial lodging-houses." Withal, says mine author, +"there were many good points about him: he paid his landlady's bill, +read his Bible, went twice to church on Sunday, seldom swore, was not +often tipsy, and bought the _Lapsus Linguae_." + +The _Medical_, again, "wore a white greatcoat, and consequently talked +loud"--(there is something very delicious in that _consequently_). He +wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top +of Arthur's Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating +society as he was loud in the streets. He was reckless and imprudent: +yesterday he insisted on your sharing a bottle of claret with him (and +claret was claret then, before the cheap-and-nasty treaty), and +to-morrow he asks you for the loan of a penny to buy the last number of +the _Lapsus_. + +The student of _Law_, again, was a learned man. "He had turned over the +leaves of Justinian's 'Institutes,' and knew that they were written in +Latin. He was well acquainted with the title-page of 'Blackstone's +Commentaries,' and _argal_ (as the gravedigger in _Hamlet_ says) he was +not a person to be laughed at." He attended the Parliament House in the +character of a critic, and could give you stale sneers at all the +celebrated speakers. He was the terror of essayists at the Speculative +or the Forensic. In social qualities he seems to have stood unrivalled. +Even in the police-office we find him shining with undiminished lustre. +"If a _Charlie_ should find him rather noisy at an untimely hour, and +venture to take him into custody, he appears next morning like a Daniel +come to judgment. He opens his mouth to speak, and the divine precepts +of unchanging justice and Scots law flow from his tongue. The magistrate +listens in amazement, and fines him only a couple of guineas." + +Such then were our predecessors and their College Magazine. Barclay, +Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson were to them what the Cafe, the +Rainbow, and Rutherford's are to us. An hour's reading in these old +pages absolutely confuses us, there is so much that is similar and so +much that is different; the follies and amusements are so like our own, +and the manner of frolicking and enjoying are so changed, that one +pauses and looks about him in philosophic judgment. The muddy quadrangle +is thick with living students; but in our eyes it swarms also with the +phantasmal white greatcoats and tilted hats of 1824. Two races meet: +races alike and diverse. Two performances are played before our eyes; +but the change seems merely of impersonators, of scenery, of costume. +Plot and passion are the same. It is the fall of the spun shilling +whether seventy-one or twenty-four has the best of it. + +In a future number we hope to give a glance at the individualities of +the present, and see whether the cast shall be head or tail--whether we +or the readers of the _Lapsus_ stand higher in the balance. + + + + +II + +THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY + + +We have now reached the difficult portion of our task. _Mr. Tatler_, for +all that we care, may have been as virulent as he liked about the +students of a former day; but for the iron to touch our sacred selves, +for a brother of the Guild to betray its most privy infirmities, let +such a Judas look to himself as he passes on his way to the Scots Law or +the Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp at the corner of the dark +quadrangle. We confess that this idea alarms us. We enter a protest. We +bind ourselves over verbally to keep the peace. We hope, moreover, that +having thus made you secret to our misgivings, you will excuse us if we +be dull, and set that down to caution which you might before have +charged to the account of stupidity. + +The natural tendency of civilisation is to obliterate those distinctions +which are the best salt of life. All the fine old professional flavour +in language has evaporated. Your very gravedigger has forgotten his +avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over +Ophelia's grave, instead of more appropriately discussing the duration +of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition +of life, in which everything pointed and characteristic is being rubbed +down, till the whole world begins to slip between our fingers in smooth +undistinguishable sands, from this, we say, it follows that we must not +attempt to join _Mr. Tatler_ in his simple division of students into +_Law_, _Divinity_, and _Medical_. Nowadays the Faculties may shake hands +over their follies; and, like Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight (in _Love +for Love_) they may stand in the doors of opposite class-rooms, crying: +"Sister, Sister--Sister everyway!" A few restrictions, indeed, remain to +influence the followers of individual branches of study. The _Divinity_, +for example, must be an avowed believer; and as this, in the present +day, is unhappily considered by many as a confession of weakness, he is +fain to choose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox +bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even a +credit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw philosopher, +although it is a decided slur to believe in Him on His own authority. +Others again (and this we think the worst method), finding German +grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own little heresy as a proof of +independence; and deny one of the cardinal doctrines that they may hold +the others without being laughed at. + +Besides, however, such influences as these, there is little more +distinction between the faculties than the traditionary ideal, handed +down through a long sequence of students, and getting rounder and more +featureless at each successive session. The plague of uniformity has +descended on the College. Students (and indeed all sorts and conditions +of men) now require their faculty and character hung round their neck on +a placard, like the scenes in Shakespeare's theatre. And in the midst of +all this weary sameness, not the least common feature is the gravity of +every face. No more does the merry medical run eagerly in the clear +winter morning up the rugged sides of Arthur's Seat, and hear the church +bells begin and thicken and die away below him among the gathered smoke +of the city. He will not break Sunday to so little purpose. He no longer +finds pleasure in the mere output of his surplus energy. He husbands his +strength, and lays out walks, and reading, and amusement with deep +consideration, so that he may get as much work and pleasure out of his +body as he can, and waste none of his energy on mere impulse, or such +flat enjoyment as an excursion in the country. + +See the quadrangle in the interregnum of classes, in those two or three +minutes when it is full of passing students, and we think you will admit +that, if we have not made it "an habitation of dragons," we have at +least transformed it into "a court for owls." Solemnity broods heavily +over the enclosure; and wherever you seek it, you will find a dearth of +merriment, an absence of real youthful enjoyment. You might as well try + + "To move wild laughter in the throat of death" + +as to excite any healthy stir among the bulk of this staid company. + +The studious congregate about the doors of the different classes, +debating the matter of the lecture, or comparing note-books. A reserved +rivalry sunders them. Here are some deep in Greek particles: there, +others are already inhabitants of that land + + "Where entity and quiddity, + Like ghosts of defunct bodies fly-- + Where Truth in person does appear + Like words congealed in northern air." + +But none of them seem to find any relish for their studies--no pedantic +love of this subject or that lights up their eyes--science and learning +are only means for a livelihood, which they have considerately embraced +and which they solemnly pursue. "Labour's pale priests," their lips seem +incapable of laughter, except in the way of polite recognition of +professorial wit. The stains of ink are chronic on their meagre fingers. +They walk like Saul among the asses. + +The dandies are not less subdued. In 1824 there was a noisy dapper +dandyism abroad. Vulgar, as we should now think, but yet genial--a +matter of white greatcoats and loud voices--strangely different from the +stately frippery that is rife at present. These men are out of their +element in the quadrangle. Even the small remains of boisterous humour, +which still clings to any collection of young men, jars painfully on +their morbid sensibilities; and they beat a hasty retreat to resume +their perfunctory march along Princes Street. Flirtation is to them a +great social duty, a painful obligation, which they perform on every +occasion in the same chill official manner, and with the same +commonplace advances, the same dogged observance of traditional +behaviour. The shape of their raiment is a burden almost greater than +they can bear, and they halt in their walk to preserve the due +adjustment of their trouser-knees, till one would fancy he had mixed in +a procession of Jacobs. We speak, of course, for ourselves; but we would +as soon associate with a herd of sprightly apes as with these gloomy +modern beaux. Alas, that our Mirabels, our Valentines, even our +Brummels, should have left their mantles upon nothing more amusing! + +Nor are the fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even in dissipation, +is the order of the day; and they go to the devil with a perverse +seriousness, a systematic rationalism of wickedness that would have +surprised the simpler sinners of old. Some of these men whom we see +gravely conversing on the steps have but a slender acquaintance with +each other. Their intercourse consists principally of mutual bulletins +of depravity; and, week after week, as they meet they reckon up their +items of transgression, and give an abstract of their downward progress +for approval and encouragement. These folk form a freemasonry of their +own. An oath is the shibboleth of their sinister fellowship. Once they +hear a man swear, it is wonderful how their tongues loosen and their +bashful spirits take enlargement under the consciousness of brotherhood. +There is no folly, no pardoning warmth of temper about them; they are as +steady-going and systematic in their own way as the studious in theirs. + +Not that we are without merry men. No. We shall not be ungrateful to +those, whose grimaces, whose ironical laughter, whose active feet in the +"College Anthem" have beguiled so many weary hours and added a pleasant +variety to the strain of close attention. But even these are too +evidently professional in their antics. They go about cogitating puns +and inventing tricks. It is their vocation, Hal. They are the gratuitous +jesters of the class-room; and, like the clown when he leaves the stage, +their merriment too often sinks as the bell rings the hour of liberty, +and they pass forth by the Post-Office, grave and sedate, and meditating +fresh gambols for the morrow. + +This is the impression left on the mind of any observing student by too +many of his fellows. They seem all frigid old men; and one pauses to +think how such an unnatural state of matters is produced. We feel +inclined to blame for it the unfortunate absence of _University feeling_ +which is so marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students. +Academical interests are so few and far between--students, as students, +have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry--there is such an +entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college +friendships, that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so +poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he +was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his +memory for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let +there be an end of this shy, proud reserve on the one hand, and this +shuddering fine ladyism on the other; and we think we shall find both +ourselves and the College bettered. Let it be a sufficient reason for +intercourse that two men sit together on the same benches. Let the great +A be held excused for nodding to the shabby B in Princes Street, if he +can say, "That fellow is a student." Once this could be brought about, +we think you would find the whole heart of the University beat faster. +We think you would find a fusion among the students, a growth of common +feelings, an increasing sympathy between class and class, whose +influence (in such a heterogeneous company as ours) might be of +incalculable value in all branches of politics and social progress. It +would do more than this. If we could find some method of making the +University a real mother to her sons--something beyond a building of +class-rooms, a Senatus and a lottery of somewhat shabby prizes--we +should strike a death-blow at the constrained and unnatural attitude of +our Society. At present we are not a united body, but a loose gathering +of individuals, whose inherent attraction is allowed to condense them +into little knots and coteries. Our last snowball riot read us a plain +lesson on our condition. There was no party spirit--no unity of +interests. A few, who were mischievously inclined, marched off to the +College of Surgeons in a pretentious file; but even before they reached +their destination the feeble inspiration had died out in many, and their +numbers were sadly thinned. Some followed strange gods in the direction +of Drummond Street, and others slunk back to meek good-boyism at the +feet of the Professors. The same is visible in better things. As you +send a man to an English University that he may have his prejudices +rubbed off, you might send him to Edinburgh that he may have them +ingrained--rendered indelible--fostered by sympathy into living +principles of his spirit. And the reason of it is quite plain. From this +absence of University feeling it comes that a man's friendships are +always the direct and immediate results of these very prejudices. A +common weakness is the best master of ceremonies in our quadrangle: a +mutual vice is the readiest introduction. The studious associate with +the studious alone--the dandies with the dandies. There is nothing to +force them to rub shoulders with the others; and so they grow day by day +more wedded to their own original opinions and affections. They see +through the same spectacles continually. All broad sentiments, all real +catholic humanity expires; and the mind gets gradually stiffened into +one position--becomes so habituated to a contracted atmosphere, that it +shudders and withers under the least draught of the free air that +circulates in the general field of mankind. + +Specialism in Society then, is, we think, one cause of our present +state. Specialism in study is another. We doubt whether this has ever +been a good thing since the world began; but we are sure it is much +worse now than it was. Formerly, when a man became a specialist, it was +out of affection for his subject. With a somewhat grand devotion he left +all the world of Science to follow his true love; and he contrived to +find that strange pedantic interest which inspired the man who + + "Settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be-- + Properly based _Oun_-- + Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _D_ + Dead from the waist down." + +Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even the saving +clause of Enthusiasm. The election is now matter of necessity and not of +choice. Knowledge is now too broad a field for your Jack-of-all-Trades; +and, from beautifully utilitarian reasons, he makes his choice, draws +his pen through a dozen branches of study, and behold--John the +Specialist. That this is the way to be wealthy we shall not deny; but we +hold that it is _not_ the way to be healthy or wise. The whole mind +becomes narrowed and circumscribed to one "punctual spot" of knowledge. +A rank unhealthy soil breeds a harvest of prejudices. Feeling himself +above others in his one little branch--in the classification of +toadstools, or Carthaginian history--he waxes great in his own eyes and +looks down on others. Having all his sympathies educated in one way, +they die out in every other; and he is apt to remain a peevish, narrow, +and intolerant bigot. Dilettante is now a term of reproach; but there is +a certain form of dilettantism to which no one can object. It is this +that we want among our students. We wish them to abandon no subject +until they have seen and felt its merit--to act under a general interest +in all branches of knowledge, not a commercial eagerness to excel in +one. + +In both these directions our sympathies are constipated. We are apostles +of our own caste and our own subject of study, instead of being, as we +should, true men and _loving_ students. Of course both of these could be +corrected by the students themselves; but this is nothing to the +purpose: it is more important to ask whether the Senatus or the body of +alumni could do nothing towards the growth of better feeling and wider +sentiments. Perhaps in another paper we may say something upon this +head. + +One other word, however, before we have done. What shall we be when we +grow really old? Of yore, a man was thought to lay on restrictions and +acquire new deadweight of mournful experience with every year, till he +looked back on his youth as the very summer of impulse and freedom. We +please ourselves with thinking that it cannot be so with us. We would +fain hope that, as we have begun in one way, we may end in another; and +that when we _are_ in fact the octogenarians that we _seem_ at present, +there shall be no merrier men on earth. It is pleasant to picture us, +sunning ourselves in Princes Street of a morning, or chirping over our +evening cups, with all the merriment that we wanted in youth. + + + + +III + +DEBATING SOCIETIES + + +A debating society is at first somewhat of a disappointment. You do not +often find the youthful Demosthenes chewing his pebbles in the same room +with you; or, even if you do, you will probably think the performance +little to be admired. As a general rule, the members speak shamefully +ill. The subjects of debate are heavy; and so are the fines. The Ballot +Question--oldest of dialectic nightmares--is often found astride of a +somnolent sederunt. The Greeks and Romans, too, are reserved as sort of +_general-utility_ men, to do all the dirty work of illustration; and +they fill as many functions as the famous waterfall scene at the +"Princess's," which I found doing duty on one evening as a gorge in +Peru, a haunt of German robbers, and a peaceful vale in the Scottish +borders. There is a sad absence of striking argument or real lively +discussion. Indeed, you feel a growing contempt for your fellow-members; +and it is not until you rise yourself to hawk and hesitate and sit +shamefully down again, amid eleemosynary applause, that you begin to +find your level and value others rightly. Even then, even when failure +has damped your critical ardour, you will see many things to be laughed +at in the deportment of your rivals. + +Most laughable, perhaps, are your indefatigable strivers after +eloquence. They are of those who "pursue with eagerness the phantoms of +hope," and who, since they expect that "the deficiencies of last +sentence will be supplied by the next," have been recommended by Dr. +Samuel Johnson to "attend to the History of Rasselas, Prince of +Abyssinia." They are characterised by a hectic hopefulness. Nothing +damps them. They rise from the ruins of one abortive sentence, to launch +forth into another with unabated vigour. They have all the manner of an +orator. From the tone of their voice, you would expect a splendid +period--and lo! a string of broken-backed, disjointed clauses, eked out +with stammerings and throat-clearings. They possess the art (learned +from the pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a +single syllable--of striking a balance in a top-heavy period by +lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, they never +cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhausted all their +ideas, even after the would-be peroration has finally refused to +perorate, they remain upon their feet with their mouths open, waiting +for some further inspiration, like Chaucer's widow's son in the +dung-hole, after + + "His throat was kit unto the nekke bone," + +in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon his tongue, +and give him renewed and clearer utterance. + +These men may have something to say, if they could only say it--indeed +they generally have; but the next class are people who, having nothing +to say, are cursed with a facility and an unhappy command of words, that +makes them the prime nuisances of the society they affect. They try to +cover their absence of matter by an unwholesome vitality of delivery. +They look triumphantly round the room, as if courting applause, after a +torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same +dull round of argument, and returning again and again to the same remark +with the same sprightliness, the same irritating appearance of novelty. + +After this set, any one is tolerable; so we shall merely hint at a few +other varieties. There is your man who is pre-eminently conscientious, +whose face beams with sincerity as he opens on the negative, and who +votes on the affirmative at the end, looking round the room with an air +of chastened pride. There is also the irrelevant speaker, who rises, +emits a joke or two, and then sits down again, without ever attempting +to tackle the subject of debate. Again, we have men who ride +pick-a-back on their family reputation, or, if their family have none, +identify themselves with some well-known statesman, use his opinions, +and lend him their patronage on all occasions. This is a dangerous plan, +and serves oftener, I am afraid, to point a difference than to adorn a +speech. + +But alas! a striking failure may be reached without tempting Providence +by any of these ambitious tricks. Our own stature will be found high +enough for shame. The success of three simple sentences lures us into a +fatal parenthesis in the fourth, from whose shut brackets we may never +disentangle the thread of our discourse. A momentary flush tempts us +into a quotation; and we may be left helpless in the middle of one of +Pope's couplets, a white film gathering before our eyes, and our kind +friends charitably trying to cover our disgrace by a feeble round of +applause. _Amis lecteurs_, this is a painful topic. It is possible that +we too, we, the "potent, grave, and reverend" editor, may have suffered +these things, and drunk as deep as any of the cup of shameful failure. +Let us dwell no longer on so delicate a subject. + +In spite, however, of these disagreeables, I should recommend any +student to suffer them with Spartan courage, as the benefits he receives +should repay him an hundredfold for them all. The life of the debating +society is a handy antidote to the life of the class-room and +quadrangle. Nothing could be conceived more excellent as a weapon +against many of those _peccant humours_ that we have been railing +against in the jeremiad of our last "College Paper"--particularly in the +field of intellect. It is a sad sight to see our heather-scented +students, our boys of seventeen, coming up to College with determined +views--_roues_ in speculation--having gauged the vanity of philosophy or +learned to shun it as the middle-man of heresy--a company of determined, +deliberate opinionists, not to be moved by all the sleights of logic. +What have such men to do with study? If their minds are made up +irrevocably, why burn the "studious lamp" in search of further +confirmation? Every set opinion I hear a student deliver I feel a +certain lowering of my regard. He who studies, he who is yet employed in +groping for his premises, should keep his mind fluent and sensitive, +keen to mark flaws, and willing to surrender untenable positions. He +should keep himself teachable, or cease the expensive farce of being +taught. It is to further this docile spirit that we desire to press the +claims of debating societies. It is as a means of melting down this +museum of premature petrifactions into living and impressionable soul +that we insist on their utility. If we could once prevail on our +students to feel no shame in avowing an uncertain attitude towards any +subject, if we could teach them that it was unnecessary for every lad to +have his _opinionette_ on every topic, we should have gone a far way +towards bracing the intellectual tone of the coming race of thinkers; +and this it is which debating societies are so well fitted to perform. + +We there meet people of every shade of opinion, and make friends with +them. We are taught to rail against a man the whole session through, and +then hob-a-nob with him at the concluding entertainment. We find men of +talent far exceeding our own, whose conclusions are widely different +from ours; and we are thus taught to distrust ourselves. But the best +means of all towards catholicity is that wholesome rule which some folk +are most inclined to condemn,--I mean the law of _obliged speeches_. +Your senior member commands; and you must take the affirmative or the +negative, just as suits his best convenience. This tends to the most +perfect liberality. It is no good hearing the arguments of an opponent, +for in good verity you rarely follow them; and even if you do take the +trouble to listen, it is merely in a captious search for weaknesses. +This is proved, I fear, in every debate; when you hear each speaker +arguing out his own prepared _specialite_ (he never intended speaking, +of course, until some remarks of, etc.), arguing out, I say, his own +_coached-up_ subject without the least attention to what has gone +before, as utterly at sea about the drift of his adversary's speech as +Panurge when he argued with Thaumaste, and merely linking his own +prelection to the last by a few flippant criticisms. Now, as the rule +stands, you are saddled with the side you disapprove, and so you are +forced, by regard for your own fame, to argue out, to feel with, to +elaborate completely, the case as it stands against yourself; and what a +fund of wisdom do you not turn up in this idle digging of the vineyard! +How many new difficulties take form before your eyes? how many +superannuated arguments cripple finally into limbo, under the glance of +your enforced eclecticism! + +Nor is this the only merit of Debating Societies. They tend also to +foster taste, and to promote friendship between University men. This +last, as we have had occasion before to say, is the great requirement of +our student life; and it will therefore be no waste of time if we devote +a paragraph to this subject in its connection with Debating Societies. +At present they partake too much of the nature of a _clique._ Friends +propose friends, and mutual friends second them, until the society +degenerates into a sort of family party. You may confirm old +acquaintances, but you can rarely make new ones. You find yourself in +the atmosphere of your own daily intercourse. Now, this is an +unfortunate circumstance, which it seems to me might readily be +rectified. Our Principal has shown himself so friendly towards all +College improvements that I cherish the hope of seeing shortly realised +a certain suggestion, which is not a new one with me, and which must +often have been proposed and canvassed heretofore--I mean, a real +_University Debating Society_, patronised by the Senatus, presided over +by the Professors, to which every one might gain ready admittance on +sight of his matriculation ticket, where it would be a favour and not a +necessity to speak, and where the obscure student might have another +object for attendance besides the mere desire to save his fines: to wit, +the chance of drawing on himself the favourable consideration of his +teachers. This would be merely following in the good tendency, which +has been so noticeable during all this session, to increase and multiply +student societies and clubs of every sort. Nor would it be a matter of +much difficulty. The united societies would form a nucleus: one of the +class-rooms at first, and perhaps afterwards the great hall above the +library, might be the place of meeting. There would be no want of +attendance or enthusiasm, I am sure; for it is a very different thing to +speak under the bushel of a private club on the one hand, and, on the +other, in a public place, where a happy period or a subtle argument may +do the speaker permanent service in after life. Such a club might end, +perhaps, by rivalling the "Union" at Cambridge or the "Union" at Oxford. + + + + +IV + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS[36] + + +It is wonderful to think what a turn has been given to our whole Society +by the fact that we live under the sign of Aquarius,--that our climate +is essentially wet. A mere arbitrary distinction, like the +walking-swords of yore, might have remained the symbol of foresight and +respectability, had not the raw mists and dropping showers of our island +pointed the inclination of Society to another exponent of those virtues. +A ribbon of the Legion of Honour or a string of medals may prove a +person's courage; a title may prove his birth; a professorial chair his +study and acquirement; but it is the habitual carriage of the umbrella +that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the +acknowledged index of social position. + +Robinson Crusoe presents us with a touching instance of the hankering +after them inherent in the civilised and educated mind. To the +superficial, the hot suns of Juan Fernandez may sufficiently account for +his quaint choice of a luxury; but surely one who had borne the hard +labour of a seaman under the tropics for all these years could have +supported an excursion after goats or a peaceful _constitutional_ arm in +arm with the nude Friday. No, it was not this: the memory of a vanished +respectability called for some outward manifestation, and the result +was--an umbrella. A pious castaway might have rigged up a belfry and +solaced his Sunday mornings with the mimicry of church-bells; but Crusoe +was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine +an example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under +adverse circumstances as we have ever met with. + +It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become the very +foremost badge of modern civilisation--the Urim and Thummim of +respectability. Its pregnant symbolism has taken its rise in the most +natural manner. Consider, for a moment, when umbrellas were first +introduced into this country, what manner of men would use them, and +what class would adhere to the useless but ornamental cane. The first, +without doubt, would be the hypochondriacal, out of solicitude for their +health, or the frugal, out of care for their raiment; the second, it is +equally plain, would include the fop, the fool, and the Bobadil. Any one +acquainted with the growth of Society, and knowing out of what small +seeds of cause are produced great revolutions, and wholly new conditions +of intercourse, sees from this simple thought how the carriage of an +umbrella came to indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily +welfare, and scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all +those homely and solid virtues implied in the term RESPECTABILITY. Not +that the umbrella's costliness has nothing to do with its great +influence. Its possession, besides symbolising (as we have already +indicated) the change from wild Esau to plain Jacob dwelling in tents, +implies a certain comfortable provision of fortune. It is not every one +that can expose twenty-six shillings' worth of property to so many +chances of loss and theft. So strongly do we feel on this point, indeed, +that we are almost inclined to consider all who possess really +well-conditioned umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They have a +qualification standing in their lobbies; they carry a sufficient stake +in the common-weal below their arm. One who bears with him an +umbrella--such a complicated structure of whalebone, of silk, and of +cane, that it becomes a very microcosm of modern industry--is +necessarily a man of peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an +offender's head on a very moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty +shilling silk is a possession too precious to be adventured in the shock +of war. + +These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the general) came to +their present high estate. But the true Umbrella-Philosopher meets with +far stranger applications as he goes about the streets. + +Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with the individual +who carries them: indeed, they are far more capable of betraying his +trust; for whereas a face is given to us so far ready made, and all our +power over it is in frowning, and laughing, and grimacing, during the +first three or four decades of life, each umbrella is selected from a +whole shopful, as being most consonant to the purchaser's disposition. +An undoubted power of diagnosis rests with the practised +Umbrella-Philosopher. O you who lisp, and amble, and change the fashion +of your countenances--you who conceal all these, how little do you think +that you left a proof of your weakness in our umbrella-stand--that even +now, as you shake out the folds to meet the thickening snow, we read in +its ivory handle the outward and visible sign of your snobbery, or from +the exposed gingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat, the +hidden hypocrisy of the "_dickey_"! But alas! even the umbrella is no +certain criterion. The falsity and the folly of the human race have +degraded that graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; and while some +umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly +characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he displays his +real nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen +directly opposite to the person's disposition. A mendacious umbrella is +a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself +below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his religious friends +armed with the decent and reputable gingham. May it not be said of the +bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets +"with a lie in their right hand"? + +The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated social scale +of umbrellas (which was a good thing), prevented the great bulk of their +subjects from having any at all, which was certainly a bad thing. We +should be sorry to believe that this Eastern legislator was a fool--the +idea of an aristocracy of umbrellas is too philosophic to have +originated in a nobody,--and we have accordingly taken exceeding pains +to find out the reason of this harsh restriction. We think we have +succeeded; but, while admiring the principle at which he aimed, and +while cordially recognising in the Siamese potentate the only man before +ourselves who had taken a real grasp of the umbrella, we must be allowed +to point out how unphilosophically the great man acted in this +particular. His object, plainly, was to prevent any unworthy persons +from bearing the sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We cannot excuse his +limiting these virtues to the circle of his court. We must only remember +that such was the feeling of the age in which he lived. Liberalism had +not yet raised the war-cry of the working classes. But here was his +mistake: it was a needless regulation. Except in a very few cases of +hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature +_umbrellarians_, have tried again and again to become so by art, and yet +have failed--have expended their patrimony in the purchase of umbrella +after umbrella, and yet have systematically lost them, and have finally, +with contrite spirits and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, +and relied on theft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives. This +is the most remarkable fact that we have had occasion to notice; and yet +we challenge the candid reader to call it in question. Now, as there +cannot be any _moral selection_ in a mere dead piece of furniture--as +the umbrella cannot be supposed to have an affinity for individual men +equal and reciprocal to that which men certainly feel toward individual +umbrellas,--we took the trouble of consulting a scientific friend as to +whether there was any possible physical explanation of the phenomenon. +He was unable to supply a plausible theory, or even hypothesis; but we +extract from his letter the following interesting passage relative to +the physical peculiarities of umbrellas: "Not the least important, and +by far the most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy which it +displays in affecting the atmospheric strata. There is no fact in +meteorology better established--indeed, it is almost the only one on +which meteorologists are agreed--than that the carriage of an umbrella +produces desiccation of the air; while if it be left at home, aqueous +vapour is largely produced, and is soon deposited in the form of rain. +No theory," my friend continues, "competent to explain this hygrometric +law has been given (as far as I am aware) by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, +Tait, Buchan, or any other writer; nor do I pretend to supply the +defect. I venture, however, to throw out the conjecture that it will be +ultimately found to belong to the same class of natural laws as that +agreeable to which a slice of toast always descends with the buttered +surface downwards." + +But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate much longer upon +this topic, but want of space constrains us to leave unfinished these +few desultory remarks--slender contributions towards a subject which has +fallen sadly backward, and which, we grieve to say, was better +understood by the king of Siam in 1686 than by all the philosophers of +to-day. If, however, we have awakened in any rational mind an interest +in the symbolism of umbrellas--in any generous heart a more complete +sympathy with the dumb companion of his daily walk,--or in any grasping +spirit a pure notion of respectability strong enough to make him expend +his six-and-twenty shillings--we shall have deserved well of the world, +to say nothing of the many industrious persons employed in the +manufacture of the article. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [36] "This paper was written in collaboration with James Walter + Ferrier, and if reprinted this is to be stated, though his principal + collaboration was to lie back in an easy-chair and laugh."--[R. L. S., + _Oct_. 25, 1894.] + + + + +V + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE + + "How many Caesars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the names, have + been rendered worthy of them? And how many are there, who might have + done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits + been totally depressed and Nicodemus'd into nothing?"--"Tristram + Shandy," vol. i. chap. xix. + + +Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., Turkey merchant. To +the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first who fairly pointed out +the incalculable influence of nomenclature upon the whole life--who +seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic +appellation, soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, +like the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight +of name into the abysses of social failure. Solomon possibly had his eye +on some such theory when he said that "a good name is better than +precious ointment"; and perhaps we may trace a similar spirit in the +compilers of the English Catechism, and the affectionate interest with +which they linger round the catechumen's name at the very threshold of +their work. But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure me for +appending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son, the Turkey +merchant's name to his system, and pronouncing, without further +preface, a short epitome of the "Shandean Philosophy of Nomenclature." + +To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt from the +very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which I hailed +Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and +the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I found a +freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single one of my +numerous _praenomina_. Look at the delight with which two children find +they have the same name. They are friends from that moment forth; they +have a bond of union stronger than exchange of nuts and sweetmeats. This +feeling, I own, wears off in later life. Our names lose their freshness +and interest, become trite and indifferent. But this, dear reader, is +merely one of the sad effects of those "shades of the prison-house" +which come gradually betwixt us and nature with advancing years; it +affords no weapon against the philosophy of names. + +In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that name which +careless godfathers lightly applied to your unconscious infancy will +have been moulding your character, and influencing with irresistible +power the whole course of your earthly fortunes. But the last name, +overlooked by Mr. Shandy, is no whit less important as a condition of +success. Family names, we must recollect, are but inherited nicknames; +and if the _sobriquet_ were applicable to the ancestor, it is most +likely applicable to the descendant also. You would not expect to find +Mr. M'Phun acting as a mute, or Mr. M'Lumpha excelling as a professor of +dancing. Therefore, in what follows, we shall consider names, +independent of whether they are first or last. And to begin with, look +what a pull _Cromwell_ had over _Pym_--the one name full of a resonant +imperialism, the other, mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a degree. +Who would expect eloquence from _Pym_--who would read poems by +_Pym_--who would bow to the opinion of _Pym_? He might have been a +dentist, but he should never have aspired to be a statesman. I can only +wonder that he succeeded as he did. Pym and Habakkuk stand first upon +the roll of men who have triumphed, by sheer force of genius, over the +most unfavourable appellations. But even these have suffered; and, had +they been more fitly named, the one might have been Lord Protector, and +the other have shared the laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must +not forget that all our great poets have borne great names. Chaucer, +Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley--what a +constellation of lordly words! Not a single common-place name among +them--not a Brown, not a Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that +one would stop and look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if _Pepys_ had +tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a blot would +that word have made upon the list! The thing was impossible. In the +first place a certain natural consciousness that men would have held him +down to the level of his name, would have prevented him from rising +above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld him altogether from +attempting verse. Next, the book-sellers would refuse to publish, and +the world to read them, on the mere evidence of the fatal appellation. +And now, before I close this section, I must say one word as to +_punnable_ names, names that stand alone, that have a significance and +life apart from him that bears them. These are the bitterest of all. One +friend of mine goes bowed and humbled through life under the weight of +this misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a man's name is a joke, +when he cannot be mentioned without exciting merriment, and when even +the intimation of his death bids fair to carry laughter into many a +home. + +So much for people who are badly named. Now for people who are _too_ +well named, who go top-heavy from the font, who are baptized into a +false position, and find themselves beginning life eclipsed under the +fame of some of the great ones of the past. A man, for instance, called +William Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He is thrown into +too humbling an apposition with the author of _Hamlet._ His own name +coming after is such an anti-climax. "The plays of William Shakespeare"? +says the reader--"O no! The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill," and +he throws the book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John +Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us in this favoured town, +has never attempted to write an epic, but has chosen a new path, and has +excelled upon the tight-rope. A marked example of triumph over this is +the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. On the face of the matter, I +should have advised him to imitate the pleasing modesty of the +last-named gentleman, and confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. +Rossetti has triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his mighty +name-father; and the voice of fame supports him in his boldness. + +Dear readers, one might write a year upon this matter. A lifetime of +comparison and research could scarce suffice for its elucidation. So +here, if it please you, we shall let it rest. Slight as these notes have +been, I would that the great founder of the system had been alive to see +them. How he had warmed and brightened, how his persuasive eloquence +would have fallen on the ears of Toby; and what a letter of praise and +sympathy would not the editor have received before the month was out! +Alas, the thing was not to be. Walter Shandy died and was duly buried, +while yet his theory lay forgotten and neglected by his +fellow-countrymen. But, reader, the day will come, I hope, when a +paternal government will stamp out, as seeds of national weakness, all +depressing patronymics, and when godfathers and godmothers will soberly +and earnestly debate the interest of the nameless one, and not rush +blindfold to the christening. In these days there shall be written a +"Godfather's Assistant," in shape of a dictionary of names, with their +concomitant virtues and vices; and this book shall be scattered +broadcast through the land, and shall be on the table of every one +eligible for god-fathership, until such a thing as a vicious or untoward +appellation shall have ceased from off the face of the earth. + + + + +NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD + + + + +NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD + +I + +A RETROSPECT + +(_A Fragment: written at Dunoon, 1870_) + + +If there is anything that delights me in Hazlitt, beyond the charm of +style and the unconscious portrait of a vain and powerful spirit, which +his works present, it is the loving and tender way in which he returns +again to the memory of the past. These little recollections of bygone +happiness were too much a part of the man to be carelessly or poorly +told. The imaginary landscapes and visions of the most ecstatic dreamer +can never rival such recollections, told simply perhaps, but still told +(as they could not fail to be) with precision, delicacy, and evident +delight. They are too much loved by the author not to be palated by the +reader. But beyond the mere felicity of pencil, the nature of the piece +could never fail to move my heart. When I read his essay "On the Past +and Future," every word seemed to be something I had said myself. I +could have thought he had been eavesdropping at the doors of my heart, +so entire was the coincidence between his writing and my thought. It is +a sign perhaps of a somewhat vain disposition. The future is nothing; +but the past is myself, my own history, the seed of my present thoughts, +the mould of my present disposition. It is not in vain that I return to +the nothings of my childhood; for every one of them has left some stamp +upon me or put some fetter on my boasted free-will. In the past is my +present fate; and in the past also is my real life. It is not the past +only, but the past that has been many years in that tense. The doings +and actions of last year are as uninteresting and vague to me as the +blank gulf of the future, the _tabula rasa_ that may never be anything +else. I remember a confused hotch-potch of unconnected events, a "chaos +without form, and void"; but nothing salient or striking rises from the +dead level of "flat, stale, and unprofitable" generality. When we are +looking at a landscape we think ourselves pleased; but it is only when +it comes back upon us by the fire o' nights that we can disentangle the +main charm from the thick of particulars. It is just so with what is +lately past. It is too much loaded with detail to be distinct; and the +canvas is too large for the eye to encompass. But this is no more the +case when our recollections have been strained long enough through the +hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen of so much thought, +the charm and comfort of so many a vigil. All that is worthless has been +sieved and sifted out of them. Nothing remains but the brightest lights +and the darkest shadows. When we see a mountain country near at hand, +the spurs and haunches crowd up in eager rivalry, and the whole range +seems to have shrugged its shoulders to its ears, till we cannot tell +the higher from the lower: but when we are far off, these lesser +prominences are melted back into the bosom of the rest, or have set +behind the round horizon of the plain, and the highest peaks stand forth +in lone and sovereign dignity against the sky. It is just the same with +our recollections. We require to draw back and shade our eyes before the +picture dawns upon us in full breadth and outline. Late years are still +in limbo to us; but the more distant past is all that we possess in +life, the corn already harvested and stored for ever in the grange of +memory. The doings of to-day at some future time will gain the required +offing; I shall learn to love the things of my adolescence, as Hazlitt +loved them, and as I love already the recollections of my childhood. +They will gather interest with every year. They will ripen in forgotten +corners of my memory; and some day I shall waken and find them vested +with new glory and new pleasantness. + +It is for stirring the chords of memory, then, that I love Hazlitt's +essays, and for the same reason (I remember) he himself threw in his +allegiance to Rousseau, saying of him, what was so true of his own +writings: "He seems to gather up the past moments of his being like +drops of honey-dew to distil some precious liquor from them; his +alternate pleasures and pains are the bead-roll that he tells over and +piously worships; he makes a rosary of the flowers of hope and fancy +that strewed his earliest years." How true are these words when applied +to himself! and how much I thank him that it was so! All my childhood is +a golden age to me. I have no recollection of bad weather. Except one or +two storms where grandeur had impressed itself on my mind, the whole +time seems steeped in sunshine. "_Et ego in Arcadia vixi_" would be no +empty boast upon my grave. If I desire to live long, it is that I may +have the more to look back upon. Even to one, like the unhappy Duchess, + + "Acquainted with sad misery + As the tamed galley-slave is with his oar," + +and seeing over the night of troubles no "lily-wristed morn" of hope +appear, a retrospect of even chequered and doubtful happiness in the +past may sweeten the bitterness of present tears. And here I may be +excused if I quote a passage from an unpublished drama (the unpublished +is perennial, I fancy) which the author believed was not all devoid of +the flavour of our elder dramatists. However this may be, it expresses +better than I could some further thoughts on this same subject. The +heroine is taken by a minister to the grave, where already some have +been recently buried, and where her sister's lover is destined to +rejoin them on the following day.[37] + + * * * * * + +What led me to the consideration of this subject, and what has made me +take up my pen to-night, is the rather strange coincidence of two very +different accidents--a prophecy of my future and a return into my past. +No later than yesterday, seated in the coffee-room here, there came into +the tap of the hotel a poor mad Highland woman. The noise of her +strained, thin voice brought me out to see her. I could conceive that +she had been pretty once, but that was many years ago. She was now +withered and fallen-looking. Her hair was thin and straggling, her dress +poor and scanty. Her moods changed as rapidly as a weathercock before a +thunderstorm. One moment she said her "mutch" was the only thing that +gave her comfort, and the next she slackened the strings and let it back +upon her neck, in a passion at it for making her too hot. Her talk was a +wild, somewhat weird, farrago of utterly meaningless balderdash, mere +inarticulate gabble, snatches of old Jacobite ballads and exaggerated +phrases from the drama, to which she suited equally exaggerated action. +She "babbled of green fields" and Highland glens; she prophesied "the +drawing of the claymore," with a lofty disregard of cause or +common-sense; and she broke out suddenly, with uplifted hands and eyes, +into ecstatic "Heaven bless hims!" and "Heaven forgive hims!" She had +been a camp-follower in her younger days, and she was never tired of +expatiating on the gallantry, the fame, and the beauty of the 42nd +Highlanders. Her patriotism knew no bounds, and her prolixity was much +on the same scale. This Witch of Endor offered to tell my fortune, with +much dignity and proper oracular enunciation. But on my holding forth my +hand a somewhat ludicrous incident occurred. "Na, na," she said; "wait +till I have a draw of my pipe." Down she sat in the corner, puffing +vigorously and regaling the lady behind the counter with conversation +more remarkable for stinging satire than prophetic dignity. The person +in question had "mair weeg than hair on her head" (did not the chignon +plead guilty at these words?)--"wad be better if she had less +tongue"--and would come at last to the grave, a goal which, in a few +words, she invested with "warning circumstance" enough to make a Stoic +shudder. Suddenly, in the midst of this, she rose up and beckoned me to +approach. The oracles of my Highland sorceress had no claim to +consideration except in the matter of obscurity. In "question hard and +sentence intricate" she beat the priests of Delphi; in bold, unvarnished +falsity (as regards the past) even spirit-rapping was a child to her. +All that I could gather may be thus summed up shortly: that I was to +visit America, that I was to be very happy, and that I was to be much +upon the sea, predictions which, in consideration of an uneasy stomach, +I can scarcely think agreeable with one another. Two incidents alone +relieved the dead level of idiocy and incomprehensible gabble. The first +was the comical announcement that "when I drew fish to the Marquis of +Bute, I should take care of my sweetheart," from which I deduce the fact +that at some period of my life I shall drive a fishmonger's cart. The +second, in the middle of such nonsense, had a touch of the tragic. She +suddenly looked at me with an eager glance, and dropped my hand saying, +in what were tones of misery or a very good affectation of them, "Black +eyes!" A moment after she was at work again. It is as well to mention +that I have not black eyes.[38] + +This incident, strangely blended of the pathetic and the ludicrous, set +my mind at work upon the future; but I could find little interest in the +study. Even the predictions of my sibyl failed to allure me, nor could +life's prospect charm and detain my attention like its retrospect. + +Not far from Dunoon is Rosemore, a house in which I had spent a week or +so in my very distant childhood, how distant I have no idea; and one may +easily conceive how I looked forward to revisiting this place and so +renewing contact with my former self. I was under necessity to be early +up, and under necessity also, in the teeth of a bitter spring +north-easter, to clothe myself warmly on the morning of my long-promised +excursion. The day was as bright as it was cold. Vast irregular masses +of white and purple cumulus drifted rapidly over the sky. The great +hills, brown with the bloomless heather, were here and there buried in +blue shadows, and streaked here and there with sharp stripes of sun. The +new-fired larches were green in the glens; and "pale primroses" hid +themselves in mossy hollows and under hawthorn roots. All these things +were new to me; for I had noticed none of these beauties in my younger +days, neither the larch woods, nor the winding road edged in between +field and flood, nor the broad, ruffled bosom of the hill-surrounded +loch. It was, above all, the height of these hills that astonished me. I +remembered the existence of hills, certainly, but the picture in my +memory was low, featureless, and uninteresting. They seemed to have kept +pace with me in my growth, but to a gigantic scale; and the villas that +I remembered as half-way up the slope seemed to have been left behind +like myself, and now only ringed their mighty feet, white among the +newly kindled woods. As I felt myself on the road at last that I had +been dreaming for these many days before, a perfect intoxication of joy +took hold upon me; and I was so pleased at my own happiness that I could +let none past me till I had taken them into my confidence. I asked my +way from every one, and took good care to let them all know, before +they left me, what my object was, and how many years had elapsed since +my last visit. I wonder what the good folk thought of me and my +communications. + +At last, however, after much inquiry, I arrive at the place, make my +peace with the gardener, and enter. My disillusion dates from the +opening of the garden door. I repine, I find a reluctation of spirit +against believing that this is the place. What, is this kailyard that +inexhaustible paradise of a garden in which M---- and I found +"elbow-room," and expatiated together without sensible constraint? Is +that little turfed slope the huge and perilous green bank down which I +counted it a feat, and the gardener a sin, to run? Are these two squares +of stone, some two feet high, the pedestals on which I walked with such +a penetrating sense of dizzy elevation, and which I had expected to find +on a level with my eyes? Ay, the place is no more like what I expected +than this bleak April day is like the glorious September with which it +is incorporated in my memory. I look at the gardener, disappointment in +my face, and tell him that the place seems sorrily shrunken from the +high estate that it had held in my remembrance, and he returns, with +quiet laughter, by asking me how long it is since I was there. I tell +him, and he remembers me. Ah! I say, I was a great nuisance, I believe. +But no, my good gardener will plead guilty to having kept no record of +my evil-doings, and I find myself much softened toward the place and +willing to take a kinder view and pardon its shortcomings for the sake +of the gardener and his pretended recollection of myself. And it is just +at this stage (to complete my re-establishment) that I see a little +boy--the gardener's grandchild--just about the same age and the same +height that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first +feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I +had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but +next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the +throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join +conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the +gardener is opportunely gone for the key of the house. But the child is +a sort of homily to me. He is perfectly quiet and resigned, an +unconscious hermit. I ask him jocularly if he gets as much abused as I +used to do for running down the bank; but the child's perfect +seriousness of answer staggers me--"O no, grandpapa doesn't allow +it--why should he?" I feel caught: I stand abashed at the reproof; I +must not expose my childishness again to this youthful disciplinarian, +and so I ask him very stately what he is going to be--a good serious +practical question, out of delicacy for his parts. He answers that he is +going to be a missionary to China, and tells me how a missionary once +took him on his knee and told him about missionary work, and asked him +if he, too, would not like to become one, to which the child had simply +answered in the affirmative. The child is altogether so different from +what I have been, is so absolutely complementary to what I now am, that +I turn away not a little abashed from the conversation, for there is +always something painful in sudden contact with the good qualities that +we do not possess. Just then the grandfather returns; and I go with him +to the summer-house, where I used to learn my Catechism, to the wall on +which M----and I thought it no small exploit to walk upon, and all the +other places that I remembered. + +In fine, the matter being ended, I turn and go my way home to the hotel, +where, in the cold afternoon, I write these notes with the table and +chair drawn as near the fire as the rug and the French polish will +permit. + +One other thing I may as well make a note of, and that is how there +arises that strange contradiction of the hills being higher than I had +expected and everything near at hand being so ridiculously smaller. This +is a question I think easily answered: the very terms of the problem +suggest the solution. To everything near at hand I applied my own +stature, as a sort of natural unit of measurement, so that I had no +actual image of their dimensions but their ratio to myself; so, of +course, as one term of the proportion changed, the other changed +likewise, and as my own height increased my notion of things near at +hand became equally expanded. But the hills, mark you, were out of my +reach: I could not apply myself to them: I had an actual, instead of a +proportional eidolon of their magnitude; so that, of course (my eye +being larger and flatter nowadays, and so the image presented to me then +being in sober earnest smaller than the image presented to me now), I +found the hills nearly as much too great as I had found the other things +too small. + + * * * * * + +[_Added the next morning_.]--He who indulges habitually in the +intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for the very reason that he reaps +a greater pleasure than others, must resign himself to a keener pain, a +more intolerable and utter prostration. It is quite possible, and even +comparatively easy, so to enfold oneself in pleasant fancies that the +realities of life may seem but as the white snow-shower in the street, +that only gives a relish to the swept hearth and lively fire within. By +such means I have forgotten hunger, I have sometimes eased pain, and I +have invariably changed into the most pleasant hours of the day those +very vacant and idle seasons which would otherwise have hung most +heavily upon my hand. But all this is attained by the undue prominence +of purely imaginative joys, and consequently the weakening and almost +the destruction of reality. This is buying at too great a price. There +are seasons when the imagination becomes somehow tranced and surfeited, +as it is with me this morning; and then upon what can we fall back? The +very faculty that we have fostered and trusted has failed us in the hour +of trial; and we have so blunted and enfeebled our appetite for the +others that they are subjectively dead to us. It is just as though a +farmer should plant all his fields in potatoes, instead of varying them +with grain and pasture; and so, when the disease comes, lose all his +harvest, while his neighbours, perhaps, may balance the profit and the +loss. Do not suppose that I am exaggerating when I talk about all +pleasures seeming stale. To me, at least, the edge of almost everything +is put on by imagination; and even nature, in these days when the fancy +is drugged and useless, wants half the charm it has in better moments. I +can no longer see satyrs in the thicket, or picture a highwayman riding +down the lane. The fiat of indifference has gone forth: I am vacant, +unprofitable: a leaf on a river with no volition and no aim: a mental +drunkard the morning after an intellectual debauch. Yes, I have a more +subtle opium in my own mind than any apothecary's drug; but it has a +sting of its own, and leaves me as flat and helpless as does the other. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [37] The quotation here promised from one of the author's own early + dramatic efforts (a tragedy of Semiramis) is not supplied in the + MS.--[SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE.] + + [38] "The old pythoness was right," adds the author in a note appended + to his MS. in 1887; "I have been happy: I did go to America (am even + going again--unless----): and I have been twice and once upon the + deep." The seafaring part of the prophecy remained to be fulfilled + on a far more extended scale in his Pacific voyages of + 1888-90.--[SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE.] + + + + +II + +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK + +(_A Fragment_: 1871) + + +Very much as a painter half closes his eyes so that some salient unity +may disengage itself from among the crowd of details, and what he sees +may thus form itself into a whole; very much on the same principle, I +may say, I allow a considerable lapse of time to intervene between any +of my little journeyings and the attempt to chronicle them. I cannot +describe a thing that is before me at the moment, or that has been +before me only a very little while before; I must allow my recollections +to get thoroughly strained free from all chaff till nothing be except +the pure gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable by +a process of natural selection; and I piously believe that in this way +I ensure the Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for future use, or +if I am obliged to write letters during the course of my little +excursion, I so interfere with the process that I can never again find +out what is worthy of being preserved, or what should be given in full +length, what in torso, or what merely in profile. This process of +incubation may be unreasonably prolonged; and I am somewhat afraid that +I have made this mistake with the present journey. Like a bad +daguerreotype, great part of it has been entirely lost; I can tell you +nothing about the beginning and nothing about the end; but the doings of +some fifty or sixty hours about the middle remain quite distinct and +definite, like a little patch of sunshine on a long, shadowy plain, or +the one spot on an old picture that has been restored by the dexterous +hand of the cleaner. I remember a tale of an old Scots minister, called +upon suddenly to preach, who had hastily snatched an old sermon out of +his study and found himself in the pulpit before he noticed that the +rats had been making free with his manuscript and eaten the first two or +three pages away; he gravely explained to the congregation how he found +himself situated; "And now," said he, "let us just begin where the rats +have left off." I must follow the divine's example, and take up the +thread of my discourse where it first distinctly issues from the limbo +of forgetfulness. + + +COCKERMOUTH + +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and +did not raise my head until I was fairly in the street. When I did so, +it flashed upon me that I was in England; the evening sunlight lit up +English houses, English faces, an English conformation of street,--as it +were, an English atmosphere blew against my face. There is nothing +perhaps more puzzling (if one thing in sociology can ever really be more +unaccountable than another) than the great gulf that is set between +England and Scotland--a gulf so easy in appearance, in reality so +difficult to traverse. Here are two people almost identical in blood; +pent up together on one small island, so that their intercourse (one +would have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners who shared one +cell of the Bastille; the same in language and religion; and yet a few +years of quarrelsome isolation--a mere forenoon's tiff, as one may call +it, in comparison with the great historical cycles--has so separated +their thoughts and ways that not unions, not mutual dangers, nor +steamers, nor railways, nor all the king's horses and all the king's +men, seem able to obliterate the broad distinction. In the trituration +of another century or so the corners may disappear; but in the meantime, +in the year of grace 1871, I was as much in a new country as if I had +been walking out of the Hotel St. Antoine at Antwerp. + +I felt a little thrill of pleasure at my heart as I realised the change, +and strolled away up the street with my hands behind my back, noting in +a dull, sensual way how foreign, and yet how friendly, were the slopes +of the gables and the colour of the tiles, and even the demeanour and +voices of the gossips round about me. + +Wandering in this aimless humour, I turned up a lane and found myself +following the course of the bright little river. I passed first one and +then another, then a third, several couples out love-making in the +spring evening; and a consequent feeling of loneliness was beginning to +grow upon me, when I came to a dam across the river, and a mill--a +great, gaunt promontory of building,--half on dry ground and half arched +over the stream. The road here drew in its shoulders, and crept through +between the landward extremity of the mill and a little garden +enclosure, with a small house and a large signboard within its privet +hedge. I was pleased to fancy this an inn, and drew little etchings in +fancy of a sanded parlour, and three-cornered spittoons, and a society +of parochial gossips seated within over their churchwardens; but as I +drew near, the board displayed its superscription, and I could read the +name of Smethurst, and the designation of "Canadian Felt Hat +Manufacturers." There was no more hope of evening fellowship, and I +could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. The water was +dappled with slanting sunshine, and dusted all over with a little mist +of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, also, whose +love-making reminded me of what I had seen a little farther down. But +the road grew sad, and I grew weary; and as I was perpetually haunted +with the terror of a return of the tic that had been playing such ruin +in my head a week ago, I turned and went back to the inn, and supper, +and my bed. + +The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated to the smart waitress my +intention of continuing down the coast and through Whitehaven to +Furness, and, as I might have expected, I was instantly confronted by +that last and most worrying form of interference, that chooses to +introduce tradition and authority into the choice of a man's own +pleasures. I can excuse a person combating my religious or philosophical +heresies, because them I have deliberately accepted, and am ready to +justify by present argument. But I do not seek to justify my pleasures. +If I prefer tame scenery to grand, a little hot sunshine over lowland +parks and woodlands to the war of the elements round the summit of Mont +Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of mild tobacco, and the company of one or +two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, +and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, and do not seek to +establish them as principles. This is not the general rule, however, and +accordingly the waitress was shocked, as one might be at a heresy, to +hear the route that I had sketched out for myself. Everybody who came to +Cockermouth for pleasure, it appeared, went on to Keswick. It was in +vain that I put up a little plea for the liberty of the subject; it was +in vain that I said I should prefer to go to Whitehaven. I was told that +there was "nothing to see there"--that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; +and at last, as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave +way, as men always do in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to +leave for Keswick by a train in the early evening. + + +AN EVANGELIST + +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a place with "nothing to +see"; nevertheless I saw a good deal, and retain a pleasant, vague +picture of the town and all its surroundings. I might have dodged +happily enough all day about the main street and up to the castle and in +and out of byways, but the curious attraction that leads a person in a +strange place to follow, day after day, the same round, and to make set +habits for himself in a week or ten days, led me half unconsciously up +the same road that I had gone the evening before. When I came up to the +hat manufactory, Smethurst himself was standing in the garden gate. He +was brushing one Canadian felt hat, and several others had been put to +await their turn one above the other on his own head, so that he looked +something like the typical Jew old-clothesman. As I drew near, he came +sidling out of the doorway to accost me, with so curious an expression +on his face that I instinctively prepared myself to apologise for some +unwitting trespass. His first question rather confirmed me in this +belief, for it was whether or not he had seen me going up this way last +night; and after having answered in the affirmative, I waited in some +alarm for the rest of my indictment. But the good man's heart was full +of peace; and he stood there brushing his hats and prattling on about +fishing, and walking, and the pleasures of convalescence, in a bright +shallow stream that kept me pleased and interested, I could scarcely say +how. As he went on, he warmed to his subject, and laid his hats aside to +go along the water-side and show me where the large trout commonly lay, +underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much disappointed, for my +sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to +another tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in +the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if +not me, some friend of mine--merely, I believe, out of a desire that we +should feel more friendly and at our ease with one another. At last he +made a little speech to me, of which I wish I could recollect the very +words, for they were so simple and unaffected that they put all the best +writing and speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the +sense, and that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that he had +little things in his past life that it gave him especial pleasure to +recall; and that the faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now +died out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and +active. Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river +above the dam which he was going to lend me, in order that I might be +able to look back, in after years, upon having done so, and get great +pleasure from the recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who will +forego present enjoyments and suffer much present inconvenience for the +sake of manufacturing "a reminiscence" for himself; but there was +something singularly refined in this pleasure that the hatmaker found in +making reminiscences for others; surely no more simple or unselfish +luxury can be imagined. After he had unmoored his little embarkation, +and seen me safely shoved off into mid-stream, he ran away back to his +hats with the air of a man who had only just recollected that he had +anything to do. + +I did not stay very long on the raft. It ought to have been very nice +punting about there in the cool shade of the trees, or sitting moored to +an overhanging root; but perhaps the very notion that I was bound in +gratitude specially to enjoy my little cruise, and cherish its +recollection, turned the whole thing from a pleasure into a duty. Be +that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore +again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself and +his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than +anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. In +order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself for +having failed to enjoy this treat sufficiently, I determined to continue +up the river, and, at all prices, to find some other way back into the +town in time for dinner. As I went, I was thinking of Smethurst with +admiration; a look into that man's mind was like a retrospect over the +smiling champaign of his past life, and very different from the +Sinai-gorges up which one looks for a terrified moment into the dark +souls of many good, many wise, and many prudent men. I cannot be very +grateful to such men for their excellence, and wisdom, and prudence. I +find myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, full +of doubt, difficulties, defeats, disappointments, and dangers, quite a +hard enough life without their dark countenances at my elbow, so that +what I want is a happy-minded Smethurst placed here and there at ugly +corners of my life's wayside, preaching his gospel of quiet and +contentment. + + +ANOTHER + +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After I had +forced my way through a gentleman's grounds, I came out on the high +road, and sat down to rest myself on a heap of stones at the top of a +long hill, with Cockermouth lying snugly at the bottom. An Irish +beggar-woman, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came up to ask +for alms, and gradually fell to telling me the little tragedy of her +life. Her own sister, she told me, had seduced her husband from her +after many years of married life, and the pair had fled, leaving her +destitute, with the little girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful +and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the loss of her +husband's earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of his +affection; some day she would meet the fugitives, and the law would see +her duly righted, and in the meantime the smallest contribution was +gratefully received. While she was telling all this in the most +matter-of-fact way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall man, with +a high white hat and darkish clothes. He came up the hill at a rapid +pace, and joined our little group with a sort of half salutation. +Turning at once to the woman, he asked her in a business-like way +whether she had anything to do, whether she were a Catholic or a +Protestant, whether she could read, and so forth; and then, after a few +kind words and some sweeties to the child, he despatched the mother with +some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman's Bible. I was +a little amused at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and +had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he tackled me with great +solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, for I do not think it was +very wise; but the subject does not appear to me just now in a jesting +light, so I shall only say that he related to me his own conversion, +which had been effected (as is very often the case) through the agency +of a gig accident, and that, after having examined me and diagnosed my +case, he selected some suitable tracts from his repertory, gave them to +me, and, bidding me God-speed, went on his way. + + +LAST OF SMETHURST + +That evening I got into a third-class carriage on my way for Keswick, +and was followed almost immediately by a burly man in brown clothes. +This fellow-passenger was seemingly ill at ease, and kept continually +putting his head out of the window, and asking the bystanders if they +saw _him_ coming. At last, when the train was already in motion, there +was a commotion on the platform, and a way was left clear to our +carriage door. _He_ had arrived. In the hurry I could just see +Smethurst, red and panting, thrust a couple of clay pipes into my +companion's outstretched hand, and hear him crying his farewells after +us as we slipped out of the station at an ever accelerating pace. I said +something about its being a close run, and the broad man, already +engaged in filling one of the pipes, assented, and went on to tell me of +his own stupidity in forgetting a necessary, and of how his friend had +good-naturedly gone down town at the last moment to supply the omission. +I mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst already, and that he had been +very polite to me; and we fell into a discussion of the hatter's merits +that lasted some time and left us quite good friends at its conclusion. +The topic was productive of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked +about the season, and agreed at last that we should go to the same hotel +at Keswick and sup in company. As he had some business in the town which +would occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the +time and go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised +wonders. + +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a place +where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went +along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew in gusts +from the far end of the lake. The sky was covered with flying scud; and, +as this was ragged, there was quite a wild chase of shadow and +moon-glimpse over the surface of the shuddering water. I had to hold my +hat on, and was growing rather tired, and inclined to go back in +disgust, when a little incident occurred to break the tedium. A sudden +and violent squall of wind sundered the low underwood, and at the same +time there came one of those brief discharges of moonlight, which leaped +into the opening thus made, and showed me three girls in the prettiest +flutter and disorder. It was as though they had sprung out of the +ground. I accosted them very politely in my capacity of stranger, and +requested to be told the names of all manner of hills and woods and +places that I did not wish to know, and we stood together for a while +and had an amusing little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the +party, brought the colour into their faces, and gave them enough to do +to repress their drapery; and one of them, amid much giggling, had to +pirouette round and round upon her toes (as girls do) when some +specially strong gust had got the advantage over her. They were just +high enough up in the social order not to be afraid to speak to a +gentleman; and just low enough to feel a little tremor, a nervous +consciousness of wrong-doing--of stolen waters, that gave a considerable +zest to our most innocent interview. They were as much discomposed and +fluttered, indeed, as if I had been a wicked baron proposing to elope +with the whole trio; but they showed no inclination to go away, and I +had managed to get them off hills and waterfalls and on to more +promising subjects, when a young man was descried coming along the path +from the direction of Keswick. Now whether he was the young man of one +of my friends, or the brother of one of them, or indeed the brother of +all, I do not know; but they incontinently said that they must be going, +and went away up the path with friendly salutations. I need not say that +I found the lake and the moonlight rather dull after their departure and +speedily found my way back to potted herrings and whisky-and-water in +the commercial room with my late fellow-traveller. In the smoking-room +there was a tall dark man with a moustache, in an ulster coat, who had +got the best place and was monopolising most of the talk; and, as I came +in, a whisper came round to me from both sides, that this was the +manager of a London theatre. The presence of such a man was a great +event for Keswick, and I must own that the manager showed himself equal +to his position. He had a large fat pocket-book, from which he produced +poem after poem, written on the backs of letters or hotel-bills; and +nothing could be more humorous than his recitation of these elegant +extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with which he varied the +entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, something less countrified in my +appearance than in most of the company, he singled me out to +corroborate some statements as to the depravity and vice of the +aristocracy, and when he went on to describe some gilded saloon +experiences, I am proud to say that he honoured my sagacity with one +little covert wink before a second time appealing to me for +confirmation. The wink was not thrown away; I went in up to the elbows +with the manager, until I think that some of the glory of that great man +settled by reflection upon me, and that I was as noticeably the second +person in the smoking-room as he was the first. For a young man, this +was a position of some distinction, I think you will admit.... + + + + +III + +ROADS + +(1873) + + +No amateur will deny that he can find more pleasure in a single drawing, +over which he can sit a whole quiet forenoon, and so gradually study +himself into humour with the artist, than he can ever extract from the +dazzle and accumulation of incongruous impressions that send him, weary +and stupefied, out of some famous picture-gallery. But what is thus +admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural +beauties: no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or the graces +of cultivated lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or +degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that moderation, +and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are not healthful and +strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of +nature is not to be found in one of those countries where there is no +stage effect--nothing salient or sudden,--but a quiet spirit of orderly +and harmonious beauty pervades all the details, so that we can +patiently attend to each of the little touches that strike in us, all of +them together, the subdued note of the landscape. It is in scenery such +as this that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small +sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence of similar combinations +of colour and outline gradually forces upon us a sense of how the +harmony has been built up, and we become familiar with something of +nature's mannerism. This is the true pleasure of your "rural +voluptuary,"--not to remain awe-stricken before a Mount Chimborazo; not +to sit deafened over the big drum in the orchestra, but day by day to +teach himself some new beauty--to experience some new vague and tranquil +sensation that has before evaded him. It is not the people who "have +pined and hungered after nature many a year, in the great city pent," as +Coleridge said in the poem that made Charles Lamb so much ashamed of +himself; it is not those who make the greatest progress in this intimacy +with her, or who are most quick to see and have the greatest gusto to +enjoy. In this, as in everything else, it is minute knowledge and +long-continued loving industry that make the true dilettante. A man must +have thought much over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. It is +no youngling enthusiasm on hill-tops that can possess itself of the last +essence of beauty. Probably most people's heads are growing bare before +they can see all in a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; +and, even then, it will be only for one little moment of consummation +before the faculties are again on the decline, and they that look out of +the windows begin to be darkened and restrained in sight. Thus the study +of nature should be carried forward thoroughly and with system. Every +gratification should be rolled long under the tongue, and we should be +always eager to analyse and compare, in order that we may be able to +give some plausible reason for our admirations. True, it is difficult to +put even approximately into words the kind of feelings thus called into +play. There is a dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual +refining upon vague sensation. The analysis of such satisfactions lends +itself very readily to literary affectations; and we can all think of +instances where it has shown itself apt to exercise a morbid influence, +even upon an author's choice of language and the turn of his sentences. +And yet there is much that makes the attempt attractive; for any +expression, however imperfect, once given to a cherished feeling, seems +a sort of legitimation of the pleasure we take in it. A common sentiment +is one of those great goods that make life palatable and ever new. The +knowledge that another has felt as we have felt, and seen things, even +if they are little things, not much otherwise than we have seen them, +will continue to the end to be one of life's choicest pleasures. + +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit we have recommended +to some of the quieter kinds of English landscape. In those homely and +placid agricultural districts, familiarity will bring into relief many +things worthy of notice, and urge them pleasantly home to him by a sort +of loving repetition; such as the wonderful life-giving speed of +windmill sails above the stationary country; the occurrence and +recurrence of the same church tower at the end of one long vista after +another; and, conspicuous among these sources of quiet pleasure, the +character and variety of the road itself, along which he takes his way. +Not only near at hand, in the lithe contortions with which it adapts +itself to the interchanges of level and slope, but far away also, when +he sees a few hundred feet of it upheaved against a hill and shining in +the afternoon sun, he will find it an object so changeful and enlivening +that he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may leave the +river-side, or fall out of the way of villages, but the road he has +always with him; and, in the true humour of observation, will find in +that sufficient company. From its subtle windings and changes of level +there arises a keen and continuous interest, that keeps the attention +ever alert and cheerful. Every sensitive adjustment to the contour of +the ground, every little dip and swerve, seems instinct with life and +an exquisite sense of balance and beauty. The road rolls upon the easy +slopes of the country, like a long ship in the hollows of the sea. The +very margins of waste ground, as they trench a little farther on the +beaten way, or recede again to the shelter of the hedge, have something +of the same free delicacy of line--of the same swing and wilfulness. You +might think for a whole summer's day (and not have thought it any nearer +an end by evening) what concourse and succession of circumstances has +produced the least of these deflections; and it is, perhaps, just in +this that we should look for the secret of their interest. A footpath +across a meadow--in all its human waywardness and unaccountability, in +all the _grata protervitas_ of its varying direction--will always be +more to us than a railroad well engineered through a difficult +country.[39] No reasoned sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem +to have slipped for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule of +cause and effect; and so we revert at once to some of the pleasant old +heresies of personification, always poetically orthodox, and attribute a +sort of free will, an active and spontaneous life, to the white riband +of road that lengthens out, and bends, and cunningly adapts itself to +the inequalities of the land before our eyes. We remember, as we write, +some miles of fine wide highway laid out with conscious aesthetic +artifice through a broken and richly cultivated tract of country. It is +said that the engineer had Hogarth's line of beauty in his mind as he +laid them down. And the result is striking. One splendid satisfying +sweep passes with easy transition into another, and there is nothing to +trouble or dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the +road. And yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving +imperfection, none of these secondary curves and little trepidations of +direction that carry, in natural roads, our curiosity actively along +with them. One feels at once that this road has not grown like a natural +road, but has been laboriously made to pattern; and that, while a model +may be academically correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and +cold. The traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself +and the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into +heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes like a +trodden serpent: here we too must plod forward at a dull, laborious +pace; and so a sympathy is preserved between our frame of mind and the +expression of the relaxed, heavy curves of the roadway. Such a +phenomenon, indeed, our reason might perhaps resolve with a little +trouble. We might reflect that the present road had been developed out +of a track spontaneously followed by generations of primitive wayfarers; +and might see in its expression a testimony that those generations had +been affected at the same ground, one after another, in the same manner +as we are affected to-day. Or we might carry the reflection further, and +remind ourselves that where the air is invigorating and the ground firm +under the traveller's foot, his eye is quick to take advantage of small +undulations, and he will turn carelessly aside from the direct way +wherever there is anything beautiful to examine or some promise of a +wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may permanently bias and +deform the straight path over the meadow; whereas, where the soil is +heavy, one is preoccupied with the labour of mere progression, and goes +with a bowed head heavily and unobservantly forward. Reason, however, +will not carry us the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in +situations where it is very hard to imagine any possible explanation; +and indeed, if we drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open +vehicle, we shall experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We +feel the sharp settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner; +after a steep ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle +precipitately down the other side, and we find It difficult to avoid +attributing something headlong, a sort of _abandon_, to the road itself. + +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven a long day's walk in +even a commonplace or dreary country-side. Something that we have seen +from miles back, upon an eminence, is so long hid from us, as we wander +through folded valleys or among woods, that our expectation of seeing it +again is sharpened into a violent appetite, and as we draw nearer we +impatiently quicken our steps and turn every corner with a beating +heart. It is through these prolongations of expectancy, this succession +of one hope to another, that we live out long seasons of pleasure in a +few hours' walk. It is in following these capricious sinuosities that we +learn, only bit by bit and through one coquettish reticence after +another, much as we learn the heart of a friend, the whole loveliness of +the country. This disposition always preserves something new to be seen, +and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to many different points of +distant view before it allows us finally to approach the hoped-for +destination. + +In its connection with the traffic, and whole friendly intercourse with +the country, there is something very pleasant in that succession of +saunterers and brisk and business-like passers-by, that peoples our ways +and helps to build up what Walt Whitman calls "the cheerful voice of the +public road, the gay, fresh sentiment of the road." But out of the great +network of ways that binds all life together from the hill-farm to the +city, there is something individual to most, and, on the whole, nearly +as much choice on the score of company as on the score of beauty or easy +travel. On some we are never long without the sound of wheels, and folk +pass us by so thickly that we lose the sense of their number. But on +others, about little-frequented districts, a meeting is an affair of +moment; we have the sight far off of some one coming towards us, the +growing definiteness of the person, and then the brief passage and +salutation, and the road left empty in front of us for perhaps a great +while to come. Such encounters have a wistful interest that can hardly +be understood by the dweller in places more populous. We remember +standing beside a countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in +a city that was more than ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed +stunned and bewildered by the continual passage of different faces; and +after a long pause, during which he appeared to search for some suitable +expression, he said timidly that there seemed to be a _great deal of +meeting thereabouts_. The phrase is significant. It is the expression of +town-life in the language of the long, solitary country highways. A +meeting of one with one was what this man had been used to in the +pastoral uplands from which he came; and the concourse of the streets +was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication of such "meetings." + +And now we come to that last and most subtle quality of all, to that +sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so powerfully to our +minds by a road. In real nature as well as in old landscapes, beneath +that impartial daylight in which a whole variegated plain is plunged and +saturated, the line of the road leads the eye forth with the vague sense +of desire up to the green limit of the horizon. Travel is brought home +to us, and we visit in spirit every grove and hamlet that tempts us in +the distance. _Sehnsucht_--the passion for what is ever beyond--is +livingly expressed in that white riband of possible travel that severs +the uneven country; not a ploughman following his plough up the shining +furrow, not the blue smoke of any cottage in a hollow, but is brought to +us with a sense of nearness and attainability by this wavering line of +junction. There is a passionate paragraph in Werther that strikes the +very key. "When I came hither," he writes, "how the beautiful valley +invited me on every side, as I gazed down into it from the hill-top! +There the wood--ah, that I might mingle in its shadows! there the +mountain summits--ah, that I might look down from them over the broad +country! the interlinked hills! the secret valleys! O, to lose myself +among their mysteries! I hurried into the midst, and came back without +finding aught I hoped for. Alas! the distance is like the future. A vast +whole lies in the twilight before our spirit; sight and feeling alike +plunge and lose themselves in the prospect, and we yearn to surrender +our whole being, and let it be filled full with all the rapture of one +single glorious sensation; and alas! when we hasten to the fruition, +when _there_ is changed to _here_, all is afterwards as it was before, +and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our soul thirsts +after a still ebbing elixir." It is to this wandering and uneasy spirit +of anticipation that roads minister. Every little vista, every little +glimpse that we have of what lies before us, gives the impatient +imagination rein, so that it can outstrip the body and already plunge +into the shadow of the woods, and overlook from the hilltop the plain +beyond it, and wander in the windings of the valleys that are still far +in front. The road is already there--we shall not be long behind. It is +as if we were marching with the rear of a great army, and, from far +before, heard the acclamation of the people as the vanguard entered some +friendly and jubilant city. Would not every man, through all the long +miles of march, feel as if he also were within the gates? + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [39] Compare Blake, in the "Marriage of Heaven and Hell": "Improvement + makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, + are roads of Genius." + + + + +IV + +NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN + +(1874) + + +I wish to direct the reader's attention to a certain quality in the +movements of children when young, which is somehow lovable in them, +although it would be even unpleasant in any grown person. Their +movements are not graceful, but they fall short of grace by something so +sweetly humorous that we only admire them the more. The imperfection is +so pretty and pathetic, and it gives so great a promise of something +different in the future, that it attracts us more than many forms of +beauty. They have something of the merit of a rough sketch by a master, +in which we pardon what is wanting or excessive for the sake of the very +bluntness and directness of the thing. It gives us pleasure to see the +beginning of gracious impulses and the springs of harmonious movement +laid bare to us with innocent simplicity. + +One night some ladies formed a sort of impromptu dancing-school in the +drawing-room of an hotel in France. One of the ladies led the ring, and +I can recall her as a model of accomplished, cultured movement. Two +little girls, about eight years old, were the pupils; that is an age of +great interest in girls, when natural grace comes to its consummation of +justice and purity, with little admixture of that other grace of +forethought and discipline that will shortly supersede it altogether. In +these two, particularly, the rhythm was sometimes broken by an excess of +energy, as though the pleasure of the music in their light bodies could +endure no longer the restraint of regulated dance. So that, between +these and the lady, there was not only some beginning of the very +contrast I wish to insist upon, but matter enough to set one thinking a +long while on the beauty of motion. I do not know that, here in England, +we have any good opportunity of seeing what that is; the generation of +British dancing men and women are certainly more remarkable for other +qualities than for grace: they are, many of them, very conscientious +artists, and give quite a serious regard to the technical parts of their +performance; but the spectacle, somehow, is not often beautiful, and +strikes no note of pleasure. If I had seen no more, therefore, this +evening might have remained in my memory as a rare experience. But the +best part of it was yet to come. For after the others had desisted, the +musician still continued to play, and a little button between two and +three years old came out into the cleared space and began to figure +before us as the music prompted. I had an opportunity of seeing her, not +on this night only, but on many subsequent nights; and the wonder and +comical admiration she inspired was only deepened as time went on. She +had an admirable musical ear; and each new melody, as it struck in her a +new humour, suggested wonderful combinations and variations of movement. +Now it would be a dance with which she would suit the music, now rather +an appropriate pantomime, and now a mere string of disconnected +attitudes. But whatever she did, she did it with the same verve and +gusto. The spirit of the air seemed to have entered into her, and to +possess her like a passion; and you could see her struggling to find +expression for the beauty that was in her against the inefficacy of the +dull, half-informed body. Though her footing was uneven, and her +gestures often ludicrously helpless, still the spectacle was not merely +amusing; and though subtle inspirations of movement miscarried in +tottering travesty, you could still see that they had been inspirations; +you could still see that she had set her heart on realising something +just and beautiful, and that, by the discipline of these abortive +efforts, she was making for herself in the future a quick, supple, and +obedient body. It was grace in the making. She was not to be daunted by +any merriment of people looking on critically; the music said something +to her, and her whole spirit was intent on what the music said: she must +carry out its suggestions, she must do her best to translate its +language into that other dialect of the modulated body into which it can +be translated most easily and fully. + +Just the other day I was witness to a second scene, in which the motive +was something similar; only this time with quite common children, and in +the familiar neighbourhood of Hampstead. A little congregation had +formed itself in the lane underneath my window, and was busy over a +skipping-rope. There were two sisters, from seven to nine perhaps, with +dark faces and dark hair, and slim, lithe, little figures clad in lilac +frocks. The elder of these two was mistress of the art of skipping. She +was just and adroit in every movement; the rope passed over her black +head and under her scarlet-stockinged legs with a precision and +regularity that was like machinery; but there was nothing mechanical in +the infinite variety and sweetness of her inclinations, and the +spontaneous agile flexure of her lean waist and hips. There was one +variation favourite with her, in which she crossed her hands before her +with a motion not unlike that of weaving, which was admirably intricate +and complete. And when the two took the rope together and whirled in and +out with occasional interruptions, there was something Italian in the +type of both--in the length of nose, in the slimness and accuracy of the +shapes--and something gay and harmonious in the double movement, that +added to the whole scene a southern element, and took me over sea and +land into distant and beautiful places. Nor was this impression lessened +when the elder girl took in her arms a fair-headed baby, while the +others held the rope for her, turned and gyrated, and went in and out +over it lightly, with a quiet regularity that seemed as if it might go +on for ever. Somehow, incongruous as was the occupation, she reminded me +of Italian Madonnas. And now, as before in the hotel drawing-room, the +humorous element was to be introduced; only this time it was in broad +farce. The funniest little girl, with a mottled complexion and a big, +damaged nose, and looking for all the world like any dirty, broken-nosed +doll in a nursery lumber-room, came forward to take her turn. While the +others swung the rope for her as gently as it could be done--a mere +mockery of movement--and playfully taunted her timidity, she passaged +backwards and forwards in a pretty flutter of indecision, putting up her +shoulders and laughing with the embarrassed laughter of children by the +water's edge, eager to bathe and yet fearful. There never was anything +at once so droll and so pathetic. One did not know whether to laugh or +to cry. And when at last she had made an end of all her deprecations and +drawings back, and summoned up heart enough to straddle over the rope, +one leg at a time, it was a sight to see her ruffle herself up like a +peacock and go away down the lane with her damaged nose, seeming to +think discretion the better part of valour, and rather uneasy lest they +should ask her to repeat the exploit. Much as I had enjoyed the grace of +the older girls, it was now just as it had been before in France, and +the clumsiness of the child seemed to have a significance and a sort of +beauty of its own, quite above this grace of the others in power to +affect the heart. I had looked on with a certain sense of balance and +completion at the silent, rapid, masterly evolutions of the eldest; I +had been pleased by these in the way of satisfaction. But when little +broken-nose began her pantomime of indecision I grew excited. There was +something quite fresh and poignant in the delight I took in her +imperfect movements. I remember, for instance, that I moved my own +shoulders, as if to imitate her; really, I suppose, with an inarticulate +wish to help her out. + +Now, there are many reasons why this gracelessness of young children +should be pretty and sympathetic to us. And, first, there is an interest +as of battle. It is in travail and laughable _fiasco_ that the young +school their bodies to beautiful expression, as they school their minds. +We seem, in watching them, to divine antagonists pitted one against the +other; and, as in other wars, so in this war of the intelligence against +the unwilling body, we do not wish to see even the cause of progress +triumph without some honourable toil; and we are so sure of the ultimate +result, that it pleases us to linger in pathetic sympathy over these +reverses of the early campaign, just as we do over the troubles that +environ the heroine of a novel on her way to the happy ending. Again, +people are very ready to disown the pleasure they take in a thing +merely because it is big, as an Alp, or merely because it is little, as +a little child; and yet this pleasure is surely as legitimate as +another. There is much of it here; we have an irrational indulgence for +small folk; we ask but little where there is so little to ask it of; we +cannot overcome our astonishment that they should be able to move at +all, and are interested in their movements somewhat as we are interested +in the movements of a puppet. And again, there is a prolongation of +expectancy when, as in these movements of children, we are kept +continually on the very point of attainment and ever turned away and +tantalised by some humorous imperfection. This is altogether absent in +the secure and accomplished movements of persons more fully grown. The +tight-rope walker does not walk so freely or so well as any one else can +walk upon a good road; and yet we like to watch him for the mere sake of +the difficulty; we like to see his vacillations; we like this last so +much even, that I am told a really artistic tight-rope walker must feign +to be troubled in his balance, even if he is not so really. And again, +we have in these baby efforts an assurance of spontaneity that we do not +have often. We know this at least certainly, that the child tries to +dance for its own pleasure, and not for any by-end of ostentation and +conformity. If we did not know it we should see it. There is a +sincerity, a directness, an impulsive truth, about their free gestures +that shows throughout all imperfection, and it is to us as a +reminiscence of primitive festivals and the Golden Age. Lastly, there is +in the sentiment much of a simple human compassion for creatures more +helpless than ourselves. One nearly ready to die is pathetic; and so is +one scarcely ready to live. In view of their future, our heart is +softened to these clumsy little ones. They will be more adroit when they +are not so happy. + +Unfortunately, then, this character that so much delights us is not one +that can be preserved by any plastic art. It turns, as we have seen, +upon consideration not really aesthetic. Art may deal with the slim +freedom of a few years later; but with this fettered impulse, with these +stammering motions, she is powerless to do more than stereotype what is +ungraceful, and, in the doing of it, lose all pathos and humanity. So +these humorous little ones must go away into the limbo of beautiful +things that are not beautiful for art, there to wait a more perfect age +before they sit for their portraits. + + + + +V + +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES + +(1874) + + +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we +have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one side +after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. A few +months ago some words were said in the _Portfolio_ as to an "austere +regimen in scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as +"healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the test, so to +speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be +understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet +the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, +and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we +see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the +ardour and patience of a botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we +perfect ourselves in the art of seeing nature more favourably. We learn +to live with her, as people learn to live with fretful or violent +spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut our eyes against +all that is bleak or inharmonious. We learn, also, to come to each +place in the right spirit. The traveller, as Brantome quaintly tells us, +"_fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin_"; and into these +discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by +the way; they take their tone greatly from the varying character of the +scene; a sharp ascent brings different thoughts from a level road; and +the man's fancies grow lighter as he comes out of the wood into a +clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the +thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our humours as +through differently-coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the +equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at +will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves +sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we +are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable +sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of +beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle and sincere +character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in others. And even +where there is no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most +obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a place with some attraction +of romance. We may learn to go far afield for associations, and handle +them lightly when we have found them. Sometimes an old print comes to +our aid; I have seen many a spot lit up at once with picturesque +imaginations, by a reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. +Dick Turpin has been my lay figure for many an English lane. And I +suppose the Trossachs would hardly be the Trossachs for most tourists if +a man of admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with +harmonious figures, and brought them thither with minds rightly prepared +for the impression. There is half the battle in this preparation. For +instance: I have rarely been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the +wild and inhospitable places of our own Highlands. I am happier where it +is tame and fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I +understand that there are some phases of mental trouble that harmonise +well with such surroundings, and that some persons, by the dispensing +power of the imagination, can go back several centuries in spirit, and +put themselves into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsociable way +of life that was in its place upon these savage hills. Now, when I am +sad, I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before +Saul; and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me but an +unpleasant pity; so that I can never hit on the right humour for this +sort of landscape, and lose much pleasure in consequence. Still, even +here, if I were only let alone, and time enough were given, I should +have all manner of pleasures, and take many clear and beautiful images +away with me when I left. When we cannot think ourselves into sympathy +with the great features of a country, we learn to ignore them, and put +our head among the grass for flowers, or pore, for long times together, +over the changeful current of a stream. We come down to the sermon in +stones, when we are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. We +begin to peep and botanise, we take an interest in birds and insects, we +find many things beautiful in miniature. The reader will recollect the +little summer scene in "Wuthering Heights"--the one warm scene, perhaps, +in all that powerful, miserable novel--and the great feature that is +made therein by grasses and flowers and a little sunshine: this is in +the spirit of which I now speak. And, lastly, we can go indoors; +interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more picturesque, than the +shows of the open air, and they have that quality of shelter of which I +shall presently have more to say. + +With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth the +paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, while it is +only in a few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few hours +agreeably. For, if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the +neighbourhood. Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about +uninteresting corners. We forget to some degree the superior loveliness +of other places, and fall into a tolerant and sympathetic spirit which +is its own reward and justification. Looking back the other day on some +recollections of my own, I was astonished to find how much I owed to +such a residence; six weeks in one unpleasant country-side had done +more, it seemed, to quicken and educate my sensibilities than many years +in places that jumped more nearly with my inclination. + +The country to which I refer was a level and treeless plateau over which +the winds cut like a whip. For miles on miles it was the same. A river, +indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I resided; but the valley +of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the heart +to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no beauty +or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little irregularity of +surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: +there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to see by +the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here +and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; and you were only +accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt telegraph-posts +and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. To one who had +learned to know their song in warm pleasant places by the Mediterranean, +it seemed to taunt the country, and make it still bleaker by suggested +contrast. Even the waste places by the side of the road were not, as +Hawthorne liked to put it, "taken back to Nature" by any decent covering +of vegetation. Wherever the land had the chance, it seemed to lie +fallow. There is a certain tawny nudity of the South, bare sun-burnt +plains, coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only in the blue +transparent air; but this was of another description--this was the +nakedness of the North; the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and +was ashamed and cold. + +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had passed +into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other when +they met with "Breezy, breezy," instead of the customary "Fine day" of +farther south. These continual winds were not like the harvest breeze, +that just keeps an equable pressure against your face as you walk, and +serves to set all the trees talking over your head, or bring round you +the smell of the wet surface of the country after a shower. They were of +the bitter, hard, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and +respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have +their own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them +brandish great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over the +colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their +passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is +nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all +its sights and noises; and the effect gets between some painters and +their sober eyesight, so that, even when the rest of their picture is +calm, the foliage is coloured like foliage in a gale. There was nothing, +however, of this sort to be noticed in a country where there were no +trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive shadows of clouds or +those of rigid houses and walls. But the wind was nevertheless an +occasion of pleasure; for nowhere could you taste more fully the +pleasure of a sudden lull, or a place of opportune shelter. The reader +knows what I mean; he must remember how, when he has sat himself down +behind a dyke on a hill-side, he delighted to hear the wind hiss vainly +through the crannies at his back; how his body tingled all over with +warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, +that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the far-away +hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful +passage of the "Prelude," has used this as a figure for the feeling +struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the +great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the other way with +as good effect: + + "Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, + Escaped as from an enemy, we turn + Abruptly into some sequester'd nook, + Still as a shelter'd place when winds blow loud!" + +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must have +been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of escape. He had +gone up, one sunny, windy morning, to the top of a great cathedral +somewhere abroad; I think it was Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished +marvel by the Rhine; and after a long while in dark stairways, he issued +at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. At that +elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower +strata of the air, and he had forgotten it in the quiet interior of the +church and during his long ascent; and so you may judge of his surprise +when, resting his arms on the sunlit balustrade and looking over into +the "Place" far below him, he saw the good people holding on their hats +and leaning hard against the wind as they walked. There is something, to +my fancy, quite perfect in this little experience of my +fellow-traveller's. The ways of men seem always very trivial to us when +we find ourselves alone on a church top, with the blue sky and a few +tall pinnacles, and see far below us the steep roofs and foreshortened +buttresses, and the silent activity of the city streets; but how much +more must they not have seemed so to him as he stood, not only above +other men's business, but above other men's climate, in a golden zone +like Apollo's! + +This was the sort of pleasure I found in the country of which I write. +The pleasure was to be out of the wind, and to keep it in memory all the +time, and hug oneself upon the shelter. And it was only by the sea that +any such sheltered places were to be found. Between the black worm-eaten +headlands there are little bights and havens, well screened from the +wind and the commotion of the external sea, where the sand and weeds +look up into the gazer's face from a depth of tranquil water, and the +sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb +the silence and the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my +memory beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, old fighting +men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall +to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high between +their owners, that one, from out of a window, shot the other as he stood +in his own doorway. There is something in the juxtaposition of these two +enemies full of tragic irony. It is grim to think of bearded men and +bitter women taking hateful counsel together about the two hall-fires at +night, when the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter +wind was loose over the battlements. And in the study we may reconstruct +for ourselves some pale figure of what life then was. Not so when we are +there; when we are there such thoughts come to us only to intensify a +contrary impression, and association is turned against itself. I +remember walking thither three afternoons in succession, my eyes weary +with being set against the wind, and how, dropping suddenly over the +edge of the down, I found myself in a new world of warmth and shelter. +The wind, from which I had escaped, "as from an enemy," was seemingly +quite local. It carried no clouds with it, and came from such a quarter +that it did not trouble the sea within view. The two castles, black and +ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from these +by something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something that +the last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. +It would be difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took +possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I +have said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and bemauled by +previous tempests; I had the memory at heart of the insane strife of the +pigmies who had erected these two castles and lived in them in mutual +distrust and enmity, and knew I had only to put my head out of this +little cup of shelter to find the hard wind blowing in my eyes; and yet +there were the two great tracts of motionless blue air and peaceful sea +looking on, unconcerned and apart, at the turmoil of the present moment +and the memorials of the precarious past. There is ever something +transitory and fretful in the impression of a high wind under a +cloudless sky; it seems to have no root in the constitution of things; +it must speedily begin to faint and wither away like a cut flower. And +on those days the thought of the wind and the thought of human life came +very near together in my mind. Our noisy years did indeed seem moments +in the being of the eternal silence: and the wind, in the face of that +great field of stationary blue, was as the wind of a butterfly's wing. +The placidity of the sea was a thing likewise to be remembered. Shelley +speaks of the sea as "hungering for calm," and in this place one learned +to understand the phrase. Looking down into these green waters from the +broken edge of the rock, or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it +seemed to me that they were enjoying their own tranquillity; and when +now and again it was disturbed by a wind ripple on the surface, or the +quick black passage of a fish far below, they settled back again (one +could fancy) with relief. + +On shore too, in the little nook of shelter, everything was so subdued +and still that the least particular struck in me a pleasurable surprise. +The desultory crackling of the whin-pods in the afternoon sun usurped +the ear. The hot, sweet breath of the bank, that had been saturated all +day long with sunshine, and now exhaled it into my face, was like the +breath of a fellow-creature. I remember that I was haunted by two lines +of French verse; in some dumb way they seemed to fit my surroundings and +give expression to the contentment that was in me, and I kept repeating +to myself-- + + "Mon coeur est un luth suspendu; + Sitot qu'on le touche, il resonne." + +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for +that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve to +complete the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were +certainly a part of it for me. + +And this happened to me in the place of all others where I liked least +to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my own ingratitude. "Out +of the strong came forth sweetness." There, in the bleak and gusty +North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression of peace. I saw the +sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in that little corner, was all +alive and friendly to me. So, wherever a man is, he will find something +to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men +and women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird +singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, +there is no country without some amenity--let him only look for it in +the right spirit, and he will surely find. + + + + +VI + +AN AUTUMN EFFECT + +(1875) + + "Nous ne decrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous nous + efforcons d'exprimer sobrement et simplement l'impression que nous en + avons recue."--M. ANDRE THEURIET, "L'Automne dans les Bois," _Revue + des Deux Mondes_, 1st Oct. 1874, p. 562.[40] + + +A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may leave +upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed and +dissipated if we stayed longer. Clear vision goes with the quick foot. +Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see them +for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone +before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can +steal like a dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, +shifting round towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, +and belie what they showed us in the morning. We expose our mind to the +landscape (as we would expose the prepared plate in the camera) for the +moment only during which the effect endures; and we are away before the +effect can change. Hence we shall have in our memories a long scroll of +continuous wayside pictures, all imbued already with the prevailing +sentiment of the season, the weather, and the landscape, and certain to +be unified more and more, as time goes on, by the unconscious processes +of thought. So that we who have only looked at a country over our +shoulder, so to speak, as we went by, will have a conception of it far +more memorable and articulate than a man who has lived there all his +life from a child upwards, and had his impression of to-day modified by +that of to-morrow, and belied by that of the day after, till at length +the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted out from him +behind the confusion of variable effect. + +I began my little pilgrimage in the most enviable of all humours: that +in which a person, with a sufficiency of money and a knapsack, turns his +back on a town and walks forward into a country of which he knows only +by the vague report of others. Such an one has not surrendered his will +and contracted for the next hundred miles, like a man on a railway. He +may change his mind at every finger-post, and, where ways meet, follow +vague preferences freely and go the low road or the high, choose the +shadow or the sunshine, suffer himself to be tempted by the lane that +turns immediately into the woods, or the broad road that lies open +before him into the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some +city, or a range of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low +horizon. In short, he may gratify his every whim and fancy, without a +pang of reproving conscience, or the least jostle to his self-respect. +It is true, however, that most men do not possess the faculty of free +action, the priceless gift of being able to live for the moment only; +and as they begin to go forward on their journey, they will find that +they have made for themselves new fetters. Slight projects they may have +entertained for a moment, half in jest, become iron laws to them, they +know not why. They will be led by the nose by these vague reports of +which I spoke above; and the mere fact that their informant mentioned +one village and not another will compel their footsteps with +inexplicable power. And yet a little while, yet a few days of this +fictitious liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calling +on them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy +expectation, will set its hand upon their shoulder and lead them back +into the old paths. Once and again we have all made the experiment. We +know the end of it right well. And yet if we make it for the hundredth +time to-morrow, it will have the same charm as ever; our heart will beat +and our eyes will be bright, as we leave the town behind us, and we +shall feel once again (as we have felt so often before) that we are +cutting ourselves loose for ever from our whole past life, with all its +sins and follies and circumscriptions, and go forward as a new creature +into a new world. + +It is well, perhaps, that I had this first enthusiasm to encourage me up +the long hill above High Wycombe; for the day was a bad day for walking +at best, and now began to draw towards afternoon, dull, heavy, and +lifeless. A pall of grey cloud covered the sky, and its colour reacted +on the colour of the landscape. Near at hand, indeed, the hedgerow trees +were still fairly green, shot through with bright autumnal yellows, +bright as sunshine. But a little way off, the solid bricks of woodland +that lay squarely on slope and hill-top were not green, but russet and +grey, and ever less russet and more grey as they drew off into the +distance. As they drew off into the distance, also, the woods seemed to +mass themselves together, and lay thin and straight, like clouds, upon +the limit of one's view. Not that this massing was complete, or gave the +idea of any extent of forest, for every here and there the trees would +break up and go down into a valley in open order, or stand in long +Indian file along the horizon, tree after tree relieved, foolishly +enough, against the sky. I say foolishly enough, although I have seen +the effect employed cleverly in art, and such long line of single trees +thrown out against the customary sunset of a Japanese picture with a +certain fantastic effect that was not to be despised; but this was over +water and level land, where it did not jar, as here, with the soft +contour of hills and valleys. The whole scene had an indefinable look of +being painted, the colour was so abstract and correct, and there was +something so sketchy and merely impressional about these distant single +trees on the horizon that one was forced to think of it all as of a +clever French landscape. For it is rather in nature that we see +resemblance to art, than in art to nature; and we say a hundred times, +"How like a picture!" for once that we say, "How like the truth!" The +forms in which we learn to think of landscape are forms that we have got +from painted canvas. Any man can see and understand a picture; it is +reserved for the few to separate anything out of the confusion of +nature, and see that distinctly and with intelligence. + +The sun came out before I had been long on my way; and as I had got by +that time to the top of the ascent, and was now treading a labyrinth of +confined by-roads, my whole view brightened considerably in colour, for +it was the distance only that was grey and cold, and the distance I +could see no longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling of larks +which seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all the time I was +in that country the larks did not desert me. The air was alive with them +from High Wycombe to Tring; and as, day after day, their "shrill +delight" fell upon me out of the vacant sky, they began to take such a +prominence over other conditions, and form so integral a part of my +conception of the country, that I could have baptised it "The Country of +Larks." This, of course, might just as well have been in early spring; +but everything else was deeply imbued with the sentiment of the later +year. There was no stir of insects in the grass. The sunshine was more +golden, and gave less heat than summer sunshine; and the shadows under +the hedge were somewhat blue and misty. It was only in autumn that you +could have seen the mingled green and yellow of the elm foliage, and the +fallen leaves that lay about the road, and covered the surface of +wayside pools so thickly that the sun was reflected only here and there +from little joints and pin-holes in that brown coat of proof; or that +your ear would have been troubled, as you went forward, by the +occasional report of fowling-pieces from all directions and all degrees +of distance. + +For a long time this dropping fire was the one sign of human activity +that came to disturb me as I walked. The lanes were profoundly still. +They would have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing of the +larks. And as it was, there came over me at times a feeling of isolation +that was not disagreeable, and yet was enough to make me quicken my +steps eagerly when I saw some one before me on the road. This +fellow-voyager proved to be no less a person than the parish constable. +It had occurred to me that in a district which was so little populous +and so well wooded, a criminal of any intelligence might play +hide-and-seek with the authorities for months; and this idea was +strengthened by the aspect of the portly constable as he walked by my +side with deliberate dignity and turned-out toes. But a few minutes' +converse set my heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame +birds, it appeared. If my informant did not immediately lay his hand on +an offender, he was content to wait; some evening after nightfall there +would come a tap at his door, and the outlaw, weary of outlawry, would +give himself quietly up to undergo sentence, and resume his position in +the life of the country-side. Married men caused him no disquietude +whatever; he had them fast by the foot. Sooner or later they would come +back to see their wives, a peeping neighbour would pass the word, and my +portly constable would walk quietly over and take the bird sitting. And +if there were a few who had no particular ties in the neighbourhood, and +preferred to shift into another county when they fell into trouble, +their departure moved the placid constable in no degree. He was of +Dogberry's opinion; and if a man would not stand in the Prince's name, +he took no note of him, but let him go, and thanked God he was rid of a +knave. And surely the crime and the law were in admirable keeping: +rustic constable was well met with rustic offender. The officer sitting +at home over a bit of fire until the criminal came to visit him, and the +criminal coming--it was a fair match. One felt as if this must have been +the order in that delightful seaboard Bohemia where Florizel and Perdita +courted in such sweet accents, and the Puritan sang psalms to hornpipes, +and the four-and-twenty shearers danced with nosegays in their bosoms, +and chanted their three songs apiece at the old shepherd's festival; and +one could not help picturing to oneself what havoc among good people's +purses, and tribulation for benignant constable, might be worked here by +the arrival, over stile and footpath, of a new Autolycus. + +Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveller, I left the road and struck +across country. It was rather a revelation to pass from between the +hedgerows and find quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming and +going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in every second field, +lusty horses and stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took +me through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of +plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant +to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making +ready for the winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now +not far from the end of my day's journey. A few hundred yards farther, +and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go down hill through +a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was soon in shadow myself, +but the afternoon sun still coloured the upmost boughs of the wood, and +made a fire over my head in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapour +lay among the slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; and from +farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross laughter, as +though clowns were making merry in the bush. There was something about +the atmosphere that brought all sights and sounds home to one with a +singular purity, so that I felt as if my senses had been washed with +water. After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to +remount the hill; and just as I, mounting along with it, had got back +again, from the head downwards, into the thin golden sunshine, I saw in +front of me a donkey tied to a tree. Now, I have a certain liking for +donkeys, principally, I believe, because of the delightful things that +Sterne has written of them. But this was not after the pattern of the +ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, that seemed to fit him rather +for rare festal occasions than for constant drudgery. Besides, he was +very small, and of the daintiest proportions you can imagine in a +donkey. And so, sure enough, you had only to look at him to see he had +never worked. There was something too roguish and wanton in his face, a +look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived +much cudgelling. It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive +children oftener than they had plodded with a freight through miry +lanes. He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and +though he was just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still gave +proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at +me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just then; for, with +the admirable instinct of all men and animals under restraint, he had so +wound and wound the halter about the tree that he could go neither back +nor forwards, nor so much as put down his head to browse. There he +stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, amused. He +had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, +giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that +still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature +took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some trouble on my part, +and much distrust and resistance on the part of Neddy, got him forced +backward until the whole length of the halter was set loose, and he was +once more as free a donkey as I dared to make him. I was pleased (as +people are) with this friendly action to a fellow-creature in +tribulation, and glanced back over my shoulder to see how he was +profiting by his freedom. The brute was looking after me; and no sooner +did he catch my eye than he put up his long white face into the air, +pulled an impudent mouth at me, and began to bray derisively. If ever +any one person made a grimace at another, that donkey made a grimace at +me. The hardened ingratitude of his behaviour, and the impertinence that +inspired his whole face as he curled up his lip, and showed his teeth, +and began to bray, so tickled me, and was so much in keeping with what I +had imagined to myself about his character, that I could not find it in +my heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This +seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me again by way +of rejoinder; and we went on for a while, braying and laughing, until I +began to grow a-weary of it, and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned +to pursue my way. In so doing--it was like going suddenly into cold +water--I found myself face to face with a prim little old maid. She was +all in a flutter, the poor old dear! She had concluded beyond question +that this must be a lunatic who stood laughing aloud at a white donkey +in the placid beech-woods. I was sure, by her face, that she had already +recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself +for the worst. And so, to reassure her, I uncovered and besought her, +after a very staid fashion, to put me on my way to Great Missenden. Her +voice trembled a little, to be sure, but I think her mind was set at +rest; and she told me, very explicitly, to follow the path until I came +to the end of the wood, and then I should see the village below me in +the bottom of the valley. And, with mutual courtesies, the little old +maid and I went on our respective ways. + +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she had +said, in the trough of a gentle valley, with many great elms about it. +The smoke from its chimneys went up pleasantly in the afternoon +sunshine. The sleepy hum of a threshing-machine filled the neighbouring +fields and hung about the quaint street corners. A little above, the +church sits well back on its haunches against the hill-side--an attitude +for a church, you know, that makes it look as if it could be ever so +much higher if it liked; and the trees grew about it thickly, so as to +make a density of shade in the churchyard. A very quiet place it looks; +and yet I saw many boards and posters about threatening dire punishment +against those who broke the church windows or defaced the precinct, and +offering rewards for the apprehension of those who had done the like +already. It was fair-day in Great Missenden. There were three stalls set +up _sub jove_, for the sale of pastry and cheap toys; and a great number +of holiday children thronged about the stalls, and noisily invaded every +corner of the straggling village. They came round me by coveys, blowing +simultaneously upon penny trumpets as though they imagined I should fall +to pieces like the battlements of Jericho. I noticed one among them who +could make a wheel of himself like a London boy, and seemingly enjoyed a +grave pre-eminence upon the strength of the accomplishment. By and by, +however, the trumpets began to weary me, and I went indoors, leaving the +fair, I fancy at its height. + +Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was pitch dark in the +village street, and the darkness seemed only the greater for a light +here and there in an uncurtained window or from an open door. Into one +such window I was rude enough to peep, and saw within a charming _genre_ +picture. In a room, all white wainscot and crimson wall-paper, a perfect +gem of colour after the black, empty darkness in which I had been +groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as well as I could make out, +to an attentive child upon her knee, while an old woman sat placidly +dozing over the fire. You may be sure I was not behindhand with a story +for myself--a good old story after the manner of G.P.R. James and the +village melodramas, with a wicked squire, and poachers, and an +attorney, and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who +should love, and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson +room. Baudelaire has a few dainty sentences on the fancies that we are +inspired with when we look through a window into other people's lives; +and I think Dickens has somewhat enlarged on the same text. The subject, +at least, is one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I remember, +night after night, at Brussels, watching a good family sup together, +make merry, and retire to rest; and night after night I waited to see +the candles lit, and the salad made, and the last salutations dutifully +exchanged, without any abatement of interest. Night after night I found +the scene rivet my attention and keep me awake in bed with all manner of +quaint imaginations. Much of the pleasure of the "Arabian Nights" hinges +upon this Asmodean interest; and we are not weary of lifting other +people's roofs and going about behind the scenes of life with the Caliph +and the serviceable Giaffar. It is a salutary exercise, besides; it is +salutary to get out of ourselves and see people living together in +perfect unconsciousness of our existence, as they will live when we are +gone. If to-morrow the blow falls, and the worst of our ill fears is +realised, the girl will none the less tell stories to the child on her +lap in the cottage at Great Missenden, nor the good Belgians light their +candle, and mix their salad, and go orderly to bed. + +The next morning was sunny overhead and damp underfoot, with a thrill in +the air like a reminiscence of frost. I went up into the sloping garden +behind the inn and smoked a pipe pleasantly enough, to the tune of my +landlady's lamentations over sundry cabbages and cauliflowers that had +been spoiled by caterpillars. She had been so much pleased in the +summer-time, she said, to see the garden all hovered over by white +butterflies. And now, look at the end of it! She could nowise reconcile +this with her moral sense. And, indeed, unless these butterflies are +created with a side-look to the composition of improving apologues, it +is not altogether easy, even for people who have read Hegel and Dr. +M'Cosh, to decide intelligibly upon the issue raised. Then I fell into a +long and abstruse calculation with my landlord; having for object to +compare the distance driven by him during eight years' service on the +box of the Wendover coach with the girth of the round world itself. We +tackled the question most conscientiously, made all necessary allowance +for Sundays and leap-years, and were just coming to a triumphant +conclusion of our labours when we were stayed by a small lacuna in my +information. I did not know the circumference of the earth. The landlord +knew it, to be sure--plainly he had made the same calculation twice and +once before,--but he wanted confidence in his own figures, and from the +moment I showed myself so poor a second seemed to lose all interest in +the result. + +Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same valley with Great +Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills trend off on either +hand like a coast-line, and a great hemisphere of plain lies, like a +sea, before one. I went up a chalky road, until I had a good outlook +over the place. The vale, as it opened out into the plain, was shallow, +and a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. From the +level to which I have now attained the fields were exposed before me +like a map, and I could see all that bustle of autumn field-work which +had been hid from me yesterday behind the hedgerows, or shown to me only +for a moment as I followed the footpath. Wendover lay well down in the +midst, with mountains of foliage about it. The great plain stretched +away to the northward, variegated near at hand with the quaint pattern +of the fields, but growing ever more and more indistinct, until it +became a mere hurly-burly of trees and bright crescents of river, and +snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous +cloud-land over the horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, touched here and +there with blue, and with certain faint russets that looked as if they +were reflections of the colour of the autumnal woods below. I could hear +the ploughmen shouting to their horses, the uninterrupted carol of larks +innumerable overhead, and, from a field where the shepherd was +marshalling his flock, a sweet tumultuous tinkle of sheep-bells. All +these noises came to me very thin and distinct in the clear air. There +was a wonderful sentiment of distance and atmosphere about the day and +the place. + +I mounted the hill yet farther by a rough staircase of chalky footholds +cut in the turf. The hills about Wendover, and, as far as I could see, +all the hills in Buckinghamshire, wear a sort of hood of beech +plantation; but in this particular case the hood had been suffered to +extend itself into something more like a cloak, and hung down about the +shoulders of the hill in wide folds, instead of lying flatly along the +summit. The trees grew so close, and their boughs were so matted +together, that the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. The +prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering red, touched here and there +with vivid yellow. But the autumn had scarce advanced beyond the +outworks; it was still almost summer in the heart of the wood; and as +soon as I had scrambled through the hedge, I found myself in a dim green +forest atmosphere under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the +wood had itself for a background and the trees were massed together +thickly, the colour became intensified and almost gem-like: a perfect +fire of green, that seemed none the less green for a few specks of +autumn gold. None of the trees were of any considerable age or stature; +but they grew well together, I have said; and as the road turned and +wound among them, they fell into pleasant groupings and broke the light +up pleasantly. Sometimes there would be a colonnade of slim, straight +tree-stems with the light running down them as down the shafts of +pillars, that looked as if it ought to lead to something, and led only +to a corner of sombre and intricate jungle. Sometimes a spray of +delicate foliage would be thrown out flat, the light lying flatly along +the top of it, so that against a dark background it seemed almost +luminous. There was a great hush over the thicket (for, indeed, it was +more of a thicket than a wood); and the vague rumours that went among +the tree-tops, and the occasional rustling of big birds or hares among +the undergrowth, had in them a note of almost treacherous stealthiness, +that put the imagination on its guard and made me walk warily on the +russet carpeting of last year's leaves. The spirit of the place seemed +to be all attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to +number my footfalls. One could not help feeling that there ought to be +some reason for this stillness: whether, as the bright old legend goes, +Pan lay somewhere near in a siesta, or whether, perhaps, the heaven was +meditating rain, and the first drops would soon come pattering through +the leaves. It was not unpleasant, in such an humour, to catch sight, +ever and anon, of large spaces of the open plain. This happened only +where the path lay much upon the slope, and there was a flaw in the +solid leafy thatch of the wood at some distance below the level at which +I chanced myself to be walking; then, indeed, little scraps of +foreshortened distance, miniature fields, and Liliputian houses and +hedgerow trees would appear for a moment in the aperture, and grow +larger and smaller, and change and melt one into another, as I continued +to go forward, and so shift my point of view. + +For ten minutes, perhaps, I had heard from somewhere before me in the +wood a strange, continuous noise, as of clucking, cooing, and gobbling, +now and again interrupted by a harsh scream. As I advanced towards this +noise, it began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through +the trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something like the +tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved to be, and a +neat little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing almost to the +door of it. Just before me, however, as I came up the path, the trees +drew back and let in a wide flood of daylight on to a circular lawn. It +was here that the noises had their origin. More than a score of peacocks +(there are altogether thirty at the farm), a proper contingent of +peahens, and a great multitude that I could not number of more ordinary +barn-door fowls, were all feeding together on this little open lawn +among the beeches. They fed in a dense crowd, which swayed to and fro, +and came hither and thither as by a sort of tide, and of which the +surface was agitated like the surface of a sea as each bird guzzled his +head along the ground after the scattered corn. The clucking, cooing +noise that had led me thither was formed by the blending together of +countless expressions of individual contentment into one collective +expression of contentment, or general grace during meat. Every now and +again a big peacock would separate himself from the mob and take a +stately turn or two about the lawn, or perhaps mount for a moment upon +the rail, and there shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with +himself and what he had to eat. It happened, for my sins, that none of +these admirable birds had anything beyond the merest rudiment of a tail. +Tails, it seemed, were out of season just then. But they had their necks +for all that; and by their necks alone they do as much surpass all the +other birds of our grey climate as they fall in quality of song below +the blackbird or the lark. Surely the peacock, with its incomparable +parade of glorious colour and the scrannel voice of it issuing forth, as +in mockery, from its painted throat, must, like my landlady's +butterflies at Great Missenden, have been invented by some skilful +fabulist for the consolation and support of homely virtue: or rather, +perhaps, by a fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the +moment without having a studious enough eye to the complete effect; for +I thought these melting greens and blues so beautiful that afternoon, +that I would have given them my vote just then before the sweetest pipe +in all the spring woods. For indeed there is no piece of colour of the +same extent in nature, that will so flatter and satisfy the lust of a +man's eyes; and to come upon so many of them, after these acres of +stone-coloured heavens and russet woods, and grey-brown ploughlands and +white roads, was like going three whole days' journey to the southward, +or a month back into the summer. + +I was sorry to leave "Peacock Farm"--for so the place is called, after +the name of its splendid pensioners--and go forward again in the quiet +woods. It began to grow both damp and dusk under the beeches: and as the +day declined the colour faded out of the foliage: and shadow, without +form and void, took the place of all the fine tracery of leaves and +delicate gradations of living green that had before accompanied my walk. +I had been sorry to leave "Peacock Farm," but I was not sorry to find +myself once more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat +troubled-looking evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn +at Wendover. + +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street should +go; or rather, every now and then a man seems to have arisen with a new +idea on the subject, and led away a little sect of neighbours to join in +his heresy. It would have somewhat the look of an abortive +watering-place, such as we may now see them here and there along the +coast, but for the age of the houses, the comely quiet design of some of +them, and the look of long habitation, of a life that is settled and +rooted, and makes it worth while to train flowers about the windows, and +otherwise shape the dwelling to the humour of the inhabitant. The +church, which might perhaps have served as rallying-point for these +loose houses, and pulled the township into something like intelligible +unity, stands some distance off among great trees; but the inn (to take +the public buildings in order of importance) is in what I understand to +be the principal street: a pleasant old house, with bay windows, and +three peaked gables, and many swallows' nests plastered about the eaves. + +The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside: indeed, I never +saw any room much more to be admired than the low wainscoted parlour in +which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a short oblong in +shape, save that the fireplace was built across one of the angles so as +to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle was similarly truncated +by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was white, and there was a Turkey +carpet on the floor, so old that it might have been imported by Walter +Shandy before he retired, worn almost through in some places, but in +others making a good show of blues and oranges, none the less harmonious +for being somewhat faded. The corner cupboard was agreeable in design; +and there were just the right things upon the shelves--decanters and +tumblers, and blue plates, and one red rose in a glass of water. The +furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down +to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may fancy +how pleasant it looked all flushed and flickered over by the light of a +brisk companionable fire, and seen, in a strange, tilted sort of +perspective, in the three compartments of the old mirror above the +chimney. As I sat reading in the great arm-chair, I kept looking round +with the tail of my eye at the quaint, bright picture that was about me, +and could not help some pleasure and a certain childish pride in forming +part of it. The book I read was about Italy in the early Renaissance, +the pageantries and the light loves of princes, the passion of men for +learning, and poetry, and art; but it was written, by good luck, after a +solid, prosaic fashion, that suited the room infinitely more nearly than +the matter; and the result was that I thought less, perhaps, of Lippo +Lippi, or Lorenzo, or Politian, than of the good Englishman who had +written in that volume what he knew of them, and taken so much pleasure +in his solemn polysyllables. + +I was not left without society. My landlord had a very pretty little +daughter whom we shall call Lizzie. If I had made any notes at the time, +I might be able to tell you something definite of her appearance. But +faces have a trick of growing more and more spiritualised and abstract +in the memory, until nothing remains of them but a look, a haunting +expression; just that secret quality in a face that is apt to slip out +somehow under the cunningest painter's touch, and leave the portrait +dead for the lack of it. And if it is hard to catch with the finest of +camel's hair pencils, you may think how hopeless it must be to pursue +after it with clumsy words. If I say, for instance, that this look, +which I remember as Lizzie, was something wistful that seemed partly to +come of slyness and in part of simplicity, and that I am inclined to +imagine it had something to do with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in +one of her large eyes, I shall have said all that I can, and the reader +will not be much advanced towards comprehension. I had struck up an +acquaintance with this little damsel in the morning, and professed much +interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one +which was kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been +very long in the parlour before the door opened, and in came Miss Lizzie +with two dolls tucked clumsily under her arm. She was followed by her +brother John, a year or so younger than herself, not simply to play +propriety at our interview, but to show his own two whips in emulation +of his sister's dolls. I did my best to make myself agreeable to my +visitors, showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls' dresses, and, +with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age and +character. I did not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it +was evident she was both bewildered and a little contemptuous. Although +she was ready herself to treat her dolls as if they were alive, she +seemed to think rather poorly of any grown person who could fall +heartily into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes she would look at me +with gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared I +must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly +into the question of their names, she laughed at me so long and heartily +that I began to feel almost embarrassed. But when, in an evil moment, I +asked to be allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep herself no +longer to herself. Clambering down from the chair on which she sat +perched to show me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of +the room and into the bar--it was just across the passage,--and I could +hear her telling her mother in loud tones, but apparently more in sorrow +than in merriment, that _the gentleman in the parlour wanted to kiss +Dolly_. I fancy she was determined to save me from this humiliating +action, even in spite of myself, for she never gave me the desired +permission. She reminded me of an old dog I once knew, who would never +suffer the master of the house to dance, out of an exaggerated sense of +the dignity of that master's place and carriage. + +After the young people were gone there was but one more incident ere I +went to bed. I heard a party of children go up and down the dark street +for a while, singing together sweetly. And the mystery of this little +incident was so pleasant to me that I purposely refrained from asking +who they were, and wherefore they went singing at so late an hour. One +can rarely be in a pleasant place without meeting with some pleasant +accident. I have a conviction that these children would not have gone +singing before the inn unless the inn-parlour had been the delightful +place it was. At least, if I had been in the customary public room of +the modern hotel, with all its disproportions and discomforts, my ears +would have been dull, and there would have been some ugly temper or +other uppermost in my spirit, and so they would have wasted their songs +upon an unworthy hearer. + +Next morning I went along to visit the church. It is a long-backed +red-and-white building, very much restored, and stands in a pleasant +graveyard among those great trees of which I have spoken already. The +sky was drowned in a mist. Now and again pulses of cold wind went about +the enclosure, and set the branches busy overhead, and the dead leaves +scurrying in to the angles of the church buttresses. Now and again, +also, I could hear the dull sudden fall of a chestnut among the +grass--the dog would bark before the rectory door--or there would come a +clinking of pails from the stable-yard behind. But in spite of these +occasional interruptions--in spite, also, of the continuous autumn +twittering that filled the trees--the chief impression somehow was one +as of utter silence, inasmuch that the little greenish bell that peeped +out of a window in the tower disquieted me with a sense of some possible +and more inharmonious disturbance. The grass was wet, as if with a +hoar-frost that had just been melted. I do not know that ever I saw a +morning more autumnal. As I went to and fro among the graves, I saw some +flowers set reverently before a recently erected tomb, and drawing near +was almost startled to find they lay on the grave of a man seventy-two +years old when he died. We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the +young, where love has been cut short untimely, and great possibilities +have been restrained by death. We strew them there in token that these +possibilities, in some deeper sense, shall yet be realised, and the +touch of our dead loves remain with us and guide us to the end. And yet +there was more significance, perhaps, and perhaps a greater consolation, +in this little nosegay on the grave of one who had died old. We are apt +to make so much of the tragedy of death, and think so little of the +enduring tragedy of some men's lives, that we see more to lament for in +a life cut off in the midst of usefulness and love, than in one that +miserably survives all love and usefulness, and goes about the world the +phantom of itself, without hope, or joy, or any consolation. These +flowers seemed not so much the token of love that survived death, as of +something yet more beautiful--of love that had lived a man's life out to +an end with him, and been faithful and companionable, and not weary of +loving, throughout all these years. + +The morning cleared a little, and the sky was once more the old +stone-coloured vault over the sallow meadows and the russet woods, as I +set forth on a dog-cart from Wendover to Tring. The road lay for a good +distance along the side of the hills, with the great plain below on one +hand, and the beech-woods above on the other. The fields were busy with +people ploughing and sowing; every here and there a jug of ale stood in +the angle of the hedge, and I could see many a team wait smoking in the +furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take a +draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless +hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, a +spirit of picnic. The horses smoked and the men laboured and shouted and +drank in the sharp autumn morning; so that one had a strong effect of +large, open-air existence. The fellow who drove me was something of a +humorist; and his conversation was all in praise of an agricultural +labourer's way of life. It was he who called my attention to these jugs +of ale by the hedgerow; he could not sufficiently express the liberality +of these men's wages; he told me how sharp an appetite was given by +breaking up the earth in the morning air, whether with plough or spade, +and cordially admired this provision of nature. He sang _O fortunatos +agricolas_! indeed, in every possible key, and with many cunning +inflections, till I began to wonder what was the use of such people as +Mr. Arch, and to sing the same air myself in a more diffident manner. + +Tring was reached, and then Tring railway station; for the two are not +very near, the good people of Tring having held the railway, of old +days, in extreme apprehension, lest some day it should break loose in +the town and work mischief. I had a last walk, among russet beeches as +usual, and the air filled, as usual, with the carolling of larks; I +heard shots fired in the distance, and saw, as a new sign of the +fulfilled autumn, two horsemen exercising a pack of fox-hounds. And then +the train came and carried me back to London. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [40] I had nearly finished the transcription of the following pages, + when I saw on a friend's table the number containing the piece from + which this sentence is extracted, and, struck with a similarity of + title, took it home with me and read it with indescribable + satisfaction. I do not know whether I more envy M. Theuriet the + pleasure of having written this delightful article, or the reader + the pleasure, which I hope he has still before him, of reading it + once and again, and lingering over the passages that please him + most. + + + + +VII + +A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY + +(_A Fragment_: 1876) + + +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire of +Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick side of +the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft with +shallow dells, and sown here and there with farms and tufts of wood. +Inland, it loses itself, joining, I suppose, the great herd of similar +hills that occupies the centre of the Lowlands. Towards the sea, it +swells out the coast-line into a protuberance, like a bay window in a +plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. This hill is +known as the Brown Hill of Carrick, or, more shortly, Brown Carrick. + +It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they were +tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the +pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind +had made ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet +weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. An +effusion of coppery light on the summit of Brown Carrick showed where +the sun was trying to look through; but along the horizon clouds of cold +fog had settled down, so that there was no distinction of sky and sea. +Over the white shoulders of the headlands, or in the opening of bays, +there was nothing but a great vacancy and blackness; and the road as it +drew near the edge of the cliff seemed to skirt the shores of creation +and void space. + +The snow crunched underfoot, and at farms all the dogs broke out barking +as they smelt a passer-by upon the road. I met a fine old fellow, who +might have sat as the father in "The Cottar's Saturday Night," and who +swore most heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a little after I +scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather cockles. +His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was broken up into flakes and +channels, like mud beginning to dry, and weathered in two colours, an +incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air of being surprised--which, +God knows, he might well be--that life had gone so ill with him. The +shape of his trousers was in itself a jest, so strangely were they +bagged and ravelled about his knees; and his coat was all bedaubed with +clay as though he had lain in a rain-dub during the New Year's +festivity. I will own I was not sorry to think he had had a merry New +Year, and been young again for an evening; but I was sorry to see the +mark still there. One could not expect such an old gentleman to be much +of a dandy, or a great student of respectability in dress; but there +might have been a wife at home, who had brushed out similar stains after +fifty New Years, now become old, or a round-armed daughter, who would +wish to have him neat, were it only out of self-respect and for the +ploughman sweetheart when he looks round at night. Plainly, there was +nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness hung heavily on +his old arms. He was seventy-six, he told me; and nobody would give a +day's work to a man that age: they would think he couldn't do it. "And, +'deed," he went on, with a sad little chuckle, "'deed, I doubt if I +could." He said good-bye to me at a foot-path, and crippled wearily off +to his work. It will make your heart ache if you think of his old +fingers groping in the snow. + +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. And +so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of +childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading +downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven +among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus +for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers' houses. Hard by, a few +shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall +gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay on the beach to the +tide-mark. It was daubed on to the sills of the ruin; it roosted in the +crannies of the rock like white sea-birds; even on outlying reefs there +would be a little cock of snow, like a toy lighthouse. Everything was +grey and white in a cold and dolorous sort of shepherd's plaid. In the +profound silence, broken only by the noise of oars at sea, a horn was +sounded twice; and I saw the postman, girt with two bags, pause a moment +at the end of the clachan for letters. It is, perhaps, characteristic of +Dunure that none were brought him. + +The people at the public-house did not seem well pleased to see me, and +though I would fain have stayed by the kitchen fire, sent me "ben the +hoose" into the guest-room. This guest-room at Dunure was painted in +quite aesthetic fashion. There are rooms in the same taste not a hundred +miles from London, where persons of an extreme sensibility meet together +without embarrassment. It was all in a fine dull bottle-green and black; +a grave harmonious piece of colouring, with nothing, so far as coarser +folk can judge, to hurt the better feelings of the most exquisite +purist. A cherry-red half window-blind kept up an imaginary warmth in +the cold room, and threw quite a glow on the floor. Twelve cockle-shells +and a halfpenny china figure were ranged solemnly along the +mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was an original note, and instead of +sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would merit +an article to itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text. It was +patchwork, but the patchwork of the poor; no glowing shreds of old +brocade and Chinese silk, shaken together in the kaleidoscope of some +tasteful housewife's fancy; but a work of art in its own way, and +plainly a labour of love. The patches came exclusively from people's +raiment. There was no colour more brilliant than a heather mixture; "My +Johnnie's grey breeks," well polished over the oar on the boat's +thwart, entered largely into its composition. And the spoils of an old +black cloth coat, that had been many a Sunday to church, added something +(save the mark!) of preciousness to the material. + +While I was at luncheon four carters came in--long-limbed, muscular +Ayrshire Scots, with lean, intelligent faces. Four quarts of stout were +ordered; they kept filling the tumbler with the other hand as they +drank; and in less time than it takes me to write these words the four +quarts were finished--another round was proposed, discussed, and +negatived--and they were creaking out of the village with their carts. + +The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any place more desolate +from a distance, nor one that less belied its promise near at hand. Some +crows and gulls flew away croaking as I scrambled in. The snow had +drifted into the vaults. The clachan dabbled with snow, the white hills, +the black sky, the sea marked in the coves with faint circular wrinkles, +the whole world, as it looked from a loop-hole in Dunure, was cold, +wretched, and out-at-elbows. If you had been a wicked baron and +compelled to stay there all the afternoon, you would have had a rare fit +of remorse. How you would have heaped up the fire and gnawed your +fingers! I think it would have come to homicide before the evening--if +it were only for the pleasure of seeing something red! And the masters +of Dunure, it is to be noticed, were remarkable of old for inhumanity. +One of these vaults where the snow had drifted was that "black voute" +where "Mr. Alane Stewart, Commendatour of Crossraguel," endured his +fiery trials. On the 1st and 7th of September 1570 (ill dates for Mr. +Alan!), Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, +his pantryman, and another servant, bound the poor Commendator "betwix +an iron chimlay and a fire," and there cruelly roasted him until he +signed away his abbacy. It is one of the ugliest stories of an ugly +period, but not, somehow, without such a flavour of the ridiculous as +makes it hard to sympathise quite seriously with the victim. And it is +consoling to remember that he got away at last, and kept his abbacy, +and, over and above, had a pension from the Earl until he died. + +Some way beyond Dunure a wide bay, of somewhat less unkindly aspect, +opened out. Colzean plantations lay all along the steep shore, and there +was a wooded hill towards the centre, where the trees made a sort of +shadowy etching over the snow. The road went down and up, and past a +blacksmith's cottage that made fine music in the valley. Three +compatriots of Burns drove up to me in a cart. They were all drunk, and +asked me jeeringly if this was the way to Dunure. I told them it was; +and my answer was received with unfeigned merriment. One gentleman was +so much tickled he nearly fell out of the cart; indeed, he was only +saved by a companion, who either had not so fine a sense of humour or +had drunken less. + +"The toune of Mayboll," says the inimitable Abercrummie,[41] "stands +upon an ascending ground from east to west, and lyes open to the south. +It hath one principall street, with houses upon both sides, built of +freestone, and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one +at each end of this street. That on the east belongs to the Erle of +Cassilis. On the west end is a castle, which belonged sometime to the +laird of Blairquan, which is now the tolbuith, and is adorned with a +pyremide [conical roof], and a row of ballesters round it raised from +the top of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. +There be four lanes which pass from the principall street; one is called +the Back Vennel, which is steep, declining to the south-west, and leads +to a lower street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and +it runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been +many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the +countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert +themselves in converse together at their owne houses. It was once the +principall street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry +having been decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. +Just opposite to this vennel, there is another that leads north-west, +from the chiefe street to the green, which is a pleasant plott of +ground, enclosed round with an earthen wall, wherein they were wont to +play football, but now at the Gowff and byasse-bowls. The houses of this +towne, on both sides of the street, have their several gardens belonging +to them; and in the lower street there be some pretty orchards, that +yield store of good fruit." As Patterson says, this description is near +enough even to-day, and is mighty nicely written to boot. I am bound to +add, of my own experience, that Maybole is tumble-down and dreary. +Prosperous enough in reality, it has an air of decay; and though the +population has increased, a roofless house every here and there seems to +protest the contrary. The women are more than well-favoured, and the men +fine tall fellows; but they look slipshod and dissipated. As they +slouched at street corners, or stood about gossiping in the snow, it +seemed they would have been more at home in the slums of a large city +than here in a country place betwixt a village and a town. I heard a +great deal about drinking, and a great deal about religious revivals: +two things in which the Scottish character is emphatic and most +unlovely. In particular, I heard of clergymen who were employing their +time in explaining to a delighted audience the physics of the Second +Coming. It is not very likely any of us will be asked to help. If we +were, it is likely we should receive instructions for the occasion, and +that on more reliable authority. And so I can only figure to myself a +congregation truly curious in such flights of theological fancy, as one +of veteran and accomplished saints, who have fought the good fight to an +end and outlived all worldly passion, and are to be regarded rather as +a part of the Church Triumphant than the poor, imperfect company on +earth. And yet I saw some young fellows about the smoking-room who +seemed, in the eyes of one who cannot count himself strait-laced, in +need of some more practical sort of teaching. They seemed only eager to +get drunk, and to do so speedily. It was not much more than a week after +the New Year; and to hear them return on their past bouts with a gusto +unspeakable was not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of talk, for +the accuracy of which I can vouch-- + +"Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?" + +"We had that!" + +"I wasna able to be oot o' my bed. Man, I was awful bad on Wednesday." + +"Ay, ye were gey bad." + +And you should have seen the bright eyes, and heard the sensual accents! +They recalled their doings with devout gusto and a sort of rational +pride. Schoolboys, after their first drunkenness, are not more boastful; +a cock does not plume himself with a more unmingled satisfaction as he +paces forth among his harem; and yet these were grown men, and by no +means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very eager about +the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of temperance +for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone nearer the +mark. And yet, as it seemed to me typical of much that is evil in +Scotland, Maybole is also typical of much that is best. Some of the +factories, which have taken the place of weaving in the town's economy, +were originally founded and are still possessed by self-made men of the +sterling, stout old breed--fellows who made some little bit of an +invention, borrowed some little pocketful of capital, and then, step by +step, in courage, thrift, and industry, fought their way upward to an +assured position. + +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; but, as a bit of +spelling, this inscription on the Tolbooth bell seems too delicious to +withhold: "This bell is founded at Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, a Frenchman, +the 6th November 1696, Bi appointment of the heritors of the parish of +Maiyboll." The Castle deserves more notice. It is a large and shapely +tower, plain from the ground upward, but with a zone of ornamentation +running about the top. In a general way this adornment is perched on the +very summit of the chimney-stacks; but there is one corner more +elaborate than the rest. A very heavy string-course runs round the upper +story, and just above this, facing up the street, the tower carries a +small oriel window, fluted and corbelled and carved about with stone +heads. It is so ornate it has somewhat the air of a shrine. And it was, +indeed, the casket of a very precious jewel, for in the room to which it +gives light lay, for long years, the heroine of the sweet old ballad of +"Johnnie Faa"--she who, at the call of the gipsies' songs, "came +tripping down the stair, and all her maids before her." Some people say +the ballad has no basis in fact, and have written, I believe, +unanswerable papers to the proof. But in the face of all that, the very +look of that high oriel window convinces the imagination, and we enter +into all the sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of +the long, lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against the +mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the +children at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. We +conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her some +snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes +overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be not true +of this or that lady, or this or that old tower, it is true in the +essence of all men and women: for all of us, some time or other, hear +the gipsies singing; over all of us is the glamour cast. Some resist and +sit resolutely by the fire. Most go and are brought back again, like +Lady Cassilis. A few, of the tribe of Waring, go and are seen no more; +only now and again, at springtime, when the gipsies' song is afloat in +the amethyst evening, we can catch their voices in the glee. + +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible than during the day. +Clouds coursed over the sky in great masses; the full moon battled the +other way, and lit up the snow with gleams of flying silver; the town +came down the hill in a cascade of brown gables, bestridden by smooth +white roofs, and spangled here and there with lighted windows. At either +end the snow stood high up in the darkness, on the peak of the Tolbooth +and among the chimneys of the Castle. As the moon flashed a bull's-eye +glitter across the town between the racing clouds, the white roofs +leaped into relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, and their +shadows over the white roofs. In the town itself the lit face of the +clock peered down the street; an hour was hammered out on Mr. Geli's +bell, and from behind the red curtains of a public-house some one +trolled out--a compatriot of Burns, again!--"The saut tear blin's my +e'e." + +Next morning there were sun and a flapping wind. From the street-corners +of Maybole I could catch breezy glimpses of green fields. The road +underfoot was wet and heavy--part ice, part snow, part water; and any +one I met greeted me, by way of salutation, with "A fine thowe" (thaw). +My way lay among rather bleak hills, and past bleak ponds and +dilapidated castles and monasteries, to the Highland-looking village of +Kirkoswald. It has little claim to notice save that Burns came there to +study surveying in the summer of 1777, and there also, in the kirkyard, +the original of Tam o' Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth +noticing, however, that this was the first place I thought +"Highland-looking." Over the hill from Kirkoswald a farm-road leads to +the coast. As I came down above Turnberry, the sea view was indeed +strangely different from the day before. The cold fogs were all blown +away; and there was Ailsa Craig, like a refraction, magnified and +deformed, of the Bass Rock; and there were the chiselled mountain tops +of Arran, veined and tipped with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, +blue land of Cantyre. Cottony clouds stood, in a great castle, over the +top of Arran, and blew out in long streamers to the south. The sea was +bitten all over with white; little ships, tacking up and down the Firth, +lay over at different angles in the wind. On Shanter they were ploughing +lea; a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if +the spring were in him. + +The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along the shore, among sandhills +and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few cottages +stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, not easy to +describe in words: a triangular porch projected from above the door, +supported at the apex by a single upright post; a secondary door was +hinged to the post, and could be hasped on either cheek of the real +entrance; so, whether the wind was north or south, the cotter could make +himself a triangular bight of shelter where to set his chair and finish +a pipe with comfort. There is one objection to this device: for, as the +post stands in the middle of the fairway, any one precipitately issuing +from the cottage must run his chance of a broken head. So far as I am +aware, it is peculiar to the little corner of country about Girvan. And +that corner is noticeable for more reasons: it is certainly one of the +most characteristic districts in Scotland. It has this movable porch by +way of architecture; it has, as we shall see, a sort of remnant of +provincial costume, and it has the handsomest population in the +Lowlands.... + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [41] William Abercrombie. See _Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae_, under + "Maybole" (Part iii.). + + + + +VIII + +FOREST NOTES + +(1875-6) + +ON THE PLAIN + + +Perhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of the +Gatinais, where they border with the wooded hills of Fontainebleau. Here +and there a few grey rocks creep out of the forest as if to sun +themselves. Here and there a few apple-trees stand together on a knoll. +The quaint, undignified tartan of a myriad small fields dies out into +the distance; the strips blend and disappear; and the dead flat lies +forth open and empty, with no accident save perhaps a thin line of trees +or faint church-spire against the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in +spite of pettiness in the near details, the impression becomes more +solemn and vast towards evening. The sun goes down, a swollen orange, as +it were into the sea. A blue-clad peasant rides home, with a harrow +smoking behind him among the dry clods. Another still works with his +wife in their little strip. An immense shadow fills the plain; these +people stand in it up to their shoulders; and their heads, as they stoop +over their work and rise again, are relieved from time to time against +the golden sky. + +These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any means +overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical +representative of the serf of yore, and think not so much of present +times, which may be prosperous enough, as of the old days when the +peasant was taxed beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in +Michelet's image, like a hare between two furrows. These very people now +weeding their patch under the broad sunset, that very man and his wife, +it seems to us, have suffered all the wrongs of France. It is they who +have been their country's scape-goat for long ages; they who, generation +after generation, have sowed and not reaped, reaped and another has +garnered; and who have now entered into their reward, and enjoy their +good things in their turn. For the days are gone by when the Seigneur +ruled and profited. "Le Seigneur," says the old formula, "enferme ses +manants comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel a la terre. Tout est a lui, +foret chenue, oiseau dans l'air, poisson dans l'eau, bete au buisson, +l'onde qui coule, la cloche dont le son au loin roule." Such was his old +state of sovereignty, a local god rather than a mere king. And now you +may ask yourself where he is, and look round for vestiges of my late +lord, and in all the country-side there is no trace of him but his +forlorn and fallen mansion. At the end of a long avenue, now sown with +grain, in the midst of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and +crowing chanticleers and droning bees, the old chateau lifts its red +chimneys and peaked roofs and turning vanes into the wind and sun. There +is a glad spring bustle in the air, perhaps, and the lilacs are all in +flower, and the creepers green about the broken balustrade; but no +spring shall revive the honour of the place. Old women of the people, +little children of the people, saunter and gambol in the walled court or +feed the ducks in the neglected moat. Plough-horses, mighty of limb, +browse in the long stables. The dial-hand on the clock waits for some +better hour. Out on the plain, where hot sweat trickles into men's eyes, +and the spade goes in deep and comes up slowly, perhaps the peasant may +feel a movement of joy at his heart when he thinks that these spacious +chimneys are now cold, which have so often blazed and flickered upon gay +folk at supper, while he and his hollow-eyed children watched through +the night with empty bellies and cold feet. And perhaps, as he raises +his head and sees the forest lying like a coast-line of low hills along +the sea-like level of the plain, perhaps forest and chateau hold no +unsimilar place in his affections. + +If the chateau was my lord's the forest was my lord the king's; neither +of them for this poor Jacques. If he thought to eke out his meagre way +of life by some petty theft of wood for the fire, or for a new +roof-tree, he found himself face to face with a whole department, from +the Grand Master of the Woods and Waters, who was a high-born lord, down +to the common sergeant, who was a peasant like himself, and wore stripes +or bandolier by way of uniform. For the first offence, by the Salic law, +there was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man be taken more than +once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the colour of his guilt, he +might be whipped, branded, or hanged. There was a hangman over at Melun, +and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town gate, where +Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the sky as he went to +market. + +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would be the more hares and +rabbits to eat out his harvest, and the more hunters to trample it down. +My lord has a new horn from England. He has laid out seven francs in +decorating it with silver and gold, and fitting it with a silken leash +to hang about his shoulder. The hounds have been on a pilgrimage to the +shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert in the Ardennes, or some other +holy intercessor who has made a speciality of the health of +hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the game was turned and the branch broken +by our best piqueur. A rare day's hunting lies before us. Wind a jolly +flourish, sound the _bien-aller_ with all your lungs. Jacques must stand +by, hat in hand, while the quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across +his field, and a year's sparing and labouring is as though it had not +been. If he can see the ruin with a good enough grace, who knows but he +may fall in favour with my lord; who knows but his son may become the +last and least among the servants at his lordship's kennel--one of the +two poor varlets who get no wages and sleep at night among the +hounds?[42] + +For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not only warming +him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in days of sore trouble, +when my lord of the chateau, with all his troopers and trumpets, had +been beaten from field after field into some ultimate fastness, or lay +overseas in an English prison. In these dark days, when the watch on the +church steeple saw the smoke of burning villages on the sky-line, or a +clump of spears and fluttering pennon drawing nigh across the plain, +these good folk gat them up, with all their household gods, into the +wood, whence, from some high spur, their timid scouts might overlook the +coming and going of the marauders, and see the harvest ridden down, and +church and cottage go up to heaven all night in flame. It was but an +unhomely refuge that the woods afforded, where they must abide all +change of weather and keep house with wolves and vipers. Often there was +none left alive, when they returned, to show the old divisions of field +from field. And yet, as times went, when the wolves entered at night +into depopulated Paris, and perhaps De Retz was passing by with a +company of demons like himself, even in these caves and thickets there +were glad hearts and grateful prayers. + +Once or twice, as I say, in the course of the ages, the forest may have +served the peasant well, but at heart it is a royal forest, and noble by +old association. These woods have rung to the horns of all the kings of +France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They have seen St. Louis +exercise the dogs he brought with him from Egypt; Francis I. go +a-hunting with ten thousand horses in his train; and Peter of Russia +following his first stag. And so they are still haunted for the +imagination by royal hunts and progresses, and peopled with the faces +of memorable men of yore. And this distinction is not only in virtue of +the pastime of dead monarchs. Great events, great revolutions, great +cycles in the affairs of men, have here left their note, here taken +shape in some significant and dramatic situation. It was hence that +Guise and his leaguers led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, +booted and spurred, and with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met the +Pope beside a woodland cross. Here, on his way to Elba, not so long +after, he kissed the eagle of the Old Guard, and spoke words of +passionate farewell to his soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, rather +than yield its ensign to the new power, one of his faithful regiments +burned that memorial of so much toil and glory on the Grand Master's +table, and drank its dust in brandy, as a devout priest consumes the +remnants of the Host. + + +IN THE SEASON + +Close into the edge of the forest, so close that the trees of the +_bornage_ stand pleasantly about the last houses, sits a certain small +and very quiet village. There is but one street, and that, not long ago, +was a green lane, where the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. As you +go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, you +will arrive at last before an inn where artists lodge. To the door (for +I imagine it to be six o'clock on some fine summer's even), half a +dozen, or maybe half a score, of people have brought out chairs, and now +sit sunning themselves and waiting the omnibus from Melun. If you go on +into the court you will find as many more, some in the billiard-room +over absinthe and a match of corks, some without over a last cigar and a +vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; Hortense is +drawing water from the well; and as all the rooms open into the court, +you can see the white-capped cook over the furnace in the kitchen, and +some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, +jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-a-manger. +"_Edmond, encore un vermouth_," cries a man in velveteen, adding in a +tone of apologetic after-thought, "_un double, s'il vous plait_." "Where +are you working?" asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. "At the +Garrefour de l'Epine," returns the other in corduroy (they are all +gaitered, by the way). "I couldn't do a thing to it. I ran out of white. +Where were you?" "I wasn't working. I was looking for motives." Here is +an outbreak of jubilation, and a lot of men clustering together about +some new-comer with outstretched hands; perhaps the "correspondence" has +come in and brought So-and-so from Paris, or perhaps it is only +So-and-so who has walked over from Chailly to dinner. + +"_A table, Messieurs!_" cries M. Siron, bearing through the court the +first tureen of soup. And immediately the company begins to settle down +about the long tables in the dining-room, framed all round with sketches +of all degrees of merit and demerit. There's the big picture of the +huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his +legs--well, his legs in stockings. And here is the little picture of a +raw mutton-chop, in which Such-a-one knocked a hole last summer with no +worse a missile than a plum from the dessert. And under all these works +of art so much eating goes forward, so much drinking, so much jabbering +in French and English, that it would do your heart good merely to peep +and listen at the door. One man is telling how they all went last year +to the fete at Fleury, and another how well So-and-so would sing of an +evening; and here are a third and fourth making plans for the whole +future of their lives; and there is a fifth imitating a conjuror making +faces on his clenched fist, surely of all arts the most difficult and +admirable! A sixth has eaten his fill, lights a cigarette, and resigns +himself to digestion. A seventh has just dropped in, and calls for +soup. Number eight, meanwhile, has left the table, and is once more +trampling the poor piano under powerful and uncertain fingers. + +Dinner over, people drop outside to smoke and chat. Perhaps we go along +to visit our friends at the other end of the village, where there is +always a good welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled oysters +and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised in the +dining-room, and the piano exhibits all its paces under manful +jockeying, to the light of three or four candles and a lamp or two, +while the waltzers move to and fro upon the wooden floor, and sober men, +who are not given to such light pleasures, get up on the table or the +sideboard, and sit there looking on approvingly over a pipe and a +tumbler of wine. Or sometimes--suppose my lady moon looks forth, and the +court from out the half-lit dining-room seems nearly as bright as by +day, and the light picks out the window-panes, and makes a clear shadow +under every vine leaf on the wall--sometimes a picnic is proposed, and a +basket made ready, and a good procession formed in front of the hotel. +The two trumpeters in honour go before; and as we file down the long +alley, and up through devious footpaths among rocks and pine-trees, with +every here and there a dark passage of shadow, and every here and there +a spacious outlook over moonlit woods, these two precede us and sound +many a jolly flourish as they walk. We gather ferns and dry boughs into +the cavern, and soon a good blaze flutters the shadows of the old +bandits' haunt, and shows shapely beards and comely faces and toilettes +ranged about the wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch is burnt and sent +round in scalding thimblefuls. So a good hour or two may pass with song +and jest. And then we go home in the moonlight morning, straggling a +good deal among the birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called +together again, as one of our leaders winds his horn. Perhaps some one +of the party will not heed the summons, but chooses out some by-way of +his own. As he follows the winding sandy road, he hears the flourishes +grow fainter and fainter in the distance, and die finally out, and still +walks on in the strange coolness and silence and between the crisp +lights and shadows of the moonlit woods, until suddenly the bell rings +out the hour from far-away Chailly, and he starts to find himself alone. +No surf-bell on forlorn and perilous shores, no passing knell over the +busy market-place, can speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue +to human ears. Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations in +his mind. And as he stands rooted, it has grown once more so utterly +silent that it seems to him he might hear the church-bells ring the hour +out all the world over, not at Chailly only, but in Paris, and away in +outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where his childhood +passed between the sun and flowers. + + +IDLE HOURS + +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to be +understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. The +stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees that +go streaming up like monstrous sea-weeds and waver in the moving winds +like the weeds in submarine currents, all these set the mind working on +the thought of what you may have seen off a foreland or over the side of +a boat, and make you feel like a diver, down in the quiet water, fathoms +below the tumbling, transitory surface of the sea. And yet in itself, as +I say, the strangeness of these nocturnal solitudes is not to be felt +fully without the sense of contrast. You must have risen in the morning +and seen the woods as they are by day, kindled and coloured in the sun's +light; you must have felt the odour of innumerable trees at even, the +unsparing heat along the forest roads, and the coolness of the groves. + +And on the first morning you will doubtless rise betimes. If you have +not been wakened before by the visit of some adventurous pigeon, you +will be wakened as soon as the sun can reach your window--for there are +no blinds or shutters to keep him out--and the room, with its bare wood +floor and bare whitewashed walls, shines all round you in a sort of +glory of reflected lights. You may doze a while longer by snatches, or +lie awake to study the charcoal men and dogs and horses with which +former occupants have defiled the partitions: Thiers, with wily profile; +local celebrities, pipe in hand; or, maybe, a romantic landscape +splashed in oil. Meanwhile artist after artist drops into the +salle-a-manger for coffee, and then shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, +and paint-box, bound into a fagot, and sets off for what he calls his +"motive." And artist after artist, as he goes out of the village, +carries with him a little following of dogs. For the dogs, who belong +only nominally to any special master, hang about the gate of the forest +all day long, and whenever any one goes by who hits their fancy, profit +by his escort, and go forth with him to play an hour or two at hunting. +They would like to be under the trees all day. But they cannot go alone. +They require a pretext. And so they take the passing artist as an excuse +to go into the woods, as they might take a walking-stick as an excuse to +bathe. With quick ears, long spines, and bandy legs, or perhaps as tall +as a greyhound and with a bulldog's head, this company of mongrels will +trot by your side all day and come home with you at night, still showing +white teeth and wagging stunted tail. Their good humour is not to be +exhausted. You may pelt them with stones if you please, all they will do +is to give you a wider berth. If once they come out with you, to you +they will remain faithful, and with you return; although if you meet +them next morning in the street, it is as like as not they will cut you +with a countenance of brass. + +The forest--a strange thing for an Englishman--is very destitute of +birds. This is no country where every patch of wood among the meadows +gives up an incense of song, and every valley wandered through by a +streamlet rings and reverberates from side to side with a profusion of +clear notes. And this rarity of birds is not to be regretted on its own +account only. For the insects prosper in their absence, and become as +one of the plagues of Egypt. Ants swarm in the hot sand; mosquitoes +drone their nasal drone; wherever the sun finds a hole in the roof of +the forest, you see a myriad transparent creatures coming and going in +the shaft of light; and even between-whiles, even where there is no +incursion of sun-rays into the dark arcade of the wood, you are +conscious of a continual drift of insects, an ebb and flow of +infinitesimal living things between the trees. Nor are insects the only +evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave +among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see +a crooked viper slither across the road. + +Perhaps you may set yourself down in the bay between two spreading +beech-roots with a book on your lap, and be awakened all of a sudden by +a friend: "I say, just keep where you are, will you? You make the +jolliest motive." And you reply: "Well, I don't mind, if I may smoke." +And thereafter the hours go idly by. Your friend at the easel labours +doggedly a little way off, in the wide shadow of the tree; and yet +farther, across a strait of glaring sunshine, you see another painter, +encamped in the shadow of another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. +You cannot watch your own effigy growing out of the white trunk, and the +trunk beginning to stand forth from the rest of the wood, and the whole +picture getting dappled over with the flecks of sun that slip through +the leaves overhead, and, as a wind goes by and sets the trees +a-talking, flicker hither and thither like butterflies of light. But you +know it is going forward; and, out of emulation with the painter, get +ready your own palette, and lay out the colour for a woodland scene in +words. + +Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern and heather, set in a +basin of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. All the +open is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands out as though it +were cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its highest key. +The boulders are some of them upright and dead like monolithic castles, +some of them prone like sleeping cattle. The junipers--looking, in their +soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone +seeking the place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and +rain--are daubed in forcibly against the glowing ferns and heather. +Every tassel of their rusty foliage is defined with pre-Raphaelite +minuteness. And a sorry figure they make out there in the sun, like +misbegotten yew-trees! The scene is all pitched in a key of colour so +peculiar, and lit up with such a discharge of violent sunlight, as a man +might live fifty years in England and not see. + +Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, words of Ronsard to a +pathetic tremulous air, of how the poet loved his mistress long ago, and +pressed on her the flight of time, and told her how white and quiet the +dead lay under the stones, and how the boat dipped and pitched as the +shades embarked for the passionless land. Yet a little while, sang the +poet, and there shall be no more love; only to sit and remember loves +that might have been. There is a falling flourish in the air that +remains in the memory and comes back in incongruous places, on the seat +of hansoms or in the warm bed at night, with something of a forest +savour. + +"You can get up now," says the painter; "I'm at the background." + +And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into the wood, +the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the shadows stretching +farther into the open. A cool air comes along the highways, and the +scents awaken. The fir-trees breathe abroad their ozone. Out of unknown +thickets comes forth the soft, secret, aromatic odour of the woods, not +like a smell of the free heaven, but as though court ladies, who had +known these paths in ages long gone by, still walked in the summer +evenings, and shed from their brocades a breath of musk or bergamot upon +the woodland winds. One side of the long avenues is still kindled with +the sun, the other is plunged in transparent shadow. Over the trees the +west begins to burn like a furnace; and the painters gather up their +chattels, and go down, by avenue or footpath, to the plain. + + +A PLEASURE-PARTY + +As this excursion is a matter of some length, and, moreover, we go in +force, we have set aside our usual vehicle, the pony-cart, and ordered a +large wagonette from Lejosne's. It has been waiting for near an hour, +while one went to pack a knapsack, and t'other hurried over his toilette +and coffee; but now it is filled from end to end with merry folk in +summer attire, the coachman cracks his whip, and amid much applause from +round the inn-door off we rattle at a spanking trot. The way lies +through the forest, up hill and down dale, and by beech and pine wood, +in the cheerful morning sunshine. The English get down at all the +ascents and walk on ahead for exercise; the French are mightily +entertained at this, and keep coyly underneath the tilt. As we go we +carry with us a pleasant noise of laughter and light speech, and some +one will be always breaking out into a bar or two of opera bouffe. +Before we get to the Route Ronde here comes Desprez, the colourman from +Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of +merchandise; and it is "Desprez, leave me some malachite green"; +"Desprez, leave me so much canvas"; "Desprez, leave me this, or leave me +that"; M. Desprez standing the while in the sunlight with grave face and +many salutations. The next interruption is more important. For some time +back we have had the sound of cannon in our ears; and now, a little past +Franchard, we find a mounted trooper holding a led horse, who brings +the wagonette to a stand. The artillery is practising in the +Quadrilateral, it appears; passage along the Route Ronde formally +interdicted for the moment. There is nothing for it but to draw up at +the glaring cross-roads, and get down to make fun with the notorious +Cocardon, the most ungainly and ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and +ill-bred dogs of Barbizon, or clamber about the sandy banks. And +meanwhile the Doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal +beard, is busy wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the +too facile sentry. His speech is smooth and dulcet, his manner dignified +and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor has voyaged all +the world over, and speaks all languages from French to Patagonian. He +has not come home from perilous journeys to be thwarted by a corporal of +horse. And so we soon see the soldier's mouth relax, and his shoulders +imitate a relenting heart. "_En voiture, Messieurs, Mesdames_," sings +the Doctor; and on we go again at a good round pace, for black care +follows hard after us, and discretion prevails not a little over valour +in some timorous spirits of the party. At any moment we may meet the +sergeant, who will send us back. At any moment we may encounter a flying +shell, which will send us somewhere farther off than Grez. + +Grez--for that is our destination--has been highly recommended for its +beauty. "_Il y a de l'eau_," people have said, with an emphasis, as if +that settled the question, which, for a French mind, I am rather led to +think it does. And Grez, when we get there, is indeed a place worthy of +some praise. It lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old +bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden +descends in terraces to the river; stableyard, kailyard, orchard, and a +space of lawn, fringed with rushes and embellished with a green arbour. +On the opposite bank there is a reach of English-looking plain, set +thickly with willows and poplars. And between the two lies the river, +clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants +cluster about the starlings of the long low bridge, and stand half-way +up upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch the dipped oar with +long antennae, and chequer the slimy bottom with the shadow of their +leaves. And the river wanders hither and thither among the islets, and +is smothered and broken up by the reeds, like an old building in the +lithe, hardy arms of the climbing ivy. You may watch the box where the +good man of the inn keeps fish alive for his kitchen, one oily ripple +following another over the top of the yellow deal. And you can hear a +splashing and a prattle of voices from the shed under the old kirk, +where the village women wash and wash all day among the fish and +water-lilies. It seems as if linen washed there should be specially cool +and sweet. + +We have come here for the river. And no sooner have we all bathed than +we board the two shallops and push off gaily, and go gliding under the +trees and gathering a great treasure of water-lilies. Some one sings; +some trail their hands in the cool water; some lean over the gunwale to +see the image of the tall poplars far below, and the shadow of the boat, +with balanced oars and their own head protruded, glide smoothly over the +yellow floor of the stream. At last, the day declining--all silent and +happy, and up to the knees in the wet lilies--we punt slowly back again +to the landing-place beside the bridge. There is a wish for solitude on +all. One hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; another goes a +walk in the country with Cocardon; a third inspects the church. And it +is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn's best wine goes round +from glass to glass, that we begin to throw off the restraint and fuse +once more into a jolly fellowship. + +Half the party are to return to-night with the wagonette; and some of +the others, loath to break up good company, will go with them a bit of +the way and drink a stirrup-cup at Marlotte. It is dark in the +wagonette, and not so merry as it might have been. The coachman loses +the road. So-and-so tries to light fireworks with the most indifferent +success. Some sing, but the rest are too weary to applaud; and it seems +as if the festival were fairly at an end-- + + "Nous avons fait la noce, + Rentrons a nos foyers!" + +And such is the burthen, even after we have come to Marlotte and taken +our places in the court at Mother Antonine's. There is punch on the long +table out in the open air, where the guests dine in summer weather. The +candles flare in the night wind, and the faces round the punch are lit +up, with shifting emphasis, against a background of complete and solid +darkness. It is all picturesque enough; but the fact is, we are aweary. +We yawn; we are out of the vein; we have made the wedding, as the song +says, and now, for pleasure's sake, let's make an end on't. When here +comes striding into the court, booted to mid-thigh, spurred and +splashed, in a jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable +Blank; and in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is witness +of our laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, +picture-dealers, all eccentric ways of speaking and thinking, with a +possession, a fury, a strain of mind and voice, that would rather +suggest a nervous crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry as +ever when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily to all the +good folk going farther. Then, as we are far enough from thoughts of +sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint house, and sit an hour or so in a +great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, littered with sleeping hounds, +and lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by a wood-fire in a mediaeval +chimney. And then we plod back through the darkness to the inn beside +the river. + +How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next morning, +the grey showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the face of +the stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. Yesterday's lilies +encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage +towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer lies upon the +dripping house roofs, and all the colour is washed out of the green and +golden landscape of last night, as though an envious man had taken a +water-colour sketch and blotted it together with a sponge. We go out +a-walking in the wet roads. But the roads about Grez have a trick of +their own. They go on for a while among clumps of willows and patches of +vine, and then, suddenly and without any warning, cease and determine in +some miry hollow or upon some bald knowe; and you have a short period of +hope, then right-about face, and back the way you came! So we draw about +the kitchen fire and play a round game of cards for ha'pence, or go to +the billiard-room for a match at corks; and by one consent a messenger +is sent over for the wagonette--Grez shall be left to-morrow. + +To-morrow dawns so fair that two of the party agree to walk back for +exercise, and let their knapsacks follow by the trap. I need hardly say +they are neither of them French; for, of all English phrases, the phrase +"for exercise" is the least comprehensible across the Straits of Dover. +All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. The wet woods are full +of scents in the noontide. At a certain cross, where there is a +guard-house, they make a halt, for the forester's wife is the daughter +of their good host at Barbizon. And so there they are hospitably +received by the comely woman, with one child in her arms and another +prattling and tottering at her gown, and drink some syrup of quince in +the back parlour, with a map of the forest on the wall, and some prints +of love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. As they draw near the +Quadrilateral, and hear once more the report of the big guns, they take +a by-road to avoid the sentries, and go on a while somewhat vaguely, +with the sound of the cannon in their ears and the rain beginning to +fall. The ways grow wider and sandier; here and there there are real +sand hills, as though by the seashore; the fir-wood is open and grows in +clumps upon the hillocks, and the race of sign-posts is no more. One +begins to look at the other doubtfully. "I am sure we should keep more +to the right," says one; and the other is just as certain they should +hold to the left. And now, suddenly, the heavens open, and the rain +falls "sheer and strong and loud," as out of a shower-bath. In a moment +they are as wet as shipwrecked sailors. They cannot see out of their +eyes for the drift, and the water churns and gurgles in their boots. +They leave the track and try across country with a gambler's +desperation, for it seems as if it were impossible to make the situation +worse; and, for the next hour, go scrambling from boulder to boulder, or +plod along paths that are now no more than rivulets, and across waste +clearings where the scattered shells and broken fir-trees tell all too +plainly of the cannon in the distance. And meantime the cannon grumble +out responses to the grumbling thunder. There is such a mixture of +melodrama and sheer discomfort about all this, it is at once so grey and +so lurid, that it is far more agreeable to read and write about by the +chimney-corner than to suffer in the person. At last they chance on the +right path, and make Franchard in the early evening, the sorriest pair +of wanderers that ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by the Bois +d'Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins Brules, to the clean +hostelry, dry clothes, and dinner. + + +THE WOODS IN SPRING + +I think you will like the forest best in the sharp early spring-time, +when it is just beginning to re-awaken, and innumerable violets peep +from among the fallen leaves; when two or three people at most sit down +to dinner, and, at table, you will do well to keep a rug about your +knees, for the nights are chill, and the salle-a-manger opens on the +court. There is less to distract the attention, for one thing, and the +forest is more itself. It is not bedotted with artists' sunshades as +with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn with the remains of English +picnics. The hunting still goes on, and at any moment your heart may be +brought into your mouth as you hear far-away horns; or you may be told +by an agitated peasant that the Vicomte has gone up the avenue, not ten +minutes since, "_a fond de train, monsieur, et avec douze piqueurs._" + +If you go up to some coign of vantage in the system of low hills that +permeates the forest, you will see many different tracts of country, +each of its own cold and melancholy neutral tint, and all mixed together +and mingled the one into the other at the seams. You will see tracts of +leafless beeches of a faint yellowish grey, and leafless oaks a little +ruddier in the hue. Then zones of pine of a solemn green; and, dotted +among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, the +delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white +branches yet more delicate, and crowned and canopied with a purple haze +of twigs. And then a long, bare ridge of tumbled boulders, with bright +sandbreaks between them, and wavering sandy roads among the bracken and +brown heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not the +perfect beauty, nor the gem-like colouring, of the wood in the later +year, when it is no more than one vast colonnade of verdant shadow, +tremulous with insects, intersected here and there by lanes of sunlight +set in purple heather. The loveliness of the woods in March is not, +assuredly, of this blowsy rustic type. It is made sharp with a grain of +salt, with a touch of ugliness. It has a sting like the sting of bitter +ale; you acquire the love of it as men acquire a taste for olives. And +the wonderful clear, pure air wells into your lungs the while by +voluptuous inhalations, and makes the eyes bright, and sets the heart +tinkling to a new tune--or, rather, to an old tune; for you remember in +your boyhood something akin to this spirit of adventure, this thirst for +exploration, that now takes you masterfully by the hand, plunges you +into many a deep grove, and drags you over many a stony crest. It is as +if the whole wood were full of friendly voices calling you farther in, +and you turn from one side to another, like Buridan's donkey, in a maze +of pleasure. + +Comely beeches send up their white, straight, clustered branches, barred +with green moss, like so many fingers from a half-clenched hand. Mighty +oaks stand to the ankles in a fine tracery of underwood; thence the tall +shaft climbs upward, and the great forest of stalwart boughs spreads out +into the golden evening sky, where the rooks are flying and calling. On +the sward of the Bois d'Hyver the firs stand well asunder with outspread +arms, like fencers saluting; and the air smells of resin all around, and +the sound of the axe is rarely still. But strangest of all, and in +appearance oldest of all, are the dim and wizard upland districts of +young wood. The ground is carpeted with fir-tassel, and strewn with +fir-apples and flakes of fallen bark. Rocks lie crouching in the +thicket, guttered with rain, tufted with lichen, white with years and +the rigours of the changeful seasons. Brown and yellow butterflies are +sown and carried away again by the light air--like thistledown. The +loneliness of these coverts is so excessive, that there are moments when +pleasure draws to the verge of fear. You listen and listen for some +noise to break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by the +intensity of the strain; your sense of your own identity is troubled; +your brain reels, like that of some gymnosophist poring on his own nose +in Asiatic jungles; and should you see your own outspread feet, you see +them, not as anything of yours, but as a feature of the scene around +you. + +Still the forest is always, but the stillness is not always unbroken. +You can hear the wind pass in the distance over the tree-tops; sometimes +briefly, like the noise of a train; sometimes with a long steady rush, +like the breaking of waves. And sometimes, close at hand, the branches +move, a moan goes through the thicket, and the wood thrills to its +heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage on the road to Fontainebleau, a +bird gives a dry continual chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, or +you may time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's +axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks goes by; +and from time to time the cooing of wild doves falls upon the ear, not +sweet and rich and near at hand as in England, but a sort of voice of +the woods, thin and far away, as fits these solemn places. Or you hear +suddenly the hollow, eager, violent barking of dogs; scared deer flit +past you through the fringes of the wood; then a man or two running, in +green blouse, with gun and game-bag on a bandolier; and then, out of the +thick of the trees, comes the jar of rifle-shots. Or perhaps the hounds +are out, and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through +the clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, +where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar is afoot, +and all over the forest, and in all neighbouring villages, there is a +vague excitement and a vague hope; for who knows whither the chase may +lead? and even to have seen a single piqueur, or spoken to a single +sportsman, is to be a man of consequence for the night. + +Besides men who shoot and men who ride with the hounds, there are few +people in the forest, in the early spring, save woodcutters plying their +axes steadily, and old women and children gathering wood for the fire. +You may meet such a party coming home in the twilight: the old woman +laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch +behind them in her wake. That is the worst of what there is to +encounter; and if I tell you of what once happened to a friend of mine, +it is by no means to tantalise you with false hopes; for the adventure +was unique. It was on a very cold, still, sunless morning, with a flat +grey sky and a frosty tingle in the air, that this friend (who shall +here be nameless) heard the notes of a key-bugle played with much +hesitation, and saw the smoke of a fire spread out along the green +pine-tops, in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. +He drew near warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an +open. The old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring at the fire. +The eldest son, in the uniform of a private of dragoons, was choosing +out notes on a key-bugle. Two or three daughters lay in the +neighbourhood picking violets. And the whole party as grave and silent +as the woods around them! My friend watched for a long time, he says; +but all held their peace; not one spoke or smiled; only the dragoon kept +choosing out single notes upon the bugle, and the father knitted away at +his work and made strange movements the while with his flexible +eyebrows. They took no notice whatever of my friend's presence, which +was disquieting in itself, and increased the resemblance of the whole +party to mechanical wax-works. Certainly, he affirms, a wax figure might +have played the bugle with more spirit than that strange dragoon. And as +this hypothesis of his became more certain, the awful insolubility of +why they should be left out there in the woods with nobody to wind them +up again when they ran down, and a growing disquietude as to what might +happen next, became too much for his courage, and he turned tail, and +fairly took to his heels. It might have been a singing in his ears, but +he fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. +Nothing has ever transpired to clear up the mystery; it may be they were +automata; or it may be (and this is the theory to which I lean myself) +that this is all another chapter of Heine's "Gods in Exile"; that the +upright old man with the eyebrows was no other than Father Jove, and the +young dragoon with the taste for music either Apollo or Mars. + + +MORALITY + +Strange indeed is the attraction of the forest for the minds of men. Not +one or two only, but a great chorus of grateful voices have arisen to +spread abroad its fame. Half the famous writers of modern France have +had their word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, Michelet, +Beranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, Murger, the brothers +Goncourt, Theodore de Banville, each of these has done something to the +eternal praise and memory of these woods. Even at the very worst of +times, even when the picturesque was anathema in the eyes of all Persons +of Taste, the forest still preserved a certain reputation for beauty. It +was in 1730 that the Abbe Guilbert published his "Historical Description +of the Palace, Town, and Forest of Fontainebleau." And very droll it is +to see him, as he tries to set forth his admiration in terms of what was +then permissible. The monstrous rocks, etc., says the Abbe, "sont +admirees avec surprise des voyageurs qui s'ecrient aussitot avec Horace: +Ut mihi devio rupes et vacuum nemus mirari libet." The good man is not +exactly lyrical in his praise; and you see how he sets his back against +Horace as against a trusty oak. Horace, at any rate, was classical. For +the rest, however, the Abbe likes places where many alleys meet; or +which, like the Belle-Etoile, are kept up "by a special gardener," and +admires at the Table du Roi the labours of the Grand Master of Woods and +Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, "qui a fait faire ce magnifique +endroit." + +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a +claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of +the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes +and renews a weary spirit. Disappointed men, sick Francis Firsts and +vanquished Grand Monarchs, time out of mind have come here for +consolation. Hither perplexed folk have retired out of the press of +life, as into a deep bay-window on some night of masquerade, and here +found quiet and silence, and rest, the mother of wisdom. It is the great +moral spa; this forest without a fountain is itself the great fountain +of Juventius. It is the best place in the world to bring an old sorrow +that has been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like +Beranger's, your gaiety has run away from home and left open the door +for sorrow to come in, of all covers in Europe, it is here you may +expect to find the truant hid. With every hour you change. The air +penetrates through your clothes, and nestles to your living body. You +love exercise and slumber, long fasting and full meals. You forget all +your scruples and live a while in peace and freedom, and for the moment +only. For here, all is absent that can stimulate to moral feeling. Such +people as you see may be old, or toil-worn, or sorry; but you see them +framed in the forest, like figures on a painted canvas; and for you, +they are not people in any living and kindly sense. You forget the grim +contrariety of interests. You forget the narrow lane where all men +jostle together in unchivalrous contention, and the kennel, deep and +unclean, that gapes on either hand for the defeated. Life is simple +enough, it seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes like a mad +fancy out of a last night's dream. + +Your ideal is not perhaps high, but it is plain and possible. You become +enamoured of a life of change and movement and the open air, where the +muscles shall be more exercised than the affections. When you have had +your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may +buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. You may bestride a +good nag, and ride forth, with a pair of saddle-bags, into the enchanted +East. You may cross the Black Forest, and see Germany widespread before +you, like a map, dotted with old cities, walled and spired, that dream +all day on their own reflections in the Rhine or Danube. You may pass +the spinal cord of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where +Italy extends her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the +midland sea. You may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may +be awakened at dawn by the scream of the express or the small pipe of +the robin in the hedge. For you the rain should allay the dust of the +beaten road; the wind dry your clothes upon you as you walked. Autumn +should hang out russet pears and purple grapes along the lane; inn after +inn proffer you their cups of raw wine; river by river receive your body +in the sultry noon. Wherever you went warm valleys and high trees and +pleasant villages should compass you about; and light fellowships should +take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour upon your way. You may +see from afar off what it will come to in the end--the weather-beaten +red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of the feet, cut off from all +near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an Ishmael, and an outcast. And +yet it will seem well--and yet, in the air of the forest, this will seem +the best--to break all the network bound about your feet by birth and +old companionship and loyal love, and bear your shovelful of phosphates +to and fro, in town and country, until the hour of the great dissolvent. + +Or, perhaps, you will keep to the cover. For the forest is by itself, +and forest life owns small kinship with life in the dismal land of +labour. Men are so far sophisticated that they cannot take the world as +it is given to them by the sight of their eyes. Not only what they see +and hear, but what they know to be behind, enter into their notion of a +place. If the sea, for instance, lie just across the hills, sea-thoughts +will come to them at intervals, and the tenor of their dreams from time +to time will suffer a sea-change. And so here, in this forest, a +knowledge of its greatness is for much in the effect produced. You +reckon up the miles that lie between you and intrusion. You may walk +before you all day long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, +or stumble out of fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And +there is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your seclusion. When +Charles VI. hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there +was captured an old stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and +these words engraved on the collar: "Caesar mini hoc donavit." It is no +wonder if the minds of men were moved at this occurrence and they stood +aghast to find themselves thus touching hands with forgotten ages, and +following an antiquity with hound and horn. And even for you, it is +scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder how many centuries this +stag had carried its free antlers through the wood, and how many summers +and winters had shone and snowed on the imperial badge. If the extent of +solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter's hounds +and horses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these groves, with +all the pangs and trepidations of man's life, and elude Death, the +mighty hunter, for more than the span of human years? Here, also, crash +his arrows; here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of the pale +horse. But he does not hunt this cover with all his hounds, for the game +is thin and small: and if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged +ever in the deepest thickets, you too might live on into later +generations and astonish men by your stalwart age and the trophies of an +immemorial success. + +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is nothing +here to cabin or thwart your free desires. Here all the impudences of +the brawling world reach you no more. You may count your hours, like +Endymion, by the strokes of the lone woodcutter, or by the progression +of the lights and shadows and the sun wheeling his wide circuit through +the naked heavens. Here shall you see no enemies but winter and rough +weather. And if a pang comes to you at all, it will be a pang of +healthful hunger. All the puling sorrows, all the carking repentance, +all this talk of duty that is no duty, in the great peace, in the pure +daylight of these woods, fall away from you like a garment. And if +perchance you come forth upon an eminence, where the wind blows upon you +large and fresh, and the pines knock their long stems together, like an +ungainly sort of puppets, and see far away over the plain a factory +chimney defined against the pale horizon--it is for you, as for the +staid and simple peasant when, with his plough, he upturns old arms and +harness from the furrow of the glebe. Ay, sure enough, there was a +battle there in the old times; and, sure enough, there is a world out +yonder where men strive together with a noise of oaths and weeping and +clamorous dispute. So much you apprehend by an athletic act of the +imagination. A faint far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as +of some dead religion. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [42] "Deux poures varlez qui n'out nulz gages et qui gissoient la + nuit avec les chiens." See Champollion-Figeac's "Louis et Charles + d'Orleans," i. 63, and for my lord's English horn, _ibid._ 96. + + + + +CRITICISMS + + + + +CRITICISMS + +I + +LORD LYTTON'S "FABLES IN SONG" + + +It seems as if Lord Lytton, in this new book of his, had found the form +most natural to his talent. In some ways, indeed, it may be held +inferior to "Chronicles and Characters"; we look in vain for anything +like the terrible intensity of the night-scene in "Irene," or for any +such passages of massive and memorable writing as appeared, here and +there, in the earlier work, and made it not altogether unworthy of its +model, Hugo's "Legend of the Ages." But it becomes evident, on the most +hasty retrospect, that this earlier work was a step on the way towards +the later. It seems as if the author had been feeling about for his +definite medium, and was already, in the language of the child's game, +growing hot. There are many pieces in "Chronicles and Characters" that +might be detached from their original setting, and embodied, as they +stand, among the "Fables in Song." + +For the term Fable is not very easy to define rigorously. In the most +typical form some moral precept is set forth by means of a conception +purely fantastic, and usually somewhat trivial into the bargain; there +is something playful about it, that will not support a very exacting +criticism, and the lesson must be apprehended by the fancy at half a +hint. Such is the great mass of the old stories of wise animals or +foolish men that have amused our childhood. But we should expect the +fable, in company with other and more important literary forms, to be +more and more loosely, or at least largely, comprehended as time went +on, and so to degenerate in conception from this original type. That +depended for much of its piquancy on the very fact that it was +fantastic: the point of the thing lay in a sort of humorous +inappropriateness; and it is natural enough that pleasantry of this +description should become less common, as men learn to suspect some +serious analogy underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches us +quite differently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin's theory. +Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this primitive sort of +fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough truths; so that at the end of +some story, in which vice or folly had met with its destined punishment, +the fabulist might be able to assure his auditors, as we have often to +assure tearful children on the like occasions, that they may dry their +eyes, for none of it was true. + +But this benefit of fiction becomes lost with more sophisticated hearers +and authors: a man is no longer the dupe of his own artifice, and cannot +deal playfully with truths that are a matter of bitter concern to him in +his life. And hence, in the progressive centralisation of modern +thought, we should expect the old form of fable to fall gradually into +desuetude, and be gradually succeeded by another, which is a fable in +all points except that it is not altogether fabulous. And this new form, +such as we should expect, and such as we do indeed find, still presents +the essential character of brevity; as in any other fable also, there +is, underlying and animating the brief action, a moral idea; and as in +any other fable, the object is to bring this home to the reader through +the intellect rather than through the feelings; so that, without being +very deeply moved or interested by the characters of the piece, we +should recognise vividly the hinges on which the little plot revolves. +But the fabulist now seeks analogies where before he merely sought +humorous situations. There will be now a logical nexus between the moral +expressed and the machinery employed to express it. The machinery, in +fact, as this change is developed, becomes less and less fabulous. We +find ourselves in presence of quite a serious, if quite a miniature +division of creative literature; and sometimes we have the lesson +embodied in a sober, everyday narration, as in the parables of the New +Testament, and sometimes merely the statement or, at most, the +collocation of significant facts in life, the reader being left to +resolve for himself the vague, troublesome, and not yet definitely moral +sentiment which has been thus created. And step by step with the +development of this change, yet another is developed: the moral tends to +become more indeterminate and large. It ceases to be possible to append +it, in a tag, to the bottom of the piece, as one might write the name +below a caricature; and the fable begins to take rank with all other +forms of creative literature, as something too ambitious, in spite of +its miniature dimensions, to be resumed in any succinct formula without +the loss of all that is deepest and most suggestive in it. + +Now it is in this widest sense that Lord Lytton understands the term; +there are examples in his two pleasant volumes of all the forms already +mentioned, and even of another which can only be admitted among fables +by the utmost possible leniency of construction. "Composure," "Et +Caetera," and several more, are merely similes poetically elaborated. So, +too, is the pathetic story of the grandfather and grandchild: the child, +having treasured away an icicle and forgotten it for ten minutes, comes +back to find it already nearly melted, and no longer beautiful: at the +same time, the grandfather has just remembered and taken out a bundle of +love-letters, which he too had stored away in years gone by, and then +long neglected; and, behold! the letters are as faded and sorrowfully +disappointing as the icicle. This is merely a simile poetically worked +out; and yet it is in such as these, and some others, to be mentioned +further on, that the author seems at his best. Wherever he has really +written after the old model, there is something to be deprecated: in +spite of all the spirit and freshness, in spite of his happy assumption +of that cheerful acceptation of things as they are, which, rightly or +wrongly, we come to attribute to the ideal fabulist, there is ever a +sense as of something a little out of place. A form of literature so +very innocent and primitive looks a little over-written in Lord Lytton's +conscious and highly-coloured style. It may be bad taste, but sometimes +we should prefer a few sentences of plain prose narration, and a little +Bewick by way of tail-piece. So that it is not among those fables that +conform most nearly to the old model, but one had nearly said among +those that most widely differ from it, that we find the most +satisfactory examples of the author's manner. + +In the mere matter of ingenuity, the metaphysical fables are the most +remarkable; such as that of the windmill who imagined that it was he who +raised the wind; or that of the grocer's balance ("Cogito ergo sum") who +considered himself endowed with free-will, reason, and an infallible +practical judgment; until, one fine day, the police made a descent upon +the shop, and find the weights false and the scales unequal; and the +whole thing is broken up for old iron. Capital fables, also, in the same +ironical spirit, are "Prometheus Unbound," the tale of the vainglorying +of a champagne-cork, and "Teleology," where a nettle justifies the ways +of God to nettles while all goes well with it, and, upon a change of +luck, promptly changes its divinity. + +In all these there is still plenty of the fabulous if you will, +although, even here, there may be two opinions possible; but there is +another group, of an order of merit perhaps still higher, where we look +in vain for any such playful liberties with Nature. Thus we have +"Conservation of Force"; where a musician, thinking of a certain +picture, improvises in the twilight; a poet, hearing the music, goes +home inspired, and writes a poem; and then a painter, under the +influence of this poem, paints another picture, thus lineally descended +from the first. This is fiction, but not what we have been used to call +fable. We miss the incredible element, the point of audacity with which +the fabulist was wont to mock at his readers. And still more so is this +the case with others. "The Horse and the Fly" states one of the +unanswerable problems of life in quite a realistic and straightforward +way. A fly startles a cab-horse, the coach is overset; a newly-married +pair within and the driver, a man with a wife and family, are all +killed. The horse continues to gallop off in the loose traces, and ends +the tragedy by running over an only child; and there is some little +pathetic detail here introduced in the telling, that makes the reader's +indignation very white-hot against some one. It remains to be seen who +that some one is to be: the fly? Nay, but on closer inspection, it +appears that the fly, actuated by maternal instinct, was only seeking a +place for her eggs: is maternal instinct, then, "sole author of these +mischiefs all"? "Who's in the Right?" one of the best fables in the +book, is somewhat in the same vein. After a battle has been won, a group +of officers assemble inside a battery, and debate together who should +have the honour of the success; the Prince, the general staff, the +cavalry, the engineer who posted the battery in which they then stand +talking, are successively named: the sergeant, who pointed the guns, +sneers to himself at the mention of the engineer; and, close by, the +gunner, who had applied the match, passes away with a smile of triumph, +since it was through his hand that the victorious blow had been dealt. +Meanwhile, the cannon claims the honour over the gunner; the +cannon-ball, who actually goes forth on the dread mission, claims it +over the cannon, who remains idly behind; the powder reminds the +cannon-ball that, but for him, it would still be lying on the arsenal +floor; and the match caps the discussion; powder, cannon-ball, and +cannon would be all equally vain and ineffectual without fire. Just then +there comes on a shower of rain, which wets the powder and puts out the +match, and completes this lesson of dependence, by indicating the +negative conditions which are as necessary for any effect, in their +absence, as is the presence of this great fraternity of positive +conditions, not any one of which can claim priority over any other. But +the fable does not end here, as perhaps, in all logical strictness, it +should. It wanders off into a discussion as to which is the truer +greatness, that of the vanquished fire or that of the victorious rain. +And the speech of the rain is charming: + + "Lo, with my little drops I bless again + And beautify the fields which thou didst blast! + Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt, + But call not Greatness what the Gods call Guilt. + Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt, + And poppied corn, I bring. + 'Mid mouldering Babels, to oblivion built, + My violets spring. + Little by little my small drops have strength + To deck with green delights the grateful earth." + +And so forth, not quite germane (it seems to me) to the matter in hand, +but welcome for its own sake. + +Best of all are the fables that deal more immediately with the emotions. +There is, for instance, that of "The Two Travellers," which is +profoundly moving in conception, although by no means as well written as +some others. In this, one of the two, fearfully frost-bitten, saves his +life out of the snow at the cost of all that was comely in his body; +just as, long before, the other, who has now quietly resigned himself to +death, had violently freed himself from Love at the cost of all that was +finest and fairest in his character. Very graceful and sweet is the +fable (if so it should be called) in which the author sings the praises +of that "kindly perspective," which lets a wheat-stalk near the eye +cover twenty leagues of distant country, and makes the humble circle +about a man's hearth more to him than all the possibilities of the +external world. The companion fable to this is also excellent. It tells +us of a man who had, all his life through, entertained a passion for +certain blue hills on the far horizon, and had promised himself to +travel thither ere he died, and become familiar with these distant +friends. At last, in some political trouble, he is banished to the very +place of his dreams. He arrives there overnight, and, when he rises and +goes forth in the morning, there sure enough are the blue hills, only +now they have changed places with him, and smile across to him, distant +as ever, from the old home whence he has come. Such a story might have +been very cynically treated; but it is not so done, the whole tone is +kindly and consolatory, and the disenchanted man submissively takes the +lesson, and understands that things far away are to be loved for their +own sake, and that the unattainable is not truly unattainable, when we +can make the beauty of it our own. Indeed, throughout all these two +volumes, though there is much practical scepticism, and much irony on +abstract questions, this kindly and consolatory spirit is never absent. +There is much that is cheerful and, after a sedate, fireside fashion, +hopeful. No one will be discouraged by reading the book; but the ground +of all this hopefulness and cheerfulness remains to the end somewhat +vague. It does not seem to arise from any practical belief in the future +either of the individual or the race, but rather from the profound +personal contentment of the writer. This is, I suppose, all we must look +for in the case. It is as much as we can expect, if the fabulist shall +prove a shrewd and cheerful fellow-wayfarer, one with whom the world +does not seem to have gone much amiss, but who has yet laughingly +learned something of its evil. It will depend much, of course, upon our +own character and circumstances, whether the encounter will be agreeable +and bracing to the spirits, or offend us as an ill-timed mockery. But +where, as here, there is a little tincture of bitterness along with the +good-nature, where it is plainly not the humour of a man cheerfully +ignorant, but of one who looks on, tolerant and superior and smilingly +attentive, upon the good and bad of our existence, it will go hardly if +we do not catch some reflection of the same spirit to help us on our +way. There is here no impertinent and lying proclamation of peace--none +of the cheap optimism of the well-to-do; what we find here is a view of +life that would be even grievous, were it not enlivened with this +abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon redeemed by a stroke of pathos. + +It is natural enough, I suppose, that we should find wanting in this +book some of the intenser qualities of the author's work; and their +absence is made up for by much happy description after a quieter +fashion. The burst of jubilation over the departure of the snow, which +forms the prelude to "The Thistle," is full of spirit and of pleasant +images. The speech of the forest in "Sans Souci" is inspired by a +beautiful sentiment for nature of the modern sort, and pleases us more, +I think, as poetry should please us, than anything in "Chronicles and +Characters." There are some admirable felicities of expression here and +there; as that of the hill, whose summit + + "Did print + The azure air with pines." + +Moreover, I do not recollect in the author's former work any symptom of +that sympathetic treatment of still life, which is noticeable now and +again in the fables; and perhaps most noticeably, when he sketches the +burned letters as they hover along the gusty flue, "Thin, sable veils, +wherein a restless spark Yet trembled." But the description is at its +best when the subjects are unpleasant, or even grisly. There are a few +capital lines in this key on the last spasm of the battle before alluded +to. Surely nothing could be better, in its own way, than the fish in +"The Last Cruise of the Arrogant," "the shadowy, side-faced, silent +things," that come butting and staring with lidless eyes at the sunken +steam-engine. And although, in yet another, we are told, pleasantly +enough, how the water went down into the valleys, where it set itself +gaily to saw wood, and on into the plains, where it would soberly carry +grain to town; yet the real strength of the fable is when it deals with +the shut pool in which certain unfortunate raindrops are imprisoned +among slugs and snails, and in the company of an old toad. The sodden +contentment of the fallen acorn is strangely significant; and it is +astonishing how unpleasantly we are startled by the appearance of her +horrible lover, the maggot. + +And now for a last word, about the style. This is not easy to criticise. +It is impossible to deny to it rapidity, spirit, and a full sound; the +lines are never lame, and the sense is carried forward with an +uninterrupted, impetuous rush. But it is not equal. After passages of +really admirable versification, the author falls back upon a sort of +loose, cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of Mr. Browning's +minor pieces, and almost inseparable from wordiness, and an easy +acceptation of somewhat cheap finish. There is nothing here of that +compression which is the note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair, +perhaps, to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by side +with one of the signal masterpieces of another, and a very perfect poet; +and yet it is interesting, when we see how the portraiture of a dog, +detailed through thirty odd lines, is frittered down and finally almost +lost in the mere laxity of the style, to compare it with the clear, +simple, vigorous delineation that Burns, in four couplets, has given us +of the ploughman's collie. It is interesting, at first, and then it +becomes a little irritating; for when we think of other passages so much +more finished and adroit, we cannot help feeling, that with a little +more ardour after perfection of form, criticism would have found nothing +left for her to censure. A similar mark of precipitate work is the +number of adjectives tumultuously heaped together, sometimes to help out +the sense, and sometimes (as one cannot but suspect) to help out the +sound of the verses. I do not believe, for instance, that Lord Lytton +himself would defend the lines in which we are told how Laocoon +"Revealed to _Roman_ crowds, now _Christian_ grown, That _Pagan_ anguish +which, in _Parian_ stone, the _Rhodian_ artist," and so on. It is not +only that this is bad in itself; but that it is unworthy of the company +in which it is found; that such verses should not have appeared with the +name of a good versifier like Lord Lytton. We must take exception, also, +in conclusion, to the excess of alliteration. Alliteration is so liable +to be abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it; and yet it is a +trick that seems to grow upon the author with years. It is a pity to see +fine verses, such as some in "Demos," absolutely spoiled by the +recurrence of one wearisome consonant. + + + + +II + +SALVINI'S MACBETH + + +Salvini closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance of +_Macbeth_. It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of local colour that he +chose to play the Scottish usurper for the first time before Scotsmen; +and the audience were not insensible of the privilege. Few things, +indeed, can move a stronger interest than to see a great creation taking +shape for the first time. If it is not purely artistic, the sentiment is +surely human. And the thought that you are before all the world, and +have the start of so many others as eager as yourself, at least keeps +you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if it does +not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance and see +the actor "bend up each corporal agent" to realise a masterpiece of a +few hours' duration. With a player so variable as Salvini, who trusts +to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night after +night, does the same thing differently but always well, it can never be +safe to pass judgment after a single hearing. And this is more +particularly true of last week's _Macbeth_; for the whole third act was +marred by a grievously humorous misadventure. Several minutes too soon +the ghost of Banquo joined the party, and after having sat helpless a +while at a table, was ignominiously withdrawn. Twice was this ghostly +Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage before his time; twice removed +again; and yet he showed so little hurry when he was really wanted, +that, after an awkward pause, Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to +empty air. The arrival of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk +that made him nod all over, was the last accident in the chapter, and +worthily topped the whole. It may be imagined how lamely matters went +throughout these cross purposes. + +In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini's Macbeth had an +emphatic success. The creation is worthy of a place beside the same +artist's Othello and Hamlet. It is the simplest and most unsympathetic +of the three; but the absence of the finer lineaments of Hamlet is +redeemed by gusto, breadth, and a headlong unity. Salvini sees nothing +great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle, and that courage which +comes of strong and copious circulation. The moral smallness of the man +is insisted on from the first, in the shudder of uncontrollable jealousy +with which he sees Duncan embracing Banquo. He may have some northern +poetry of speech, but he has not much logical understanding. In his +dealings with the supernatural powers he is like a savage with his +fetich, trusting them beyond bounds while all goes well, and whenever he +is crossed, casting his belief aside and calling "fate into the list." +For his wife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew +for her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her +is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to +the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much +meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. +Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who +happened to be nearest to him at a moment of excitement. Love has fallen +out of this marriage by the way, and left a curious friendship. Only +once--at the very moment when she is showing herself so little a woman +and so much a high-spirited man--only once is he very deeply stirred +towards her; and that finds expression in the strange and horrible +transport of admiration, doubly strange and horrible on Salvini's +lips--"Bring forth men-children only!" + +The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the audience best. +Macbeth's voice, in the talk with his wife, was a thing not to be +forgotten; and when he spoke of his hangman's hands he seemed to have +blood in his utterance. Never for a moment, even in the very article of +the murder, does he possess his own soul. He is a man on wires. From +first to last it is an exhibition of hideous cowardice. For, after all, +it is not here, but in broad daylight, with the exhilaration of +conflict, where he can assure himself at every blow he has the longest +sword and the heaviest hand, that this man's physical bravery can keep +him up; he is an unwieldy ship, and needs plenty of way on before he +will steer. + +In the banquet scene, while the first murderer gives account of what he +has done, there comes a flash of truculent joy at the "twenty trenched +gashes" on Banquo's head. Thus Macbeth makes welcome to his imagination +those very details of physical horror which are so soon to turn sour in +him. As he runs out to embrace these cruel circumstances, as he seeks to +realise to his mind's eye the reassuring spectacle of his dead enemy, he +is dressing out the phantom to terrify himself; and his imagination, +playing the part of justice, is to "commend to his own lips the +ingredients of his poisoned chalice." With the recollection of Hamlet +and his father's spirit still fresh upon him, and the holy awe with +which that good man encountered things not dreamt of in his philosophy, +it was not possible to avoid looking for resemblances between the two +apparitions and the two men haunted. But there are none to be found. +Macbeth has a purely physical dislike for Banquo's spirit and the +"twenty trenched gashes." He is afraid of he knows not what. He is +abject, and again blustering. In the end he so far forgets himself, his +terror, and the nature of what is before him, that he rushes upon it as +he would upon a man. When his wife tells him he needs repose, there is +something really childish in the way he looks about the room, and, +seeing nothing, with an expression of almost sensual relief, plucks up +heart enough to go to bed. And what is the upshot of the visitation? It +is written in Shakespeare, but should be read with the commentary of +Salvini's voice and expression:--"_O! siam nell' opra ancor +fanciulli_,"--"We are yet but young in deed." Circle below circle. He is +looking with horrible satisfaction into the mouth of hell. There may +still be a prick to-day; but to-morrow conscience will be dead, and he +may move untroubled in this element of blood. + +In the fifth act we see this lowest circle reached; and it is Salvini's +finest moment throughout the play. From the first he was admirably made +up, and looked Macbeth to the full as perfectly as ever he looked +Othello. From the first moment he steps upon the stage you can see this +character is a creation to the fullest meaning of the phrase; for the +man before you is a type you know well already. He arrives with Banquo +on the heath, fair and red-bearded, sparing of gesture, full of pride +and the sense of animal wellbeing, and satisfied after the battle like a +beast who has eaten his fill. But in the fifth act there is a change. +This is still the big, burly, fleshly, handsome-looking Thane; here is +still the same face which in the earlier acts could be superficially +good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. But now the atmosphere +of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and +subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable degradation, a +slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his features. He has breathed the +air of carnage, and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of +the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint--he has +ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. A +contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and +the doctor as people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as +he knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About +her he questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety; +and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can "minister to a mind +diseased." When the news of her death is brought him, he is staggered +and falls into a seat; but somehow it is not anything we can call grief +that he displays. There had been two of them against God and man; and +now, when there is only one, it makes perhaps less difference than he +had expected. And so her death is not only an affliction, but one more +disillusion; and he redoubles in bitterness. The speech that follows, +given with tragic cynicism in every word, is a dirge, not so much for +her as for himself. From that time forth there is nothing human left in +him, only "the fiend of Scotland," Macduff's "hell-hound," whom, with a +stern glee, we see baited like a bear and hunted down like a wolf. He is +inspired and set above fate by a demoniacal energy, a lust of wounds and +slaughter. Even after he meets Macduff his courage does not fail; but +when he hears the Thane was not born of woman, all virtue goes out of +him; and though he speaks sounding words of defiance, the last combat is +little better than a suicide. + +The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and a headlong +unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp and powerful; and within +these somewhat narrow limits there is so much play and saliency that, so +far as concerns Salvini himself, a third great success seems +indubitable. Unfortunately, however, a great actor cannot fill more than +a very small fraction of the boards; and though Banquo's ghost will +probably be more seasonable in his future apparitions, there are some +more inherent difficulties in the piece. The company at large did not +distinguish themselves. Macduff, to the huge delight of the gallery, +out-Macduff'd the average ranter. The lady who filled the principal +female part has done better on other occasions, but I fear she has not +metal for what she tried last week. Not to succeed in the sleep-walking +scene is to make a memorable failure. As it was given, it succeeded in +being wrong in art without being true to nature. + +And there is yet another difficulty, happily easy to reform, which +somewhat interfered with the success of the performance. At the end of +the incantation scene the Italian translator has made Macbeth fall +insensible upon the stage. This is a change of questionable propriety +from a psychological point of view; while in point of view of effect it +leaves the stage for some moments empty of all business. To remedy this, +a bevy of green ballet-girls came forth and pointed their toes about the +prostrate king. A dance of High Church curates, or a hornpipe by Mr. T. +P. Cooke, would not be more out of the key; though the gravity of a +Scots audience was not to be overcome, and they merely expressed their +disapprobation by a round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of +Christmas fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from pit +to gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told, the Italian +tradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach than the +observance. With the total disappearance of these damsels, with a +stronger Lady Macbeth, and, if possible, with some compression of those +scenes in which Salvini does not appear, and the spectator is left at +the mercy of Macduffs and Duncans, the play would go twice as well, and +we should be better able to follow and enjoy an admirable work of +dramatic art. + + + + +III + +BAGSTER'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" + + +I have here before me an edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress," bound in +green, without a date, and described as "illustrated by nearly three +hundred engravings, and memoir of Bunyan." On the outside it is lettered +"Bagster's Illustrated Edition," and after the author's apology, facing +the first page of the tale, a folding pictorial "Plan of the Road" is +marked as "drawn by the late Mr. T. Conder," and engraved by J. Basire. +No further information is anywhere vouchsafed; perhaps the publishers +had judged the work too unimportant; and we are still left ignorant +whether or not we owe the woodcuts in the body of the volume to the same +hand that drew the plan. It seems, however, more than probable. The +literal particularity of mind which, in the map, laid down the +flower-plots in the devil's garden, and carefully introduced the +court-house in the town of Vanity, is closely paralleled in many of the +cuts; and in both, the architecture of the buildings and the disposition +of the gardens have a kindred and entirely English air. Whoever he was, +the author of these wonderful little pictures may lay claim to be the +best illustrator of Bunyan.[43] They are not only good illustrations, +like so many others; but they are like so few, good illustrations of +Bunyan. Their spirit, in defect and quality, is still the same as his +own. The designer also has lain down and dreamed a dream, as literal, as +quaint, and almost as apposite as Bunyan's; and text and pictures +make but the two sides of the same homespun yet impassioned story. To +do justice to the designs, it will be necessary to say, for the +hundredth time, a word or two about the masterpiece which they adorn. + +All allegories have a tendency to escape from the purpose of their +creators; and as the characters and incidents become more and more +interesting in themselves, the moral, which these were to show forth, +falls more and more into neglect. An architect may command a wreath of +vine-leaves round the cornice of a monument; but if, as each leaf came +from the chisel, it took proper life and fluttered freely on the wall, +and if the vine grew, and the building were hidden over with foliage and +fruit, the architect would stand in much the same situation as the writer +of allegories. The "Faery Queen" was an allegory, I am willing to +believe; but it survives as an imaginative tale in incomparable verse. +The case of Bunyan is widely different; and yet in this also Allegory, +poor nymph, although never quite forgotten, is sometimes rudely thrust +against the wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; with "his fingers in +his ears, he ran on," straight for his mark. He tells us himself, in the +conclusion to the first part, that he did not fear to raise a laugh; +indeed, he feared nothing, and said anything; and he was greatly served +in this by a certain rustic privilege of his style, which, like the talk +of strong uneducated men, when it does not impress by its force, still +charms by its simplicity. The mere story and the allegorical design +enjoyed perhaps his equal favour. He believed in both with an energy of +faith that was capable of moving mountains. And we have to remark in him, +not the parts where inspiration fails and is supplied by cold and merely +decorative invention, but the parts where faith has grown to be +credulity, and his characters become so real to him that he forgets the +end of their creation. We can follow him step by step into the trap which +he lays for himself by his own entire good faith and triumphant +literality of vision, till the trap closes and shuts him in an +inconsistency. The allegories of the Interpreter and of the Shepherds of +the Delectable Mountains are all actually performed, like stage-plays, +before the pilgrims. The son of Mr. Great-grace visibly "tumbles hills +about with his words." Adam the First has his condemnation written +visibly on his forehead, so that Faithful reads it. At the very instant +the net closes round the pilgrims, "the white robe falls from the black +man's body." Despair "getteth him a grievous crab-tree cudgel"; it was in +"sunshiny weather" that he had his fits; and the birds in the grove about +the House Beautiful, "our country birds," only sing their little pious +verses "at the spring, when the flowers appear and the sun shines warm." +"I often," says Piety, "go out to hear them; we also ofttimes keep them +tame on our house." The post between Beulah and the Celestial City sounds +his horn, as you may yet hear in country places. Madam Bubble, that +"tall, comely dame, something of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant +attire, but old," "gives you a smile at the end of each sentence"--a real +woman she; we all know her. Christiana dying "gave Mr. Stand-fast a +ring," for no possible reason in the allegory, merely because the touch +was human and affecting. Look at Great-heart, with his soldierly ways, +garrison ways, as I had almost called them; with his taste in weapons; +his delight in any that "he found to be a man of his hands"; his +chivalrous point of honour, letting Giant Maul get up again when he was +down, a thing fairly flying in the teeth of the moral; above all, with +his language in the inimitable tale of Mr. Fearing: "I thought I should +have lost my man"--"chicken-hearted"--"at last he came in, and I will say +that for my lord, he carried it wonderful lovingly to him." This is no +Independent minister; this is a stout, honest, big-busted ancient, +adjusting his shoulder-belts, twirling his long moustaches as he speaks. +Last and most remarkable, "My sword," says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, +he in whom Great-heart delighted, "my sword I give to him that shall +succeed me in my pilgrimage, _and my courage and skill to him that can +get it_." And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox than was ever +dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we are told that "all the trumpets +sounded for him on the other side." + +In every page the book is stamped with the same energy of vision and the +same energy of belief. The quality is equally and indifferently +displayed in the spirit of the fighting, the tenderness of the pathos, +the startling vigour and strangeness of the incidents, the natural +strain of the conversations, and the humanity and charm of the +characters. Trivial talk over a meal, the dying words of heroes, the +delights of Beulah or the Celestial City, Apollyon and my Lord +Hate-good, Great-heart, and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, all have been imagined +with the same clearness, all written of with equal gusto and precision, +all created in the same mixed element, of simplicity that is almost +comical, and art that, for its purpose, is faultless. + +It was in much the same spirit that our artist sat down to his drawings. +He is by nature a Bunyan of the pencil. He, too, will draw anything, +from a butcher at work on a dead sheep, up to the courts of Heaven. "A +Lamb for Supper" is the name of one of his designs, "Their Glorious +Entry" of another. He has the same disregard for the ridiculous, and +enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of style, so that we are pleased +even when we laugh the most. He is literal to the verge of folly. If +dust is to be raised from the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will +"fly abundantly" in the picture. If Faithful is to lie "as dead" before +Moses, dead he shall lie with a warrant--dead and stiff like granite; +nay (and here the artist must enhance upon the symbolism of the author), +it is with the identical stone tables of the law that Moses fells the +sinner. Good and bad people, whom we at once distinguish in the text by +their names, Hopeful, Honest, and Valiant-for-Truth, on the one hand, as +against By-ends, Sir Having Greedy, and the Lord Old-man on the other, +are in these drawings as simply distinguished by their costume. Good +people, when not armed _cap-a-pie_, wear a speckled tunic girt about the +waist, and low hats, apparently of straw. Bad people swagger in +tail-coats and chimney-pots, a few with knee-breeches, but the large +majority in trousers, and for all the world like guests at a +garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, by some inexplicable quirk, stands +before Christian in laced hat, embroidered waistcoat, and trunk-hose. +But above all examples of this artist's intrepidity, commend me to the +print entitled "Christian Finds it Deep." "A great darkness and horror," +says the text, have fallen on the pilgrim; it is the comfortless +deathbed with which Bunyan so strikingly concludes the sorrows and +conflicts of his hero. How to represent this worthily the artist knew +not; and yet he was determined to represent it somehow. This was how he +did: Hopeful is still shown to his neck above the water of death; but +Christian has bodily disappeared, and a blot of solid blackness +indicates his place. + +As you continue to look at these pictures, about an inch square for the +most part, sometimes printed three or more to the page, and each having +a printed legend of its own, however trivial the event recorded, you +will soon become aware of two things: first, that the man can draw, and, +second, that he possesses the gift of an imagination. "Obstinate +reviles," says the legend; and you should see Obstinate reviling. "He +warily retraces his steps"; and there is Christian, posting through the +plain, terror and speed in every muscle. "Mercy yearns to go" shows you +a plain interior with packing going forward, and, right in the middle, +Mercy yearning to go--every line of the girl's figure yearning. In "The +Chamber called Peace" we see a simple English room, bed with white +curtains, window valance and door, as may be found in many thousand +unpretentious houses; but far off, through the open window, we behold +the sun uprising out of a great plain, and Christian hails it with his +hand: + + "Where am I now! is this the love and care + Of Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are! + Thus to provide! That I should be forgiven! + And dwell already the next door to heaven!" + +A page or two further, from the top of the House Beautiful, the damsels +point his gaze toward the Delectable Mountains: "The Prospect," so the +cut is ticketed--and I shall be surprised, if on less than a square of +paper you can show me one so wide and fair. Down a cross road on an +English plain, a cathedral city outlined on the horizon, a hazel shaw +upon the left, comes Madam Wanton dancing with her fair enchanted cup, +and Faithful, book in hand, half pauses. The cut is perfect as a symbol; +the giddy movement of the sorceress, the uncertain poise of the man +struck to the heart by a temptation, the contrast of that even plain of +life whereon he journeys with the bold, ideal bearing of the wanton--the +artist who invented and portrayed this had not merely read Bunyan, he +had also thoughtfully lived. The Delectable Mountains--I continue +skimming the first part--are not on the whole happily rendered. Once, +and once only, the note is struck, when Christian and Hopeful are seen +coming, shoulder-high, through a thicket of green shrubs--box, perhaps, +or perfumed nutmeg; while behind them, domed or pointed, the hills stand +ranged against the sky. A little further, and we come to that +masterpiece of Bunyan's insight into life, the Enchanted Ground; where, +in a few traits, he has set down the latter end of such a number of the +would-be good; where his allegory goes so deep that, to people looking +seriously on life, it cuts like satire. The true significance of this +invention lies, of course, far out of the way of drawing; only one +feature, the great tedium of the land, the growing weariness in +welldoing, may be somewhat represented in a symbol. The pilgrims are +near the end: "Two Miles Yet," says the legend. The road goes ploughing +up and down over a rolling heath; the wayfarers, with outstretched arms, +are already sunk to the knees over the brow of the nearest hill; they +have just passed a milestone with the cipher two; from overhead a great, +piled, summer cumulus, as of a slumberous summer afternoon, beshadows +them: two miles! it might be hundreds. In dealing with the Land of +Beulah the artist lags, in both parts, miserably behind the text, but in +the distant prospect of the Celestial City more than regains his own. +You will remember when Christian and Hopeful "with desire fell sick." +"Effect of the Sunbeams" is the artist's title. Against the sky, upon a +cliffy mountain, the radiant temple beams upon them over deep, subjacent +woods; they, behind a mound, as if seeking shelter from the +splendour--one prostrate on his face, one kneeling, and with hands +ecstatically lifted--yearn with passion after that immortal city. Turn +the page, and we behold them walking by the very shores of death; +Heaven, from this nigher view, has risen half-way to the zenith, and +sheds a wider glory; and the two pilgrims, dark against that brightness, +walk and sing out of the fulness of their hearts. No cut more thoroughly +illustrates at once the merit and the weakness of the artist. Each +pilgrim sings with a book in his grasp--a family Bible at the least for +bigness; tomes so recklessly enormous that our second impulse is to +laughter. And yet that is not the first thought, nor perhaps the last. +Something in the attitude of the manikins--faces they have none, they +are too small for that--something in the way they swing these monstrous +volumes to their singing, something perhaps borrowed from the text, some +subtle differentiation from the cut that went before and the cut that +follows after--something, at least, speaks clearly of a fearful joy, of +Heaven seen from the deathbed, of the horror of the last passage no less +than of the glorious coming home. There is that in the action of one of +them which always reminds me, with a difference, of that haunting last +glimpse of Thomas Idle, travelling to Tyburn in the cart. Next come the +Shining Ones, wooden and trivial enough; the pilgrims pass into the +river; the blot already mentioned settles over and obliterates +Christian. In two more cuts we behold them drawing nearer to the other +shore; and then, between two radiant angels, one of whom points upward, +we see them mounting in new weeds, their former lendings left behind +them on the inky river. More angels meet them; Heaven is displayed, and +if no better, certainly no worse, than it has been shown by others--a +place, at least, infinitely populous and glorious with light--a place +that haunts solemnly the hearts of children. And then this symbolic +draughtsman once more strikes into his proper vein. Three cuts conclude +the first part. In the first the gates close, black against the glory +struggling from within. The second shows us Ignorance--alas! poor +Arminian!--hailing, in a sad twilight, the ferryman Vain-Hope; and in +the third we behold him, bound hand and foot, and black already with the +hue of his eternal fate, carried high over the mountain-tops of the +world by two angels of the anger of the Lord. "Carried to Another +Place," the artist enigmatically names his plate--a terrible design. + +Wherever he touches on the black side of the supernatural his pencil +grows more daring and incisive. He has many true inventions in the +perilous and diabolic; he has many startling nightmares realised. It is +not easy to select the best; some may like one and some another; the +nude, depilated devil bounding and casting darts against the Wicket +Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hang over Christian by the Mouth +of Hell; the horned shade that comes behind him whispering blasphemies; +the daylight breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains and +falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian's further progress +along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at every yard or +two, a gin, a pitfall, or a snare awaits the passer-by--loathsome white +devilkins harbouring close under the bank to work the springes, +Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword's point at the +nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the farther +side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset the first of +Christian's journey, with the frog-like structure of the skull, the +frog-like limberness of limbs--crafty, slippery, lustful-looking devils, +drawn always in outline as though possessed of a dim, infernal +luminosity. Horrid fellows are they, one and all; horrid fellows and +horrific scenes. In another spirit that Good-Conscience "to whom Mr. +Honest had spoken in his lifetime," a cowled, grey, awful figure, one +hand pointing to the heavenly shore, realises, I will not say all, but +some at least of the strange impressiveness of Bunyan's words. It is no +easy nor pleasant thing to speak in one's lifetime with Good-Conscience; +he is an austere, unearthly friend, whom maybe Torquemada knew; and the +folds of his raiment are not merely claustral, but have something of the +horror of the pall. Be not afraid, however; with the hand of that +appearance Mr. Honest will get safe across. + + +[Illustration: Obstinate reviles] + +[Illustration: Mr. Worldly-Wiseman] + +[Illustration: He warily retraces his steps] + +[Illustration: Christian at the gate] + +[Illustration: The parlour unswept] + +[Illustration: The chamber called Peace] + +[Illustration: The prospect] + +[Illustration: Is met by Apollyon] + +[Illustration: The fiend in discourse] + +[Illustration: The conflict] + +[Illustration: Close combat] + +[Illustration: The deadly thrust] + +[Illustration: Thanksgiving for victory] + +[Illustration: His last weapon--All-prayer] + +[Illustration: Whispering blasphemies] + +[Illustration: Snares, traps, gins, and pitfalls] + +[Illustration: Madam Wanton] + +[Illustration: Two miles yet] + +[Illustration: Effect of the sunbeams] + +[Illustration: Carried to another place] + + +Yet perhaps it is in sequences that this artist best displays himself. +He loves to look at either side of a thing: as, for instance, when he +shows us both sides of the wall--"Grace Inextinguishable" on the one +side, with the devil vainly pouring buckets on the flame, and "The Oil +of Grace" on the other, where the Holy Spirit, vessel in hand, still +secretly supplies the fire. He loves, also, to show us the same event +twice over, and to repeat his instantaneous photographs at the interval +of but a moment. So we have, first, the whole troop of pilgrims coming +up to Valiant, and Great-heart to the front, spear in hand and +parleying; and next, the same cross-roads, from a more distant view, the +convoy now scattered and looking safely and curiously on, and Valiant +handing over for inspection his "right Jerusalem blade." It is true that +this designer has no great care after consistency: Apollyon's spear is +laid by, his quiver of darts will disappear, whenever they might hinder +the designer's freedom; and the fiend's tail is blobbed or forked at his +good pleasure. But this is not unsuitable to the illustration of the +fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry and momentary inspiration. He, with +his hot purpose, hunting sinners with a lasso, shall himself forget the +things that he has written yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless in +the Valley of the Shadow, and then take leave of him talking in his +sleep, as if nothing had happened, in an arbour on the Enchanted Ground. +And again, in his rhymed prologue, he shall assign some of the glory of +the siege of Doubting Castle to his favourite Valiant-for-the-Truth, who +did not meet with the besiegers till long after, at that dangerous +corner by Deadman's Lane. And, with all inconsistencies and freedoms, +there is a power shown in these sequences of cuts: a power of joining on +one action or one humour to another; a power of following out the moods, +even of the dismal subterhuman fiends engendered by the artist's fancy; +a power of sustained continuous realisation, step by step, in nature's +order, that can tell a story, in all its ins and outs, its pauses and +surprises, fully and figuratively, like the art of words. + +One such sequence is the fight of Christian and Apollyon--six cuts, +weird and fiery, like the text. The pilgrim is throughout a pale and +stockish figure; but the devil covers a multitude of defects. There is +no better devil of the conventional order than our artist's Apollyon, +with his mane, his wings, his bestial legs, his changing and terrifying +expression, his infernal energy to slay. In cut the first you see him +afar off, still obscure in form, but already formidable in suggestion. +Cut the second, "The Fiend in Discourse," represents him, not reasoning, +railing rather, shaking his spear at the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced, +his tail writhing in the air, his foot ready for a spring, while +Christian stands back a little, timidly defensive. The third illustrates +these magnificent words: "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole +breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare +thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no +farther: here will I spill thy soul! And with that he threw a flaming +dart at his breast." In the cut he throws a dart with either hand, +belching pointed flames out of his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and +straddling the while across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who +has just sworn by his infernal den. The defence will not be long against +such vice, such flames, such red-hot nether energy. And in the fourth +cut, to be sure, he has leaped bodily upon his victim, sped by foot and +pinion, and roaring as he leaps. The fifth shows the climacteric of the +battle; Christian has reached nimbly out and got his sword, and dealt +that deadly home-thrust, the fiend still stretched upon him, but "giving +back, as one that had received his mortal wound." The raised head, the +bellowing mouth, the paw clapped upon the sword, the one wing relaxed in +agony, all realise vividly these words of the text. In the sixth and +last, the trivial armed figure of the pilgrim is seen kneeling with +clasped hands on the betrodden scene of contest and among the shivers of +the darts; while just at the margin the hinder quarters and the tail of +Apollyon are whisking off, indignant and discomfited. + +In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy of the text, and +that point is one rather of the difference of arts than the difference +of artists. Throughout his best and worst, in his highest and most +divine imaginations as in the narrowest sallies of his sectarianism, the +human-hearted piety of Bunyan touches and ennobles, convinces, accuses +the reader. Through no art beside the art of words can the kindness of a +man's affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall find faithfully +parodied the quaintness and the power, the triviality and the surprising +freshness of the author's fancy; there you shall find him outstripped in +ready symbolism and the art of bringing things essentially invisible +before the eyes: but to feel the contact of essential goodness, to be +made in love with piety, the book must be read and not the prints +examined. + +Farewell should not be taken with a grudge; nor can I dismiss in any +other words than those of gratitude a series of pictures which have, to +one at least, been the visible embodiment of Bunyan from childhood up, +and shown him, through all his years, Great-heart lungeing at Giant +Maul, and Apollyon breathing fire at Christian, and every turn and town +along the road to the Celestial City, and that bright place itself, seen +as to a stave of music, shining afar off upon the hill-top, the candle +of the world. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [43] The illustrator was, in fact, a lady, Miss Eunice Bagster, + eldest daughter of the publisher, Samuel Bagster; except in the case + of the cuts depicting the fight with Apollyon, which were designed + by her brother, Mr. Jonathan Bagster. The edition was published in + 1845. I am indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. + Robert Bagster, the present managing director of the firm.--SIR + SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE. + + + + + AN APPEAL + + TO THE + _Clergy of the Church of Scotland_ + + WITH A NOTE FOR THE LAITY + + "_Had I a strong voice, as it is the weakest alive, yea, could I lift + it up as a trumpet, I would sound a retreat from our unnatural + contentions, and irreligious strivings for religion_" + + ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON, 1669 + + + _William Blackwood & Sons_ + + _Edinburgh and London_ + 1875 + + Price 3d.] + + (_Facsimile of original Title-page_) + + + + +AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND + +WITH A NOTE FOR THE LAITY + + "Had I a strong voice, as it is the weakest alive, yea, could I lift + it up as a trumpet, I would sound a retreat from our unnatural + contentions, and irreligious strivings for religion."--ARCHBISHOP + LEIGHTON, 1669. + + +Gentlemen,--The position of the Church of Scotland is now one of +considerable difficulty; not only the credit of the Church, not only the +credit of Christianity, but to some extent also that of the national +character, is at stake. You have just gained a great victory, in spite +of an opposition neither very logical nor very generous; you have +succeeded in effecting, by quiet constitutional processes, a great +reform which brings your Church somewhat nearer in character to what is +required by your Dissenting brethren. It remains to be seen whether you +can prove yourselves as generous as you have been wise and patient. And +the position, as I say, is one of difficulty. Many, doubtless, left the +Church for a reason which is now removed; many have joined other sects +who would rather have joined themselves with you, had you been then as +you now are; and for these you are bound to render as easy as may be the +way of reconciliation, and show, by some notable action, the reality of +your own desire for Peace. But I am not unaware that there are others, +and those possibly a majority, who hold very different opinions--who +regard the old quarrel as still competent, or have found some new reason +for dissent; and from these the Church, if she makes such an advance as +she ought to make, in all loyalty and charity, may chance to meet that +most sensible of insults--ridicule, in return for an honest offer of +reconciliation. I am not unaware, also, that there is yet another ground +of difficulty; and that those even who would be most ready to hold the +cause of offence as now removed will find it hard to forget the +past--will continue to think themselves unjustly used--will not be +willing to come back, as though they were repentant offenders, among +those who delayed the reform and quietly enjoyed their benefices, while +they bore the heat and burthen of the day in a voluntary exile for the +Truth's sake. + +In view of so many elements of difficulty, no intelligent person can be +free from apprehension for the result; and you, gentlemen, may be +perhaps more ready now to receive advice, to hear and weigh the opinion +of one who is free, because he writes without name, than you would be at +any juncture less critical. There is now a hope, at least, that some +term may be put to our more clamorous dissensions. Those who are at all +open to a feeling of national disgrace look eagerly forward to such a +possibility; they have been witnesses already too long to the strife +that has divided this small corner of Christendom; and they cannot +remember without shame that there has been as much noise, as much +recrimination, as much severance of friends, about mere logical +abstractions in our remote island, as would have sufficed for the great +dogmatic battles of the Continent. It would be difficult to exaggerate +the pity that fills the heart at such a reflection; at the thought of +how this neck of barren hills between two inclement seaways has echoed +for three centuries with the uproar of sectarian battle; of how the east +wind has carried out the sound of our shrill disputations into the +desolate Atlantic, and the west wind has borne it over the German Ocean, +as though it would make all Europe privy to how well we Scottish +brethren abide together in unity. It is not a bright page in the annals +of a small country: it is not a pleasant commentary on the Christianity +that we profess; there is something in it pitiful, as I have said, for +the pitiful man, but bitterly humorous for others. How much time we have +lost, how much of the precious energy and patience of good men we have +exhausted, on these trivial quarrels, it would be nauseous to consider; +we know too much already when we know the facts in block; we know enough +to make us hide our heads for shame, and grasp gladly at any present +humiliation, if it would ensure a little more quiet, a little more +charity, a little more brotherly love in the distant future. + +And it is with this before your eyes that, as I feel certain, you are +now addressing yourselves to the consideration of this important crisis. +It is with a sense of the blackness of this discredit upon the national +character and national Christianity that not you alone but many of other +Churches are now setting themselves to square their future course with +the exigencies of the new position of sects; and it is with you that the +responsibility remains. The obligation lies ever on the victor; and just +so surely as you have succeeded in the face of captious opposition in +carrying forth the substance of a reform of which others had despaired, +just as surely does it lie upon you as a duty to take such steps as +shall make that reform available, not to you only, but to all your +brethren who will consent to profit by it; not only to all the clergy, +but to the cause of decency and peace, throughout your native land. It +is earnestly hoped that you may show yourselves worthy of a great +opportunity, and do more for the public minds by the example of one act +of generosity and humility than you could do by an infinite series of +sermons. + +Without doubt, it is your intention, on the earliest public opportunity, +to make some advance. Without doubt, it is your purpose to improve the +advantage you have gained, and to press upon those who quitted your +communion some thirty years ago your great desire to be once more united +to them. This, at least, will find a place in the most unfriendly +programme you can entertain; and if there are any in the Free Church (as +I doubt not there are some) who seceded, not so much from any dislike to +the just supremacy of the law, as from a belief that the law in these +ecclesiastical matters was applied unjustly, I know well that you will +be most eager to receive them back again; I know well that you will not +let any petty vanity, any scruple of worldly dignity, stand between them +and their honourable return. If, therefore, there were no more to be +done than to display to these voluntary exiles the deep sense of your +respect for their position, this appeal would be unnecessary, and you +might be left to the guidance of your own good feeling. + +But it seems to me that there is need of something more; it seems to me, +and I think that it will seem so to you also, that you must go even +further if you would be equal to the importance of the situation. If +there are any among the Dissenters whose consciences are so far +satisfied with the provisions of the recent Act that they could now +return to your communion, to such, it must not be forgotten, you stand +in a position of great delicacy. The conduct of these men you have so +far justified; you have tacitly admitted that there was some ground for +dissatisfaction with the former condition of the Church; and though you +may still judge those to have been over-scrupulous who were moved by +this imperfection to secede, instead of waiting patiently with you until +it could be remedied by peaceful means, you must not forget that it is +the strong stomach, according to St. Paul, that is to consider the weak, +and should come forward to meet these brethren with something better +than compliments upon your lips. Observe, I speak only of those who +would now see their way back to your communion with a clear conscience; +it is their conduct, and their conduct alone, that you have justified, +and therefore it is only for them that your special generosity is here +solicited. But towards them, if there are any such, your countrymen +would desire to see you behave with all consideration. I do not pretend +to lay before you any definite scheme of action; I wish only to let you +understand what thoughts are busy in the heads of some outside your +councils, so that you may take this also into consideration when you +come to decide. And this, roughly, is how it appears to these: These +good men have exposed themselves to the chance of hardship for the sake +of their scruples, whilst you being of a stronger stomach, continued to +enjoy the security of national endowments. Some of you occupy the very +livings which they resigned for conscience' sake. To others preferment +has fallen which would have fallen to them had they been still eligible. +If, then, any of them are now content to return, you are bound, if not +in justice, then in honour, to do all that you can to testify your +respect for brave conviction, and to repair to them such losses as they +may have suffered, whether for their first secession or their second. +You owe a special duty, not only to the courage that left the Church, +but to the wisdom and moderation that now returns to it. And your sense +of this duty will find a vent not only in word but in action. You will +facilitate their return not only by considerate and brotherly language +but by pecuniary aid; you will seek, by some new endowment scheme, to +preserve for them their ecclesiastical status. That they have no claim +will be their strongest claim on your consideration. Many of you, if not +all, will set apart some share out of your slender livings for their +assistance and support: you will give them what you can afford; and you +will say to them, as you do so, what I dare say to you, that what you +give is theirs--not only in honour but in justice. + +For you know that the justice which should rule the dealings of +Christians, how much more of Christian ministers, is not as the justice +of courts of law or equity; and those who profess the morality of Jesus +Christ have abjured, in that profession, all that can be urged by policy +or worldly prudence. From them we can accept no half-hearted and +calculating generosity; they must make haste to be liberal; they must +catch with eagerness at all opportunities of service, and the mere +whisper of an obligation should be to them more potent than the decree +of a court to others who make profession of a less stringent code. And +remember that it lies with you to show to the world that Christianity is +something more than a verbal system. In the lapse of generations men +grow weary of unsupported precept. They may wait long, and keep long in +memory the bright doings of former days, but they will weary at the +last; they will begin to trouble you for your credentials; if you cannot +give them miracles, they will demand virtue; if you cannot heal the +sick, they will call upon you for some practice of the Christian ethics. +Thus people will knock often at a door if only it be opened to them now +and again; but if the door remains closed too long, they will judge the +house uninhabited and go elsewhere. And thus it is that a season of +persecution, constantly endured, revives the fainting confidence of the +people, and some centuries of prosperity may prepare a Church for ruin. +You have here at your hand an opportunity to do more for the credit of +your Christianity than ever you could do by visions, miracles, or +prophecies. A sacrifice such as this would be better worth, as I said +before, than many sermons; and there is a disposition in mankind that +would ennoble it beyond much that is more ostentatious; for men, whether +lay or clerical, suffer better the flame of the stake than a daily +inconvenience or a pointed sneer, and will not readily be martyred +without some external circumstance and a concourse looking on. And you +need not fear that your virtue will be thrown away; the people of +Scotland will be quick to understand, in default of visible fire and +halter, that you have done a brave action for Christianity and the +national weal; and if they are spared in the future any of the present +ignoble jealousy of sect against sect, they will not forget that to that +end you gave of your household comfort and stinted your children. Even +if you fail--ay, and even if there were not found one to profit by your +invitation--your virtue would still have its own reward. Your +predecessors gave their lives for ends not always the most Christian; +they were tempted, and slain with the sword; they wandered in deserts +and in mountains, in caves and in dens of the earth. But your action +will not be less illustrious; what you may have to suffer may be a small +thing if the world will, but it will have been suffered for the cause of +peace and brotherly love. + +I have said that the people of Scotland will be quick to appreciate what +you do. You know well that they will be quick also to follow your +example. But the sign should come from you. It is more seemly that you +should lead than follow in this matter. Your predecessors gave the word +from their free pulpits which was to brace men for sectarian strife: it +would be a pleasant sequel if the word came from you that was to bid +them bury all jealousy, and forget the ugly and contentious past in a +good hope of peace to come. + +What is said in these few pages may be objected to as vague; it is no +more vague than the position seemed to me to demand. Each man must judge +for himself what it behoves him to do at this juncture, and the whole +Church for herself. All that is intended in this appeal is to begin, in +a tone of dignity and disinterestedness, the consideration of the +question; for when such matters are much pulled about in public prints, +and have been often discussed from many different, and not always from +very high, points of view, there is ever a tendency that the decision of +the parties may contract some taint of meanness from the spirit of their +critics. All that is desired is to press upon you, as ministers of the +Church of Scotland, some sense of the high expectation with which your +country looks to you at this time; and how many reasons there are that +you should show an example of signal disinterestedness and zeal in the +encouragement that you give to returning brethren. For, first, it lies +with you to clear the Church from the discredit of our miserable +contentions; and surely you can never have a fairer opportunity to +improve her claim to the style of a peacemaker. Again, it lies with +you, as I have said, to take the first step, and prove your own true +ardour for an honourable union; and how else are you to prove it? It +lies with you, moreover, to justify in the eyes of the world the time +you have been enjoying your benefices, while these others have +voluntarily shut themselves out from all participation in their +convenience; and how else are you to convince the world that there was +not something of selfishness in your motives? It lies with you, lastly, +to keep your example unspotted before your congregations; and I do not +know how better you are to do that. + +It is never a thankful office to offer advice; and advice is the more +unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the service recommended, +but often from its very obviousness. We are fired with anger against +those who make themselves the spokesmen of plain obligations; for they +seem to insult us as they advise. In the present case I should have +feared to waken some such feeling, had it not been that I was addressing +myself to a body of special men on a very special occasion. I know too +much of the history of ideas to imagine that the sentiments advocated in +this appeal are peculiar to me and a few others. I am confident that +your own minds are already busy with similar reflections. But I know at +the same time how difficult it is for one man to speak to another in +such a matter; how he is withheld by all manner of personal +considerations, and dare not propose what he has nearest his heart, +because the other has a larger family or a smaller stipend, or is older, +more venerable, and more conscientious than himself; and it is in view +of this that I have determined to profit by the freedom of an anonymous +writer, and give utterance to what many of you would have uttered +already, had they been (as I am) apart from the battle. It is easy to be +virtuous when one's own convenience is not affected; and it is no shame +to any man to follow the advice of an outsider who owns that, while he +sees which is the better part, he might not have the courage to profit +himself by this opinion. + + +[_Note for the Laity_] + +The foregoing pages have been in type since the beginning of last +September. I have been advised to give them to the public; and it is +only necessary to add that nothing of all that has taken place since +they were written has made me modify an opinion or so much as change a +word. The question is not one that can be altered by circumstances. + +I need not tell the laity that with them this matter ultimately rests. +Whether we regard it as a question of mere expense or as a question of +good feeling against ill feeling, the solution must come from the Church +members. The lay purse is the long one; and if the lay opinion does not +speak from so high a place, it speaks all the week through and with +innumerable voices. Trumpets and captains are all very well in their +way; but if the trumpets were ever so clear, and the captains as bold as +lions, it is still the army that must take the fort. + +The laymen of the Church have here a question before them, on the +answering of which, as I still think, many others attend. If the +Established Church could throw off its lethargy, and give the Dissenters +some speaking token of its zeal for union, I still think that union, to +some extent, would be the result. There is a motion tabled (as I suppose +all know) for the next meeting of the General Assembly; but something +more than motions must be tabled, and something more must be given than +votes. It lies practically with the laymen, by a new endowment scheme, +to put the Church right with the world in two ways, so that those who +left it more than thirty years ago, and who may now be willing to +return, shall lose neither in money nor in ecclesiastical status. At the +outside, what will they have to do? They will have to do for (say) ten +years what the laymen of the Free Church have done cheerfully ever since +1843. + + _February 12th_ 1875. + + + + +THE CHARITY BAZAAR + +THE LIGHT-KEEPER + +ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES + +ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS + + + + +THE CHARITY BAZAAR + +AN ALLEGORICAL DIALOGUE + + * * * * * + +_PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE_ + + THE INGENUOUS PUBLIC + HIS WIFE + THE TOUT + + * * * * * + + _The Tout, in an allegorical costume, holding a silver trumpet in his + right hand, is discovered on the steps in front of the Bazaar. He + sounds a preliminary flourish._ + + +_The Tout_.--Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to announce a sale +of many interesting, beautiful, rare, quaint, comical, and necessary +articles. Here you will find objects of taste, such as Babies' Shoes, +Children's Petticoats, and Shetland Wool Cravats; objects of general +usefulness, such as Tea-cosies, Bangles, Brahmin Beads, and Madras +Baskets; and objects of imperious necessity, such as Pen-wipers, Indian +Figures carefully repaired with glue, and Sealed Envelopes, containing a +surprise. And all this is not to be sold by your common Shopkeepers, +intent on small and legitimate profits, but by Ladies and Gentlemen, who +would as soon think of picking your pocket of a cotton handkerchief as +of selling a single one of these many interesting, beautiful, rare, +quaint, comical, and necessary articles at less than twice its market +value. (_He sounds another flourish_.) + +_The Wife._--This seems a very fair-spoken young man. + +_The Ingenuous Public_ (_addressing the Tout_).--Sir, I am a man of +simple and untutored mind; but I apprehend that this sale, of which you +give us so glowing a description, is neither more nor less than a +Charity Bazaar? + +_The Tout._--Sir, your penetration has not deceived you. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Into which you seek to entice unwary +passengers? + +_The Tout._--Such is my office. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--But is not a Charity Bazaar, Sir, a place +where, for ulterior purposes, amateur goods are sold at a price above +their market value? + +_The Tout._--I perceive you are no novice. Let us sit down, all three, +upon the doorsteps, and reason this matter at length. The position is a +little conspicuous, but airy and convenient. + + (_The Tout seats himself on the second step, the Ingenuous Public and + his Wife to right and left of him, one step below._) + +_The Tout._--Shopping is one of the dearest pleasures of the human +heart. + +_The Wife._--Indeed, Sir, and that it is. + +_The Tout._--The choice of articles, apart from their usefulness, is an +appetising occupation, and to exchange bald, uniform shillings for a +fine big, figurative knick-knack, such as a windmill, a gross of green +spectacles, or a cocked hat, gives us a direct and emphatic sense of +gain. We have had many shillings before, as good as these; but this is +the first time we have possessed a windmill. Upon these principles of +human nature, Sir, is based the theory of the Charity Bazaar. People +were doubtless charitably disposed. The problem was to make the exercise +of charity entertaining in itself--you follow me, Madam?--and in the +Charity Bazaar a satisfactory solution was attained. The act of giving +away money for charitable purposes is, by this admirable invention, +transformed into an amusement, and puts on the externals of profitable +commerce. You play at shopping a while; and in order to keep up the +illusion, sham goods do actually change hands. Thus, under the +similitude of a game, I have seen children confronted with the horrors +of arithmetic, and even taught to gargle. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--You expound this subject very magisterially, +Sir. But tell me, would it not be possible to carry this element of play +still further? and after I had remained a proper time in the Bazaar, and +negotiated a sufficient number of sham bargains, would it not be +possible to return me my money in the hall? + +_The Tout._--I question whether that would not impair the humour of the +situation. And besides, my dear Sir, the pith of the whole device is to +take that money from you. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--True. But at least the Bazaar might take back +the tea-cosies and pen-wipers. + +_The Tout._--I have no doubt, if you were to ask it handsomely, that you +would be so far accommodated. Still it is out of the theory. The sham +goods, for which, believe me, I readily understand your +disaffection--the sham goods are well adapted for their purpose. Your +lady wife will lay these tea-cosies and pen-wipers aside in a safe +place, until she is asked to contribute to another Charity Bazaar. There +the tea-cosies and pen-wipers will be once more charitably sold. The new +purchasers, in their turn, will accurately imitate the dispositions of +your lady wife. In short, Sir, the whole affair is a cycle of +operations. The tea-cosies and pen-wipers are merely counters; they come +off and on again like a stage army; and year after year people pretend +to buy and pretend to sell them, with a vivacity that seems to indicate +a talent for the stage. But in the course of these illusory +manoeuvres, a great deal of money is given in charity, and that in a +picturesque, bustling, and agreeable manner. If you have to travel +somewhere on business, you would choose the prettiest route, and desire +pleasant companions by the way. And why not show the same spirit in +giving alms? + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Sir, I am profoundly indebted to you for all +you have said. I am, Sir, your absolute convert. + +_The Wife._--Let us lose no time, but enter the Charity Bazaar. + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Yes; let us enter the Charity Bazaar. + +_Both_ (_singing_).--Let us enter, let us enter, let us enter, Let us +enter the Charity Bazaar! + + (_An interval is supposed to elapse. The Ingenuous Public and his Wife + are discovered issuing from the Charity Bazaar._) + +_The Wife._--How fortunate you should have brought your cheque-book! + +_The Ingenuous Public._--Well, fortunate in a sense. (_Addressing the +Tout._)--Sir, I shall send a van in the course of the afternoon for the +little articles I have purchased. I shall not say good-bye; because I +shall probably take a lift in the front seat, not from any solicitude, +believe me, about the little articles, but as the last opportunity I may +have for some time of enjoying the costly entertainment of a drive. + + THE SCENE CLOSES + + + + +THE LIGHT-KEEPER + +I + + The brilliant kernel of the night, + The flaming lightroom circles me: + I sit within a blaze of light + Held high above the dusky sea. + Far off the surf doth break and roar + Along bleak miles of moonlit shore, + Where through the tides the tumbling wave + Falls in an avalanche of foam + And drives its churned waters home + Up many an undercliff and cave. + + The clear bell chimes: the clockworks strain: + The turning lenses flash and pass, + Frame turning within glittering frame + With frosty gleam of moving glass: + Unseen by me, each dusky hour + The sea-waves welter up the tower + Or in the ebb subside again; + And ever and anon all night, + Drawn from afar by charm of light, + A sea-bird beats against the pane. + + And lastly when dawn ends the night + And belts the semi-orb of sea, + The tall, pale pharos in the light + Looks white and spectral as may be. + The early ebb is out: the green + Straight belt of sea-weed now is seen, + That round the basement of the tower + Marks out the interspace of tide; + And watching men are heavy-eyed, + And sleepless lips are dry and sour. + + The night is over like a dream: + The sea-birds cry and dip themselves; + And in the early sunlight, steam + The newly-bared and dripping shelves, + Around whose verge the glassy wave + With lisping wash is heard to lave; + While, on the white tower lifted high, + With yellow light in faded glass + The circling lenses flash and pass, + And sickly shine against the sky. + + 1869. + + +II + + As the steady lenses circle + With a frosty gleam of glass; + And the clear bell chimes, + And the oil brims over the lip of the burner, + Quiet and still at his desk, + The lonely light-keeper + Holds his vigil. + + Lured from afar, + The bewildered sea-gull beats + Dully against the lantern; + Yet he stirs not, lifts not his head + From the desk where he reads, + Lifts not his eyes to see + The chill blind circle of night + Watching him through the panes. + This is his country's guardian, + The outmost sentry of peace. + This is the man, + Who gives up all that is lovely in living + For the means to live. + + Poetry cunningly gilds + The life of the Light-Keeper, + Held on high in the blackness + In the burning kernel of night. + The seaman sees and blesses him; + The Poet, deep in a sonnet, + Numbers his inky fingers + Fitly to praise him: + Only we behold him, + Sitting, patient and stolid, + Martyr to a salary. + + 1870. + + + + +ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES[44] + + +The necessity for marked characteristics in coast illumination increases +with the number of lights. The late Mr. Robert Stevenson, my +grandfather, contributed two distinctions, which he called respectively +the _intermittent_ and the _flashing_ light. It is only to the former of +these that I have to refer in the present paper. The intermittent light +was first introduced at Tarbetness in 1830, and is already in use at +eight stations on the coasts of the United Kingdom. As constructed +originally, it was an arrangement by which a fixed light was alternately +eclipsed and revealed. These recurrent occultations and revelations +produce an effect totally different from that of the revolving light, +which comes gradually into its full strength, and as gradually fades +away. The changes in the intermittent, on the other hand, are immediate; +a certain duration of darkness is followed at once and without the least +gradation by a certain period of light. The arrangement employed by my +grandfather to effect this object consisted of two opaque cylindric +shades or extinguishers, one of which descended from the roof, while the +other ascended from below to meet it, at a fixed interval. The light was +thus entirely intercepted. + +At a later period, at the harbour light of Troon, Mr. Wilson, C.E., +produced an intermittent light by the use of gas, which leaves little to +be desired, and which is still in use at Troon harbour. By a simple +mechanical contrivance, the gas jet was suddenly lowered to the point of +extinction, and, after a set period, as suddenly raised again. The chief +superiority of this form of intermittent light is economy in the +consumption of the gas. In the original design, of course, the oil +continues uselessly to illuminate the interior of the screens during the +period of occultation. + +Mr. Wilson's arrangement has been lately resuscitated by Mr. Wigham of +Dublin, in connection with his new gas-burner. + +Gas, however, is inapplicable to many situations; and it has occurred to +me that the desired result might be effected with strict economy with +oil lights, in the following manner:-- + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +In Fig. 1, AAA represents in plan an ordinary Fresnel's dioptric fixed +light apparatus, and BB' a hemispherical mirror (either metallic or +dioptric on my father's principle) which is made to revolve with uniform +speed about the burner. This mirror, it is obvious, intercepts the rays +of one hemisphere, and, returning them through the flame (less loss by +absorption, etc.), spreads them equally over the other. In this way 180 +deg. of light pass regularly the eye of the seaman; and are followed at +once by 180 deg. of darkness. As the hemispherical mirror begins to open, +the observer receives the full light, since the whole lit hemisphere is +illuminated with strict equality; and as it closes again, he passes into +darkness. + +Other characteristics can be produced by different modifications of the +above. In Fig. 2 the original hemispherical mirror is shown broken up +into three different sectors, BB', CC', and DD'; so that with the same +velocity of revolution the periods of light and darkness will be +produced in quicker succession. In this figure (Fig. 2) the three +sectors have been shown as subtending equal angles, but if one of them +were increased in size and the other two diminished (as in Fig. 3), we +should have one long steady illumination and two short flashes at each +revolution. Again, the number of sectors may be increased; and by +varying both their number and their relative size, a number of +additional characteristics are attainable. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +Colour may also be introduced as a means of distinction. Coloured glass +may be set in the alternate spaces; but it is necessary to remark that +these coloured sectors will be inferior in power to those which remain +white. This objection is, however, obviated to a large extent +(especially where the dioptric spherical mirror is used) by such an +arrangement as is shown in Fig. 4; where the two sectors, WW, are left +unassisted, while the two with the red screens are reinforced +respectively by the two sectors of mirror, MM. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +Another mode of holophotally producing the intermittent light has been +suggested by my father, and is shown in Fig. 5. It consists of alternate +and opposite sectors of dioptric spherical mirror, MM, and of Fresnel's +fixed light apparatus, AA. By the revolution of this composite frame +about the burner, the same immediate alternation of light and darkness +is produced, the first when the front of the fixed panel, and the +second when the back of the mirror, is presented to the eye of the +sailor. + +One advantage of the method that I propose is this, that while we are +able to produce a plain intermittent light; an intermittent light of +variable period, ranging from a brief flash to a steady illumination of +half the revolution; and finally, a light combining the immediate +occultation of the intermittent with combination and change of colour, +we can yet preserve comparative lightness in the revolving parts, and +consequent economy in the driving machinery. It must, however, be +noticed, that none of these last methods are applicable to cases where +more than one radiant is employed: for these cases, either my +grandfather's or Mr. Wilson's contrivance must be resorted to. + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.] + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [44] Read before the Royal Scottish Society of Arts on 27th March + 1871, and awarded the Society's Silver Medal. + + + + +ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS[45] + + +The opportunity of an experiment on a comparatively large scale, and +under conditions of comparative isolation, can occur but rarely in such +a science as Meteorology. Hence Mr. Milne Home's proposal for the +plantation of Malta seemed to offer an exceptional opportunity for +progress. Many of the conditions are favourable to the simplicity of the +result; and it seemed natural that, if a searching and systematic series +of observations were to be immediately set afoot, and continued during +the course of the plantation and the growth of the wood, some light +would be thrown on the still doubtful question of the climatic influence +of forests. + +Mr. Milne Home expects, as I gather, a threefold result:--1st, an +increased and better regulated supply of available water; 2nd, an +increased rainfall; and, 3rd, a more equable climate, with more +temperate summer heat and winter cold.[46] As to the first of these +expectations, I suppose there can be no doubt that it is justified by +facts; but it may not be unnecessary to guard against any confusion of +the first with the second. Not only does the presence of growing timber +increase and regulate the supply of running and spring water +independently of any change in the amount of rainfall, but as +Boussingault found at Marmato,[47] denudation of forest is sufficient to +decrease that supply, even when the rainfall has increased instead of +diminished in amount. The second and third effects stand apart, +therefore, from any question as to the utility of Mr. Milne Home's +important proposal; they are both, perhaps, worthy of discussion at the +present time, but I wish to confine myself in the present paper to the +examination of the third alone. + +A wood, then, may be regarded either as a _superficies_ or as a _solid_; +that is, either as a part of the earth's surface slightly elevated above +the rest, or as a diffused and heterogeneous body displacing a certain +portion of free and mobile atmosphere. It is primarily in the first +character that it attracts our attention, as a radiating and absorbing +surface, exposed to the sun and the currents of the air; such that, if +we imagine a plateau of meadow-land or bare earth raised to the mean +level of the forest's exposed leaf-surface, we shall have an agent +entirely similar in kind, although perhaps widely differing in the +amount of action. Now, by comparing a tract of wood with such a plateau +as we have just supposed, we shall arrive at a clear idea of the +specialities of the former. In the first place, then, the mass of +foliage may be expected to increase the radiating power of each tree. +The upper leaves radiate freely towards the stars and the cold +inter-stellar spaces, while the lower ones radiate to those above and +receive less heat in return; consequently, during the absence of the +sun, each tree cools gradually downward from top to bottom. Hence we +must take into account not merely the area of leaf-surface actually +exposed to the sky, but, to a greater or less extent, the surface of +every leaf in the whole tree or the whole wood. This is evidently a +point in which the action of the forest may be expected to differ from +that of the meadow or naked earth; for though, of course, inferior +strata tend to a certain extent to follow somewhat the same course as +the mass of inferior leaves, they do so to a less degree--conduction, +and the conduction of a very slow conductor, being substituted for +radiation. + +We come next, however, to a second point of difference. In the case of +the meadow, the chilled air continues to lie upon the surface, the +grass, as Humboldt says, remaining all night submerged in the stratum of +lowest temperature; while in the case of trees, the coldest air is +continually passing down to the space underneath the boughs, or what we +may perhaps term the crypt of the forest. Here it is that the +consideration of any piece of woodland conceived as a solid comes +naturally in; for this solid contains a portion of the atmosphere, +partially cut off from the rest, more or less excluded from the +influence of wind, and lying upon a soil that is screened all day from +isolation by the impending mass of foliage. In this way (and chiefly, I +think, from the exclusion of winds), we have underneath the radiating +leaf-surface a stratum of comparatively stagnant air, protected from +many sudden variations of temperature, and tending only slowly to bring +itself into equilibrium with the more general changes that take place in +the free atmosphere. + +Over and above what has been mentioned, thermal effects have been +attributed to the vital activity of the leaves in the transudation of +water, and even to the respiration and circulation of living wood. The +whole actual amount of thermal influence, however, is so small that I +may rest satisfied with mere mention. If these actions have any effect +at all, it must be practically insensible; and the others that I have +already stated are not only sufficient validly to account for all the +observed differences, but would lead naturally to the expectation of +differences very much larger and better marked. To these observations I +proceed at once. Experience has been acquired upon the following three +points:--1, The relation between the temperature of the trunk of a tree +and the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere; 2, The relation +between the temperature of the air under a wood and the temperature of +the air outside; and, 3, The relation between the temperature of the air +above a wood and the temperature of the air above cleared land. + +As to the first question, there are several independent series of +observations; and I may remark in passing, what applies to all, that +allowance must be made throughout for some factor of specific heat. The +results were as follows:--The seasonal and monthly means in the tree and +in the air were not sensibly different. The variations in the tree, in +M. Becquerel's own observations, appear as considerably less than a +fourth of those in the atmosphere, and he has calculated, from +observations made at Geneva between 1796 and 1798, that the variations +in the tree were less than a fifth of those in the air; but the tree in +this case, besides being of a different species, was seven or eight +inches thicker than the one experimented on by himself.[48] The +variations in the tree, therefore, are always less than those in the +air, the ratio between the two depending apparently on the thickness of +the tree in question and the rapidity with which the variations followed +upon one another. The times of the maxima, moreover, were widely +different: in the air, the maximum occurs at 2 P.M. in winter, and at 3 +P.M. in summer; in the tree, it occurs in winter at 6 P.M., and in +summer between 10 and 11 P.M. At nine in the morning in the month of +June, the temperatures of the tree and of the air had come to an +equilibrium. A similar difference of progression is visible in the +means, which differ most in spring and autumn, and tend to equalise +themselves in winter and in summer. But it appears most strikingly in +the case of variations somewhat longer in period than the daily ranges. +The following temperatures occurred during M. Becquerel's observations +in the Jardin des Plantes:-- + + Date. Temperature of Temperature in + the Air. the Tree. + + 1859. Dec. 15, 26.78 deg. 32 deg. + " 16, 19.76 deg. 32 deg. + " 17, 17.78 deg. 31.46 deg. + " 18, 13.28 deg. 30.56 deg. + " 19, 12.02 deg. 28.40 deg. + " 20, 12.54 deg. 25.34 deg. + " 21, 38.30 deg. 27.86 deg. + " 22, 43.34 deg. 30.92 deg. + " 23, 44.06 deg. 31.46 deg. + +A moment's comparison of the two columns will make the principle +apparent. The temperature of the air falls nearly fifteen degrees in +five days; the temperature of the tree, sluggishly following, falls in +the same time less than four degrees. Between the 19th and the 20th the +temperature of the air has changed its direction of motion, and risen +nearly a degree; but the temperature of the tree persists in its former +course, and continues to fall nearly three degrees farther. On the 21st +there comes a sudden increase of heat, a sudden thaw; the temperature of +the air rises twenty-five and a half degrees; the change at last reaches +the tree, but only raises its temperature by less than three degrees; +and even two days afterwards, when the air is already twelve degrees +above freezing point, the tree is still half a degree below it. Take, +again, the following case:-- + + Date Temperature of Temperature in + the Air. the Tree. + + 1859. July 13, 84.92 deg. 76.28 deg. + " 14, 82.58 deg. 78.62 deg. + " 15, 80.42 deg. 77.72 deg. + " 16, 79.88 deg. 78.44 deg. + " 17, 73.22 deg. 75.92 deg. + " 18, 68.54 deg. 74.30 deg. + " 19, 65.66 deg. 70.70 deg. + +The same order reappears. From the 13th to the 19th the temperature of +the air steadily falls, while the temperature of the tree continues +apparently to follow the course of previous variations, and does not +really begin to fall, is not really affected by the ebb of heat, until +the 17th, three days at least after it had been operating in the +air.[49] Hence we may conclude that all variations of the temperature +of the air, whatever be their period, from twenty-four hours up to +twelve months, are followed in the same manner by variations in the +temperature of the tree; and that those in the tree are always less in +amount and considerably slower of occurrence than those in the air. This +_thermal sluggishness_, so to speak, seems capable of explaining all the +phenomena of the case without any hypothetical vital power of resisting +temperatures below the freezing point, such as is hinted at even by +Becquerel. + +Reaumur, indeed, is said to have observed temperatures in slender trees +nearly thirty degrees higher than the temperature of the air in the sun; +but we are not informed as to the conditions under which this +observation was made, and it is therefore impossible to assign to it its +proper value. The sap of the ice-plant is said to be materially colder +than the surrounding atmosphere; and there are several other somewhat +incongruous facts, which tend, at first sight, to favour the view of +some inherent power of resistance in some plants to high temperatures, +and in others to low temperatures.[50] But such a supposition seems in +the meantime to be gratuitous. Keeping in view the thermal +redispositions, which must be greatly favoured by the ascent of the sap, +and the difference between the condition as to temperature of such parts +as the root, the heart of the trunk, and the extreme foliage, and never +forgetting the unknown factor of specific heat, we may still regard it +as possible to account for all anomalies without the aid of any such +hypothesis. We may, therefore, I think, disregard small exceptions, and +state the result as follows:-- + +If, after every rise or fall, the temperature of the air remained +stationary for a length of time proportional to the amount of the +change, it seems probable--setting aside all question of vital +heat--that the temperature of the tree would always finally equalise +itself with the new temperature of the air, and that the range in tree +and atmosphere would thus become the same. This pause, however, does not +occur: the variations follow each other without interval; and the +slow-conducting wood is never allowed enough time to overtake the rapid +changes of the more sensitive air. Hence, so far as we can see at +present, trees appear to be simply bad conductors, and to have no more +influence upon the temperature of their surroundings than is fully +accounted for by the consequent tardiness of their thermal variations. + +Observations bearing on the second of the three points have been made by +Becquerel in France, by La Cour in Jutland and Iceland, and by Rivoli at +Posen. The results are perfectly congruous. Becquerel's observations[51] +were made under wood, and about a hundred yards outside in open ground, +at three stations in the district of Montargis, Loiret. There was a +difference of more than one degree Fahrenheit between the mean annual +temperatures in favour of the open ground. The mean summer temperature +in the wood was from two to three degrees lower than the mean summer +temperature outside. The mean maxima in the wood were also lower than +those without by a little more than two degrees. Herr La Cour[52] found +the daily range consistently smaller inside the wood than outside. As +far as regards the mean winter temperatures, there is an excess in +favour of the forest, but so trifling in amount as to be unworthy of +much consideration. Libri found that the minimum winter temperatures +were not sensibly lower at Florence, after the Apennines had been +denuded of forest, than they had been before.[53] The disheartening +contradictoriness of his observations on this subject led Herr Rivoli to +the following ingenious and satisfactory comparison.[54] Arranging his +results according to the wind that blew on the day of observation, he +set against each other the variation of the temperature under wood from +that without, and the variation of the temperature of the wind from the +local mean for the month:-- + + +-------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Wind. | N. | N.E.| E. | S.E.| S. | S.W.| W. | N.W.| + | |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----| + |Var. in Wood |+0.60|+0.26|+0.26|+0.04|-0.04|-0.20|+0.16|+0.07| + |Var. in Wind |-0.30|-2.60|-3.30|-1.20|+1.00|+1.30|+1.00|+1.00| + +-------------------------------------------------------------+ + +From this curious comparison, it becomes apparent that the variations of +the difference in question depend upon the amount of variations of +temperature which take place in the free air, and on the slowness with +which such changes are communicated to the stagnant atmosphere of woods; +in other words, as Herr Rivoli boldly formulates it, a forest is simply +a bad conductor. But this is precisely the same conclusion as we have +already arrived at with regard to individual trees; and in Herr Rivoli's +table, what we see is just another case of what we saw in M. +Becquerel's--the different progression of temperatures. It must be +obvious, however, that the thermal condition of a single tree must be +different in many ways from that of a combination of trees and more or +less stagnant air, such as we call a forest. And accordingly we find, in +the case of the latter, the following new feature: The mean yearly +temperature of woods is lower than the mean yearly temperature of free +air, while they are decidedly colder in summer, and very little, if at +all, warmer in winter. Hence, on the whole, forests are colder than +cleared lands. But this is just what might have been expected from the +amount of evaporation, the continued descent of cold air, and its +stagnation in the close and sunless crypt of a forest; and one can only +wonder here, as elsewhere, that the resultant difference is so +insignificant and doubtful. + +We come now to the third point in question, the thermal influence of +woods upon the air above them. It will be remembered that we have seen +reason to believe their effect to be similar to that of certain other +surfaces, except in so far as it may be altered, in the case of the +forest, by the greater extent of effective radiating area, and by the +possibility of generating a descending cold current as well as an +ascending hot one. M. Becquerel is (so far as I can learn) the only +observer who has taken up the elucidation of this subject. He placed his +thermometers at three points:[55] A and B were both about seventy feet +above the surface of the ground; but A was at the summit of a chestnut +tree, while B was in the free air, fifty feet away from the other. C was +four or five feet above the ground, with a northern exposure; there was +also a fourth station to the south, at the same level as this last, but +its readings are very seldom referred to. After several years of +observation, the mean temperature at A was found to be between one and +two degrees higher than that at B. The order of progression of +differences is as instructive here as in the two former investigations. +The maximum difference in favour of station A occurred between three and +five in the afternoon, later or sooner according as there had been more +or less sunshine, and ranged sometimes as high as seven degrees. After +this the difference kept declining until sunrise, when there was often a +difference of a degree, or a degree and a half, upon the other side. On +cloudy days the difference tended to a minimum. During a rainy month of +April, for example, the difference in favour of station A was less than +half a degree; the first fifteen days of May following, however, were +sunny, and the difference rose to more than a degree and a half.[56] It +will be observed that I have omitted up to the present point all mention +of station C. I do so because M. Becquerel's language leaves it doubtful +whether the observations made at this station are logically comparable +with those made at the other two. If the end in view were to compare +the progression of temperatures above the earth, above a tree, and in +free air, removed from all such radiative and absorptive influences, it +is plain that all three should have been equally exposed to the sun or +kept equally in shadow. As the observations were made, they give us no +notion of the relative action of earth-surface and forest-surface upon +the temperature of the contiguous atmosphere; and this, as it seems to +me, was just the _crux_ of the problem. So far, however, as they go, +they seem to justify the view that all these actions are the same in +kind, however they may differ in degree. We find the forest heating the +air during the day, and heating it more or less according as there has +been more or less sunshine for it to absorb, and we find it also +chilling it during the night; both of which are actions common to any +radiating surface, and would be produced, if with differences of amount +and time, by any other such surface raised to the mean level of the +exposed foliage. + +To recapitulate: + +1st. We find that single trees appear to act simply as bad conductors. + +2nd. We find that woods, regarded as solids, are, on the whole, slightly +lower in temperature than the free air which they have displaced, and +that they tend slowly to adapt themselves to the various thermal changes +that take place without them. + +3rd. We find forests regarded as surfaces acting like any other part of +the earth's surface, probably with more or less difference in amount and +progression, which we still lack the information necessary to estimate. + +All this done, I am afraid that there can be little doubt that the more +general climatic investigations will be long and vexatious. Even in +South America, with extremely favourable conditions, the result is far +from being definite. Glancing over the table published by M. Becquerel +in his book on climates, from the observations of Humboldt, Hall, +Boussingault, and others, it becomes evident, I think, that nothing can +be founded upon the comparisons therein instituted; that all reasoning, +in the present state of our information, is premature and unreliable. +Strong statements have certainly been made; and particular cases lend +themselves to the formation of hasty judgments. "From the Bay of Cupica +to the Gulf of Guayaquil," says M. Boussingault, "the country is covered +with immense forest and traversed by numerous rivers; it rains there +almost ceaselessly; and the mean temperature of this moist district +scarcely reaches 78.8 deg. F.... At Payta commence the sandy deserts of +Priura and Sechura; to the constant humidity of Choco succeeds almost at +once an extreme of dryness; and the mean temperature of the coast +increases at the same time by 1.8 deg. F."[57] Even in this selected +favourable instance it might be argued that the part performed in the +change by the presence or absence of forest was comparatively small; +there seems to have been, at the same time, an entire change of soil; +and, in our present ignorance, it would be difficult to say by how much +this of itself is able to affect the climate. Moreover, it is possible +that the humidity of the one district is due to other causes besides the +presence of wood, or even that the presence of wood is itself only an +effect of some more general difference or combination of differences. Be +that as it may, however, we have only to look a little longer at the +table before referred to, to see how little weight can be laid on such +special instances. Let us take five stations, all in this very district +of Choco. Hacquita is eight hundred and twenty feet above Novita, and +their mean temperatures are the same. Alto de Mombu, again, is five +hundred feet higher than Hacquita, and the mean temperature has here +fallen nearly two degrees. Go up another five hundred feet to Tambo de +la Orquita, and again we find no fall in the mean temperature. Go up +some five hundred further to Chami, and there is a fall in the mean +temperature of nearly six degrees. Such numbers are evidently quite +untrustworthy; and hence we may judge how much confidence can be placed +in any generalisation from these South American mean temperatures. + +The question is probably considered too simply--too much to the neglect +of concurrent influences. Until we know, for example, somewhat more of +the comparative radiant powers of different soils, we cannot expect any +very definite result. A change of temperature would certainly be +effected by the plantation of such a marshy district as the Sologne, +because, if nothing else were done, the roots might pierce the +impenetrable subsoil, allow the surface-water to drain itself off, and +thus dry the country. But might not the change be quite different if the +soil planted were a shifting sand, which, _fixed_ by the roots of the +trees, would become gradually covered with a vegetable earth, and be +thus changed from dry to wet? Again, the complication and conflict of +effects arises, not only from the soil, vegetation, and geographical +position of the place of the experiment itself, but from the +distribution of similar or different conditions in its immediate +neighbourhood, and probably to great distances on every side. A forest, +for example, as we know from Herr Rivoli's comparison, would exercise a +perfectly different influence in a cold country subject to warm winds, +and in a warm country subject to cold winds; so that our question might +meet with different solutions even on the east and west coasts of Great +Britain. + +The consideration of such a complexity points more and more to the +plantation of Malta as an occasion of special importance; its insular +position and the unity of its geological structure both tend to simplify +the question. There are certain points about the existing climate, +moreover, which seem specially calculated to throw the influence of +woods into a strong relief. Thus, during four summer months, there is +practically no rainfall. Thus, again, the northerly winds when stormy, +and especially in winter, tend to depress the temperature very suddenly; +and thus, too, the southerly and south-westerly winds, which raise the +temperature during their prevalence to from eighty-eight to ninety-eight +degrees, seldom last longer than a few hours; insomuch that "their +disagreeable heat and dryness may be escaped by carefully closing the +windows and doors of apartments at their onset."[58] Such sudden and +short variations seem just what is wanted to accentuate the differences +in question. Accordingly, the opportunity seems one not lightly to be +lost, and the British Association or this Society itself might take the +matter up and establish a series of observations, to be continued during +the next few years. Such a combination of favourable circumstances may +not occur again for years; and when the whole subject is at a standstill +for want of facts, the present occasion ought not to go past unimproved. + +Such observations might include the following:-- + +The observation of maximum and minimum thermometers in three different +classes of situation--_videlicet_, in the areas selected for plantation +themselves, at places in the immediate neighbourhood of those areas +where the external influence might be expected to reach its maximum, and +at places distant from those areas where the influence might be expected +to be least. + +The observation of rain-gauges and hygrometers at the same three +descriptions of locality. + +In addition to the ordinary hours of observation, special readings of +the thermometers should be made as often as possible at a change of wind +and throughout the course of the short hot breezes alluded to already, +in order to admit of the recognition and extension of Herr Rivoli's +comparison. + +Observation of the periods and forces of the land and sea breezes. + +Gauging of the principal springs, both in the neighbourhood of the areas +of plantation and at places far removed from those areas. + + 1873. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [45] Read before the Royal Society, Edinburgh, 19th May 1873, and + reprinted from the _Proceedings_ R.S.E. + + [46] _Jour. Scot. Met. Soc._, New Ser. xxvi. 35. + + [47] Quoted by Mr. Milne Home. + + [48] _Atlas Meteorologique de l'Observatoire Imperial_, 1867. + + [49] _Comptes Rendus de l'Academie_, 29th March 1869. + + [50] Professor Balfour's "Class Book of Botany," Physiology, chap. + xii., p. 670. + + [51] _Comptes Rendus_, 1867 and 1869. + + [52] See his paper. + + [53] _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, xlv., 1830. A more detailed + comparison of the climates in question would be a most interesting + and important contribution to the subject. + + [54] Reviewed in the _Austrian Meteorological Magazine_, vol. iv.; + p. 543. + + [55] _Comptes Rendus_, 28th May 1860. + + [56] _Ibid._, 20th May 1861. + + [57] Becquerel, "Climats," p. 141. + + [58] Scoresby-Jackson's "Medical Climatology." + + + + +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + + + +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + +I + +DAVOS IN WINTER + + +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on the +imagination, but a mountain valley, an Alpine winter, and an invalid's +weakness make up among them a prison of the most effective kind. The +roads indeed are cleared, and at least one footpath dodging up the hill; +but to these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are for him no +cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no unguided rambles +in the wood. His walks are cut and dry. In five or six different +directions he can push as far, and no farther, than his strength +permits; never deviating from the line laid down for him and beholding +at each repetition the same field of wood and snow from the same corner +of the road. This, of itself, would be a little trying to the patience +in the course of months; but to this is added, by the heaped mantle of +the snow, an almost utter absence of detail and an almost unbroken +identity of colour. Snow, it is true, is not merely white. The sun +touches it with roseate and golden lights. Its own crushed infinity of +crystals, its own richness of tiny sculpture, fills it, when regarded +near at hand, with wonderful depths of coloured shadow, and, though +wintrily transformed, it is still water, and has watery tones of blue. +But, when all is said, these fields of white and blots of crude black +forest are but a trite and staring substitute for the infinite variety +and pleasantness of the earth's face. Even a boulder, whose front is too +precipitous to have retained the snow, seems, if you come upon it in +your walk, a perfect gem of colour, reminds you almost painfully of +other places, and brings into your head the delights of more Arcadian +days--the path across the meadow, the hazel dell, the lilies on the +stream, and the scents, the colours, and the whisper of the woods. And +scents here are as rare as colours. Unless you get a gust of kitchen in +passing some hotel, you shall smell nothing all day long but the faint +and choking odour of frost. Sounds, too, are absent: not a bird pipes, +not a bough waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes +by, the sleigh-bells ring, and that is all; you work all winter through +to no other accompaniment but the crunching of your steps upon the +frozen snow. + +It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be each one village from one +end to the other. Go where you please, houses will still be in sight, +before and behind you, and to the right and left. Climb as high as an +invalid is able, and it is only to spy new habitations nested in the +wood. Nor is that all; for about the health resort the walks are +besieged by single people walking rapidly with plaids about their +shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys trying to learn to joedel, and +by German couples silently and, as you venture to fancy, not quite +happily, pursuing love's young dream. You may perhaps be an invalid who +likes to make bad verses as he walks about. Alas! no muse will suffer +this imminence of interruption--and at the second stampede of joedellers +you find your modest inspiration fled. Or you may only have a taste for +solitude; it may try your nerves to have some one always in front whom +you are visibly overtaking, and some one always behind who is audibly +overtaking you, to say nothing of a score or so who brush past you in an +opposite direction. It may annoy you to take your walks and seats in +public view. Alas! there is no help for it among the Alps. There are no +recesses, as in Gorbio Valley by the oil-mill; no sacred solitude of +olive gardens on the Roccabruna-road; no nook upon St. Martin's Cape, +haunted by the voice of breakers, and fragrant with the three-fold +sweetness of the rosemary and the sea-pines and the sea. + +For this publicity there is no cure, and no alleviation; but the storms +of which you will complain so bitterly while they endure, chequer and by +their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-weather scenes. When +sun and storm contend together--when the thick clouds are broken up and +pierced by arrows of golden daylight--there will be startling +rearrangements and transfigurations of the mountain summits. A +sun-dazzling spire of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms +and blackness; or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and appear for the duration of a glance +bright like a constellation, and alone "in the unapparent." You may +think you know the figure of these hills; but when they are thus +revealed, they belong no longer to the things of earth--meteors we +should rather call them, appearances of sun and air that endure but for +a moment and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, as when, +for instance, heavy and wet snow has fallen through some windless hours, +and the thin, spiry mountain pine-trees stand each stock-still and +loaded with a shining burthen. You may drive through a forest so +disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cleft of +the ravine, and all still except the jingle of the sleigh bells, and you +shall fancy yourself in some untrodden northern territory--Lapland, +Labrador, or Alaska. + +Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter down-stairs in +a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer of +one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o'clock +outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh +takes you up and carries you on, and you reach the top of the ascent in +the first hour of the day. To trace the fires of the sunrise as they +pass from peak to peak, to see the unlit tree-tops stand out soberly +against the lighted sky, to be for twenty minutes in a wonderland of +clear, fading shadows, disappearing vapours, solemn blooms of dawn, +hills half glorified already with the day and still half confounded with +the greyness of the western heaven--these will seem to repay you for the +discomforts of that early start; but as the hour proceeds, and these +enchantments vanish, you will find yourself upon the farther side in yet +another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, with such another +long-drawn congeries of hamlets and such another senseless watercourse +bickering along the foot. You have had your moment; but you have not +changed the scene. The mountains are about you like a trap; you cannot +foot it up a hillside and behold the sea as a great plain, but live in +holes and corners, and can change only one for another. + + + + +II + +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS + + +There has come a change in medical opinion, and a change has followed in +the lives of sick folk. A year or two ago and the wounded soldiery of +mankind were all shut up together in some basking angle of the Riviera, +walking a dusty promenade or sitting in dusty olive-yards within earshot +of the interminable and unchanging surf--idle among spiritless idlers +not perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These were +certainly beautiful places to live in, and the climate was wooing in its +softness. Yet there was a later shiver in the sunshine; you were not +certain whether you were being wooed; and these mild shores would +sometimes seem to you to be the shores of death. There was a lack of a +manly element; the air was not reactive; you might write bits of poetry +and practise resignation, but you did not feel that here was a good +spot to repair your tissue or regain your nerve. And it appears, after +all, that there was something just in these appreciations. The invalid +is now asked to lodge on wintry Alps; a ruder air shall medicine him; +the demon of cold is no longer to be fled from, but bearded in his den. +For even Winter has his "dear domestic cave," and in those places where +he may be said to dwell for ever tempers his austerities. + +Any one who has travelled westward by the great transcontinental +railroad of America must remember the joy with which he perceived, after +the tedious prairies of Nebraska and across the vast and dismal +moorlands of Wyoming, a few snowy mountain summits along the southern +sky. It is among these mountains in the new State of Colorado that the +sick man may find, not merely an alleviation of his ailments, but the +possibility of an active life and an honest livelihood. There, no longer +as a lounger in a plaid, but as a working farmer, sweating at his work, +he may prolong and begin anew his life. Instead of the bath-chair, the +spade; instead of the regulated walk, rough journeys in the forest, and +the pure, rare air of the open mountains for the miasma of the +sick-room--these are the changes offered him, with what promise of +pleasure and of self-respect, with what a revolution in all his hopes +and terrors, none but an invalid can know. Resignation, the cowardice +that apes a kind of courage and that lives in the very air of health +resorts, is cast aside at a breath of such a prospect. The man can open +the door; he can be up and doing; he can be a kind of a man after all +and not merely an invalid. + +But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. We cannot all of us go +farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines the +medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of the old. +Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; +again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a great +altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door +and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is +tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to +his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has +wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder at a touch +of chill. He came for that, he looked for it, and he throws it from him +with the thought. + +A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon either hand +that rise higher and higher and shoot up new summits the higher you +climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village of hotels; +a world of black and white--black pine-woods, clinging to the sides of +the valley, and white snow flouring it, and papering it between the +pine-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add a +few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating +on the ice-rinks, possibly to music, or sitting under sunshades by the +door of the hotel--and you have the larger features of a mountain +sanatorium. A certain furious river runs curving down the valley; its +pace never varies, it has not a pool for as far as you can follow it; +and its unchanging, senseless hurry is strangely tedious to witness. It +is a river that a man could grow to hate. Day after day breaks with the +rarest gold upon the mountain spires, and creeps, growing and glowing, +down into the valley. From end to end the snow reverberates the +sunshine; from end to end the air tingles with the light, clear and dry +like crystal. Only along the course of the river, but high above it, +there hangs far into the noon one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard +to fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to +believe that delicate, long-lasting phantom of the atmosphere, a +creature of the incontinent stream whose course it follows. By noon the +sky is arrayed in an unrivalled pomp of colour--mild and pale and +melting in the north, but towards the zenith, dark with an intensity of +purple blue. What with this darkness of heaven and the intolerable +lustre of the snow, space is reduced again to chaos. An English painter, +coming to France late in life, declared with natural anger that "the +values were all wrong." Had he got among the Alps on a bright day he +might have lost his reason. And even to any one who has looked at +landscape with any care, and in any way through the spectacles of +representative art, the scene has a character of insanity. The distant +shining mountain peak is here beside your eye; the neighbouring +dull-coloured house in comparison is miles away; the summit, which is +all of splendid snow, is close at hand; the nigh slopes, which are black +with pine-trees, bear it no relation, and might be in another sphere. +Here there are none of those delicate gradations, those intimate, misty +joinings-on and spreadings-out into the distance, nothing of that art of +air and light by which the face of nature explains and veils itself in +climes which we may be allowed to think more lovely. A glaring piece of +crudity, where everything that is not white is a solecism and defies the +judgment of the eyesight; a scene of blinding definition; a parade of +daylight, almost scenically vulgar, more than scenically trying, and yet +hearty and healthy, making the nerves to tighten and the mouth to smile: +such is the winter daytime in the Alps. With the approach of evening all +is changed. A mountain will suddenly intercept the sun; a shadow fall +upon the valley; in ten minutes the thermometer will drop as many +degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle into ghosts; +and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be rightly characteristic of the +place, the sky fades towards night through a surprising key of colours. +The latest gold leaps from the last mountain. Soon, perhaps, the moon +shall rise, and in her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed and +misted, and here and there a wisp of silver cloud upon a hilltop, and +here and there a warmly glowing window in a house, between fire and +starlight, kind and homely in the fields of snow. + +But the valley is not seated so high among the clouds to be eternally +exempt from changes. The clouds gather, black as ink; the wind bursts +rudely in; day after day the mists drive overhead, the snowflakes +flutter down in blinding disarray; daily the mail comes in later from +the top of the pass; people peer through their windows and foresee no +end but an entire seclusion from Europe, and death by gradual dry-rot, +each in his indifferent inn; and when at last the storm goes and the sun +comes again, behold a world of unpolluted snow, glossy like fur, bright +like daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls of men. +Or perhaps from across storied and malarious Italy, a wind cunningly +winds about the mountains and breaks, warm and unclean, upon our +mountain valley. Every nerve is set ajar; the conscience recognises, at +a gust, a load of sins and negligences hitherto unknown; and the whole +invalid world huddles into its private chambers, and silently recognises +the empire of the Foehn. + + + + +III + +ALPINE DIVERSIONS + + +There will be no lack of diversion in an Alpine sanatorium. The place is +half English, to be sure, the local sheet appearing in double column, +text and translation; but it still remains half German; and hence we +have a band which is able to play, and a company of actors able, as you +will be told, to act. This last you will take on trust, for the players, +unlike the local sheet, confine themselves to German; and though at the +beginning of winter they come with their wig-boxes to each hotel in +turn, long before Christmas they will have given up the English for a +bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; +the German element seeking, in the interest of their actors, to raise a +mysterious item, the _Kur-taxe_, which figures heavily enough already +in the weekly bills, the English element stoutly resisting. Meantime in +the English hotels home-played farces, _tableaux-vivants_, and even +balls enliven the evenings; a charity bazaar sheds genial consternation; +Christmas and New Year are solemnised with Pantagruelian dinners, and +from time to time the young folks carol and revolve untunefully enough +through the figures of a singing quadrille. A magazine club supplies you +with everything, from the _Quarterly_ to the _Sunday at Home_. Grand +tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, billiards, and whist. Once +and again wandering artists drop into our mountain valley, coming you +know not whence, going you cannot imagine whither, and belonging to +every degree in the hierarchy of musical art, from the recognised +performer who announces a concert for the evening, to the comic German +family or solitary long-haired German baritone, who surprises the guests +at dinner-time with songs and a collection. They are all of them good to +see; they, at least, are moving; they bring with them the sentiment of +the open road; yesterday, perhaps, they were in Tyrol, and next week +they will be far in Lombardy, while all we sick folk still simmer in our +mountain prison. Some of them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May +for their own sake; some of them may have a human voice; some may have +that magic which transforms a wooden box into a song-bird, and what we +jeeringly call a fiddle into what we mention with respect as a violin. +From that grinding lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, +accompanies the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, there is surely +a difference rather of kind than of degree to that unearthly voice of +singing that bewails and praises the destiny of man at the touch of the +true virtuoso. Even that you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you +will own it impossible to enjoy it more keenly than here, _im Schnee der +Alpen_. A hyacinth in a pot, a handful of primroses packed in moss, or a +piece of music by some one who knows the way to the heart of a violin, +are things that, in this invariable sameness of the snows and frosty +air, surprise you like an adventure. It is droll, moreover, to compare +the respect with which the invalids attend a concert, and the ready +contempt with which they greet the dinner-time performers. Singing which +they would hear with real enthusiasm--possibly with tears--from a corner +of a drawing-room, is listened to with laughter when it is offered by an +unknown professional and no money has been taken at the door. + +Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a climate the rinks must be +intelligently managed; their mismanagement will lead to many days of +vexation and some petty quarrelling, but when all goes well, it is +certainly curious, and perhaps rather unsafe, for the invalid to skate +under a burning sun, and walk back to his hotel in a sweat, through long +tracts of glare and passages of freezing shadow. But the peculiar +outdoor sport of this district is tobogganing. A Scotsman may remember +the low flat board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which was called a +_hurlie_; he may remember this contrivance, laden with boys, as, +laboriously started, it ran rattling down the brae, and was, now +successfully, now unsuccessfully, steered round the corner at the foot; +he may remember scented summer evenings passed in this diversion, and +many a grazed skin, bloody cockscomb, and neglected lesson. The toboggan +is to the hurlie what the sled is to the carriage; it is a hurlie upon +runners; and if for a grating road you substitute a long declivity of +beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy career of the tobogganist. The +correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit +hindforemost, or dare the descent upon their belly or their back. A few +steer with a pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use the +feet. If the weight be heavy and the track smooth, the toboggan takes +the bit between its teeth; and to steer a couple of full-sized friends +in safety requires not only judgment but desperate exertion. On a very +steep track, with a keen evening frost, you may have moments almost too +appalling to be called enjoyment; the head goes, the world vanishes; +your blind steed bounds below your weight; you reach the foot, with all +the breath knocked out of your body, jarred and bewildered as though you +had just been subjected to a railway accident. Another element of joyful +horror is added by the formation of a train; one toboggan being tied to +another, perhaps to the number of half a dozen, only the first rider +being allowed to steer, and all the rest pledged to put up their feet +and follow their leader, with heart in mouth, down the mad descent. +This, particularly if the track begins with a headlong plunge, is one of +the most exhilarating follies in the world, and the tobogganing invalid +is early reconciled to somersaults. + +There is all manner of variety in the nature of the tracks, some miles +in length, others but a few yards, and yet like some short rivers, +furious in their brevity. All degrees of skill and courage and taste may +be suited in your neighbourhood. But perhaps the true way to toboggan is +alone and at night. First comes the tedious climb, dragging your +instrument behind you. Next a long breathing-space, alone with snow and +pine-woods, cold, silent, and solemn to the heart. Then you push off; +the toboggan fetches away; she begins to feel the hill, to glide, to +swim, to gallop. In a breath you are out from under the pine-trees, and +a whole heavenful of stars reels and flashes overhead. Then comes a +vicious effort; for by this time your wooden steed is speeding like the +wind, and you are spinning round a corner, and the whole glittering +valley and all the lights in all the great hotels lie for a moment at +your feet; and the next you are racing once more in the shadow of the +night with close-shut teeth and beating heart. Yet a little while and +you will be landed on the high-road by the door of your own hotel. This, +in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night made +luminous with stars and snow, and girt with strange white mountains, +teaches the pulse an unaccustomed tune and adds a new excitement to the +life of man upon his planet. + + + + +IV + +THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS + + +To any one who should come from a southern sanatorium to the Alps, the +row of sun-burned faces round the table would present the first +surprise. He would begin by looking for the invalids, and he would lose +his pains, for not one out of five of even the bad cases bears the mark +of sickness on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its strong +reverberation from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the +treatment, which consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the +sickliest to tan, and a tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, +to resemble a tableful of hunters. But although he may be thus surprised +at the first glance, his astonishment will grow greater, as he +experiences the effects of the climate on himself. In many ways it is a +trying business to reside upon the Alps: the stomach is exercised, the +appetite often languishes; the liver may at times rebel; and because you +have come so far from metropolitan advantages, it does not follow that +you shall recover. But one thing is undeniable--that in the rare air, +clear, cold, and blinding light of Alpine winters, a man takes a certain +troubled delight in his existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. +He is perhaps no happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, +perhaps, come out of him in work or exercise, yet he feels an enthusiasm +of the blood unknown in more temperate climates. It may not be health, +but it is fun. + +There is nothing more difficult to communicate on paper than this +baseless ardour, this stimulation of the brain, this sterile joyousness +of spirits. You wake every morning, see the gold upon the snow-peaks, +become filled with courage, and bless God for your prolonged existence. +The valleys are but a stride to you; you cast your shoe over the +hilltops; your ears and your heart sing; in the words of an unverified +quotation from the Scots psalms, you feel yourself fit "on the wings of +all the winds" to "come flying all abroad." Europe and your mind are too +narrow for that flood of energy. Yet it is notable that you are hard to +root out of your bed; that you start forth, singing, indeed, on your +walk, yet are unusually ready to turn home again; that the best of you +is volatile; and that although the restlessness remains till night, the +strength is early at an end. With all these heady jollities, you are +half conscious of an underlying languor in the body; you prove not to be +so well as you had fancied; you weary before you have well begun; and +though you mount at morning with the lark, that is not precisely a +song-bird's heart that you bring back with you when you return with +aching limbs and peevish temper to your inn. + +It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy of Alpine winters is its +own reward. Baseless, in a sense, it is more than worth more permanent +improvements. The dream of health is perfect while it lasts; and if, in +trying to realise it, you speedily wear out the dear hallucination, +still every day, and many times a day, you are conscious of a strength +you scarce possess, and a delight in living as merry as it proves to be +transient. + +The brightness--heaven and earth conspiring to be bright--the levity and +quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence--more stirring than a tumult; +the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all have their part in the +effect and on the memory, "_tous vous tapent sur la tete_"; and yet when +you have enumerated all, you have gone no nearer to explain or even to +qualify the delicate exhilaration that you feel--delicate, you may say, +and yet excessive, greater than can be said in prose, almost greater +than an invalid can bear. There is a certain wine of France known in +England in some gaseous disguise, but when drunk in the land of its +nativity still as a pool, clean as river water, and as heady as verse. +It is more than probable that in its noble natural condition this was +the very wine of Anjou so beloved by Athos in the "Musketeers." Now, if +the reader has ever washed down a liberal second breakfast with the wine +in question, and gone forth, on the back of these dilutions, into a +sultry, sparkling noontide, he will have felt an influence almost as +genial, although strangely grosser, than this fairy titillation of the +nerves among the snow and sunshine of the Alps. That also is a mode, we +need not say of intoxication, but of insobriety. Thus also a man walks +in a strong sunshine of the mind, and follows smiling, insubstantial +meditations. And whether he be really so clever or so strong as he +supposes, in either case he will enjoy his chimera while it lasts. + +The influence of this giddy air displays itself in many secondary ways. +A certain sort of laboured pleasantry has already been recognised, and +may perhaps have been remarked in these papers, as a sort peculiar to +that climate. People utter their judgments with a cannonade of +syllables; a big word is as good as a meal to them; and the turn of a +phrase goes further than humour or wisdom. By the professional writer +many sad vicissitudes have to be undergone. At first he cannot write at +all. The heart, it appears, is unequal to the pressure of business, and +the brain, left without nourishment, goes into a mild decline. Next, +some power of work returns to him, accompanied by jumping headaches. +Last, the spring is opened, and there pours at once from his pen a world +of blatant, hustling polysyllables, and talk so high as, in the old +joke, to be positively offensive in hot weather. He writes it in good +faith and with a sense of inspiration; it is only when he comes to read +what he has written that surprise and disquiet seize upon his mind. What +is he to do, poor man? All his little fishes talk like whales. This +yeasty inflation, this stiff and strutting architecture of the sentence +has come upon him while he slept; and it is not he, it is the Alps, who +are to blame. He is not, perhaps, alone, which somewhat comforts him. +Nor is the ill without a remedy. Some day, when the spring returns, he +shall go down a little lower in this world, and remember quieter +inflections and more modest language. But here, in the meantime, there +seems to swim up some outline of a new cerebral hygiene and a good time +coming, when experienced advisers shall send a man to the proper +measured level for the ode, the biography, or the religious tract; and a +nook may be found between the sea and Chimborazo, where Mr. Swinburne +shall be able to write more continently, and Mr. Browning somewhat +slower. + +Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion of the brain? It is a +sort of congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes well, +to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. It is certainly +congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the chambers of a +many-storied caravanserai, haunted with vociferous nightmares, and many +wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the morning. Upon that +theory the cynic may explain the whole affair--exhilaration, nightmares, +pomp of tongue and all. But, on the other hand, the peculiar blessedness +of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same complaint, for the +two effects are strangely similar; and the frame of mind of the invalid +upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, with periods of +lassitude. The fountain of Juventus does not play steadily in these +parts; but there it plays, and possibly nowhere else. + + + + +STEVENSON AT PLAY + + + + +STEVENSON AT PLAY + +INTRODUCTION BY MR. LLOYD OSBOURNE + + +In an old note-book, soiled and dog-eared by much travelling, yellow and +musty with the long years it had lain hid in a Samoan chest, the present +writer came across the mimic war correspondence here presented to the +public. The stirring story of these tin-soldier campaigns occupies the +greater share of the book, though interspersed with many pages of +scattered verse, not a little Gaelic idiom and verb, a half-made will +and the chaptering of a novel. This game of tin soldiers, an intricate +"Kriegspiel," involving rules innumerable, prolonged arithmetical +calculations, constant measuring with foot-rules, and the throwing of +dice, sprang from the humblest beginnings--a row of soldiers on either +side and a deadly marble. From such a start it grew in size and +complexity until it became mimic war indeed, modelled closely upon real +conditions and actual warfare, requiring, on Stevenson's part, the use +of text-books and long conversations with military invalids; on mine, +all the pocket-money derived from my publishing ventures as well as a +considerable part of my printing stock in trade. + +The abiding spirit of the child in Stevenson was seldom shown in more +lively fashion than during those days of exile at Davos, where he +brought a boy's eagerness, a man's intellect, a novelist's imagination, +into the varied business of my holiday hours; the printing press, the +toy theatre, the tin soldiers, all engaged his attention. Of these, +however, the tin soldiers most took his fancy; and the war game was +constantly improved and elaborated, until from a few hours a "war" took +weeks to play, and the critical operations in the attic monopolised half +our thoughts. This attic was a most chilly and dismal spot, reached by a +crazy ladder, and unlit save for a single frosted window; so low at the +eaves and so dark that we could seldom stand upright, nor see without a +candle. Upon the attic floor a map was roughly drawn in chalks of +different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns, bridges, and roads of +two classes. Here we would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and +stiffening knees, and an intentness, zest, and excitement that I shall +never forget. The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, changed +by measured evolutions from column formation into line, with cavalry +screens in front and massed supports behind, in the most approved +military fashion of to-day. It was war in miniature, even to the making +and destruction of bridges, the entrenching of camps, good and bad +weather, with corresponding influence on the roads, siege and horse +artillery proportionately slow, as compared to the speed of unimpeded +foot and proportionately expensive in the upkeep; and an exacting +commissariat added to the last touch of verisimilitude. Four men formed +the regiment or unit, and our shots were in proportion to our units and +amount of ammunition. The troops carried carts of printers' +"ems"--twenty "ems" to each cart--and for every shot taken an "em" had +to be paid into the base, from which fresh supplies could be slowly +drawn in empty carts returned for the purpose. As a large army often +contained thirty regiments, consuming a cart and a half of ammunition in +every engagement (not to speak of the heavy additional expense of +artillery), it will be seen what an important part the commissariat +played in the game, and how vital to success became the line of +communication to the rear. A single cavalry brigade, if bold and lucky +enough, could break the line at the weakest link, and by cutting off the +sustenance of a vast army could force it to fall back in the full tide +of success. A well-devised flank attack, the plucky destruction of a +bridge, or the stubborn defence of a town, might each become a factor in +changing the face of the war and materially alter the course of +campaigns. + +It must not be supposed that the enemy ever knew your precise strength, +or that it could divine your intentions by the simple expedient of +looking at your side of the attic and counting your regiments. Numerous +numbered cards dotted the country wherever the eye might fall; one, +perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another a solitary +horseman dragging some ammunition, another nothing but a dummy that +might paralyse the efforts of a corps, and overawe it into a ruinous +inactivity. To uncover these cards and unmask the forces for which they +stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements were +governed by an elaborate and most vexatious set of rules. It was +necessary to feel your way amongst these alarming pasteboards to obtain +an inkling of your opponent's plans, and the first dozen moves were +often spent in little less. But even if you were befriended by the dice, +and your cavalry broke the enemy's screen and uncovered his front, you +would learn nothing more than could reasonably be gleaned with a +field-glass. The only result of a daring and costly activity might be +such meagre news as "the road is blocked with artillery and infantry in +column" or "you can perceive light horse-artillery strongly supported." +It was only when the enemy began to take his shots that you would begin +to learn the number of his regiments, and even then he often fired less +than his entitled share in order to maintain the mystery of his +strength. + +If the game possessed a weakness, it was the unshaken courage of our +troops, who faced the most terrific odds and endured defeat upon defeat +with an intrepidity rarely seen on the actual field. An attempt was made +to correct this with the dice, but the innovation was so heart-breaking +to the loser, and so perpetual a menace to the best-laid plans, that it +had perforce to be given up. After two or three dice-box panics our +heroes were permitted to resume their normal and unprecedented devotion +to their cause, and their generals breathed afresh. There was another +defect in our "Kriegspiel": I was so much the better shot that my +marksmanship often frustrated the most admirable strategy and the most +elaborate of military schemes. It was in vain that we--or rather my +opponent--wrestled with the difficulty and tried to find a substitute +for the deadly and discriminating pop-gun. It was all of no use. +Whatever the missile--sleeve-fink, marble, or button--I was invariably +the better shot, and that skill stood me in good stead on many an +ensanguined plain, and helped to counteract the inequality between a boy +of twelve and a man of mature years. A wise discretion ruled with regard +to the _personnel_ of the fighting line. Stevenson possessed a horde of +particularly chubby cavalrymen, who, when marshalled in close formation +at the head of the infantry, could bear unscathed the most accurate and +overwhelming fire, and thus shelter their weaker brethren in the rear. +This was offset by his "Old Guard," whose unfortunate peculiarity of +carrying their weapons at the charge often involved whole regiments in +a common ruin. On my side there was a multitude of flimsy Swiss, for +whom I trembled whenever they were called to action. These Swiss were so +weak upon their legs that the merest breath would mow them down in +columns, and so deficient in stamina that they would often fall before +they were hurt. Their ranks were burdened, too, with a number of +egregious puppets with musical instruments, who never fell without +entangling a few of their comrades. + +Another improvement that was tried and soon again given up was an effort +to match the sickness of actual war. Certain zones were set apart as +unwholesome, especially those near great rivers and lakes, and troops +unfortunate enough to find themselves in these miasmic plains had to +undergo the ordeal of the dice-box. Swiss or Guards, musicians, Arabs, +chubby cavalrymen or thin, all had to pay Death's toll in a new and +frightful form. But we rather overdid the miasma, so it was abolished by +mutual consent. + +The war which forms the subject of the present paper was unusual in no +respect save that its operations were chronicled from day to day in a +public press of Stevenson's imagination, and reported by daring +correspondents on the field. Nothing is more eloquent of the man than +the particularity and care with which this mimic war correspondence was +compiled; the author of the "Child's Garden" had never outgrown his love +for childish things, and it is typical of him that, though he mocks us +at every turn and loses no occasion to deride the puppets in the play, +he is everywhere faithful to the least detail of fact. It must not be +supposed that I was privileged to hear these records daily read and thus +draw my plans against the morrow; on the contrary, they were sometimes +held back until the military news was staled by time or were guardedly +communicated with blanks for names and the dead unnumbered. Potty, +Pipes, and Piffle were very real to me, and lived like actual people in +that dim garret. I can still see them through the mist of years; the +formidable General Stevenson, corpulent with solder, a detachable midget +who could be mounted upon a fresh steed whenever his last had been +trodden under foot, whose frame gave evidence of countless mendings; the +emaciated Delafield, with the folded arms, originally a simple +artilleryman, but destined to reach the highest honours; Napoleon, with +the flaming clothes, whom fate had bound to a very fragile horse; +Green, the simple patriot, who took his name from his coat; and the +redoubtable Lafayette in blue, alas! with no Washington to help him. + +The names of that attic country fall pleasantly upon the ear and +brighten the dark and bloody page of war: Scarlet, Glendarule, Sandusky, +Mar, Tahema, and Savannah; how sweetly they run! I must except my own +(and solitary) contribution to the map, Samuel City, which sounds out of +key with these mouthfuls of melody, though none the less an important +point. Yallobally I shall always recall with bitterness, for it was +there I first felt the thorn of a vindictive press. The reader will see +what little cause I had to love the _Yallobally Record_, a scurrilous +sheet that often made my heart ache, for all I pretended to laugh and +see the humour of its attacks. It was indeed a relief when I learned I +might exert my authority and suppress its publication--and even hang the +editor--which I did, I fear, with unseemly haste. It will be noticed +that the story of the war begins on the tenth day, the earlier moves +being without interest save to the combatants themselves, passed as they +were in uncovering the cards on either side; and in learning, with more +or less success, the forces for which they stood. This was an essential +but scarcely stirring branch of tin-soldiering, and has been accordingly +unreported as too tedious even for the columns of the _Yallobally +Record_. When the veil had been somewhat lifted and the shadowy armies +discerned with some precision, the historian takes his pen and awaits +the clash of arms. + + LLOYD OSBOURNE + + + + +WAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM STEVENSON'S NOTE-BOOK + + +GLENDARULE TIMES.--10th. _Scarlet_.--"The advance of the enemy continues +along three lines, a light column moving from Tahema on Grierson, and +the main body concentrating on Garrard from the Savannah and Yallobally +roads. Garrard and Grierson have both been evacuated. A small force, +without artillery, is alone in the neighbourhood of Cinnabar, and some +of that has fallen back on Glentower by the pass. The brave artillery +remains in front of Scarlet, and was reinforced this morning with some +ammunition. All day infantry has been moving eastward on Sandusky. The +greatest depression prevails." + +_Editorial Comment_.--General Stevenson may, or may not, be a capable +commander. It would be unjust to pronounce in the meantime. Still, the +attempt to seize Mar was disastrously miscalculated, and, as we all +know, the column has fallen back on Sandusky with cruel loss. Nor is it +possible to deny that the attempt to hold Grierson, and keep an army in +the west, was idle. Our correspondent at Scarlet mentions the passage of +troops moving eastward through that place, and the retreat of another +column on Glentower. These are the last wrecks of that Army of the West, +from which great things were once expected. With the exception of the +Yolo column, which is without guns, all our forces are now concentrated +in the province of Sandusky; Blue Mountain Province is particularly +deserted, and nothing has been done to check, even for an hour, the +advance of our numerous and well-appointed foes. + +11th. _Scarlet_.--The horse-artillery returned through Scarlet on the +Glendarule road; hideous confusion reigns; were the enemy to fall upon +us now, the best opinions regard our position as hopeless. Authentic +news has been received of the desertion of Cinnabar. + +_Sandusky_.--The enemy has again appeared, threatening Mar, and the +column moving to the relief of the Yolo column has stopped in its +advance in consequence. General Stevenson moved out a column with +artillery, and crushed a flanking party of the enemy's great centre army +on Scarlet, Garrard, and Savannah road; no loss was sustained on our +side; the enemy's loss is officially calculated at four hundred killed +or wounded. + +_Scarlet_.--At last the moment has arrived. The enemy, with a strong +column of horse and horse-artillery, occupied Grierson this morning. +This, with his Army of the Centre moving steadily forward upon Garrard, +places all the troops in and around this place in imminent danger of +being entirely cut off, or being forced to retreat before overwhelming +forces across the Blue Mountains, a course, according to all military +men, involving the total destruction of General Potty's force. Piffle's +whole corps, with the heavy artillery, continued its descent on the left +bank of the Sandusky river, while Potty, dashing through Scarlet at the +hand-gallop, and among the cheers of the populace, moved off along the +Grierson road, collecting infantry as he moved, and riding himself at +the head of the horse-artillery. + +NOTE.--General Potty was an airy, amiable, affected creature, the very +soul of bravery and levity. He had risen rapidly by virtue of his +pleasing manners; but his application was small, and he lacked +self-reliance at the Council Board. Piffle called him a parrot; he +returned the compliment by calling Piffle "the hundred-weight of +bricks." They were scarce on speaking terms. + +Half an hour after, he had driven the fore-guard of the enemy out of +Grierson without the loss of a trooper on our side; the enemy's loss is +reckoned at 1,600 men. I telegraph at this juncture before returning to +the field. So far the work is done; Potty has behaved nobly. But he +remains isolated by the retreat of Piffle, with a large force in front, +and another large force advancing on his unprotected flank. + +_Editorial Comment_.--We have been successful in two skirmishes, but the +situation is felt to be critical, and is by some supposed to be +desperate. Stevenson's skirmish on the 11th did not check the advance of +the Army of the Centre; it is impossible to predict the result of +Potty's success before Grierson. The Yolo column appears to meet with no +resistance; but it is terribly committed, and is, it must be remembered, +quite helpless for offensive purposes, without the co-operation of +Stevenson from Sandusky. How that can be managed, while the enemy hold +the pass behind Mar, is more than we can see. Some shrewd, but perhaps +too hopeful, critics perceive a deep policy in the inactivity of our +troops about Sandusky, and believe that Stevenson is luring on the +cautious Osbourne to his ruin. We will hope so; but this does not +explain Piffle's senseless counter-marchings around Scarlet, nor the +horribly outflanked and unsupported position of Potty on the line of the +Cinnabar river. If General Osbourne were a child, we might hope for the +best; there is no doubt that he has been careless about Mar and Yolo, +and that he was yesterday only saved from a serious disaster by a fluke, +and the imperfection of our scout system; but the situation to the west +and centre wears a different complexion; there his steady, well-combined +advance, carrying all before him, contrasts most favourably with the +timid and divided counsels of our Stevensons, Piffles, and Pottys. + +[Illustration: _From the original sketch in Stevenson's Note-book_] + +YALLOBALLY RECORD.--"That incompetent shuffler, General Osbourne, has +again put his foot into it. Blundering into Grierson with a lot of +unsupported horse, he has got exactly what he deserved. The whole +command was crushed by that wide-awake fellow, Potty, and a lot of guns +and ammunition lie ignominiously deserted on our own side of the river. +All this through mere chuckle-headed incompetence and the neglect of the +most elementary precautions, within a day's march of two magnificent +armies, either of which, under any sane, soldierly man, is capable of +marching right through to Glendarule. + +"This is the last scandal. Yesterday, it was a whole regiment cut off +between the Garrard road and the Sandusky river, and cut off without +firing or being able to fire a single shot in self-defence. It is an +open secret that the men behind Mar are starving, and that the whole +east and the city of Savannah were within a day of being deserted. How +long is this disorganisation to go on? How long is that bloated +bondholder to go prancing round on horseback, wall-eyed and +muddle-headed, while his men are starved and butchered, and the forces +of this great country are at the mercy of clever rogues like Potty, or +respectable mediocrities like Stevenson?" + +General Piffle's force was, I learn, attacked this morning from across +the river by the whole weight of the enemy's centre. Supports were being +hurried forward. Ammunition was scarce. A feeling of anxiety, not +unmixed with hope, is the rule. + +_Noon_.--I am now back in Scarlet, as being more central to both actions +now raging, one along the line of the Sandusky between General Piffle +and the Army of the Centre, the other toward Grierson between Potty and +the corps of Generals Green and Lafayette. News has come from both +quarters. Piffle, who was at one time thought to be overwhelmed, has +held his ground on the Sandusky highroad; and by last advices his whole +supports had come into line, and he hoped, by a last effort, to carry +the day. His losses have been severe; they are estimated at 2,600 killed +and wounded; but it appears from the reports of captives that the +enemy's losses must amount to 3,000 at least. The fate of the engagement +still trembles in the balance. From the battle at Grierson, the news is +both encouraging and melancholy. The enemy has once more been driven +across the rivers, and even some distance behind the town of Grierson +itself on the Tahema road; he has certainly lost 2,400 men, principally +horse; but he has succeeded in carrying off his guns and ammunition in +the face of our attack, and his immense reserves are close at hand. Both +Green and Lafayette are sent wounded to the rear; it is unknown who now +commands their column. These successes, necessary as they were felt to +be, were somewhat dearly purchased. Two thousand six hundred men are +_hors de combat_; and the chivalrous Potty is himself seriously hurt. +This has cast a shade of anxiety over our triumph; and though the light +column is still pushing its advantage under Lieutenant-General Pipes, it +is felt that nothing but a complete success of the main body under +Piffle can secure us from the danger of complete investment. + +14th. _Scarlet_.--The engagement ended last night by the complete +evacuation of Grierson. Pipes cleared the whole country about that town +in splendid style, and the army encamped on the field of battle; sadly +reduced indeed, but victorious for the moment. The enemy, since their +first appearance at Grierson, have lost 4,400 men, and have been beaten +decisively back. There is now not a man on our side of the Sandusky; and +our loss of 2,600 is serious indeed, but, seeing how much has been +accomplished, not excessive. The enemy's horse was cut to pieces. + +Piffle slept on the ground that he had held all day. In the afternoon he +had once more driven back the head of the enemy's columns, inflicting a +further loss of 3,200 killed and wounded at the lowest computation; but +the enemy's camp-fires can still be plainly made out with a field-glass, +in the same position as the night before. This is scarcely to be called +success, although it is certainly not failure. + +_Sandusky_.--All quiet at Sandusky; the army has fallen back into the +city, and large reserves are still massed behind. + +_Editorial Comment_.--The battle of Grierson is a distinct success; the +enemy, with a heavy loss, have been beaten back to their own side. As to +the vital engagement on the Sandusky and the heavy fighting before Yolo, +it is plain that we must wait for further news of both. In neither case +has any decided advantage crowned our arms, and if we are to judge by +the expressions of the commander-in-chief to our Sandusky correspondent, +the course of the former still leaves room for the most serious +apprehensions. General Potty, we are glad to assure our readers, will be +once more in the saddle before many days. It is an odd coincidence that +all the principal commanders in the battle of Grierson were at one +period or another of the day carried to the rear; and that none of the +three is seriously hurt. Green and Lafayette were shot down, it appears, +within a few moments of each other. It was reported that they had been +having high words as to the reckless advance over the Sandusky, each +charging the blame upon the other; but it seems certain that the fault +was Lafayette's, who was in chief command, and was present in Grierson +itself at the time of the fatal manoeuvre. The result would have been +crushing, had not General Potty been left for some hours utterly without +ammunition; Commissary Scuttlebutt is loudly blamed. To-morrow's news is +everywhere awaited with an eagerness approaching to agony. + +15th. _Scarlet_.--Late last night, orders reached General Pipes to fall +back on this place, where his reserves were diverted to support Piffle, +hard-pressed on the Sandusky. This morning the manoeuvre was effected +in good order, the enemy following us through Grierson and capturing one +hundred prisoners. The battle was resumed on the Sandusky with the same +fury; and it is still raging as I write. The enemy's Army of the Centre +is commanded, as we learn from stragglers, by General Napoleon; they +boast of large supports arriving, both from Savannah and Tahema +directions. The slaughter is something appalling; the whole of Potty's +infantry corps has marched to support Piffle; and as we have now no more +men within a day's ride, it is feared the enemy may yet manage to carry +Garrard and command the line of the river. + +_Sandusky_.--This morning, General Stevenson marched out of town to the +southward on the Savannah and Sandusky road. It was fully expected that +he would have mounted the Sandusky river to support Piffle and engage +the enemy's Army of the Centre on the flank; and the present manoeuvre +is loudly criticised. Not only is the integrity of the line of the +Sandusky ventured, but Stevenson's own force is now engaged in a most +awkward country, with a difficult bridge in front. To add, if possible, +to our anxiety, it is reported that General Delafield, in yesterday's +engagement, lost 3,200 men, killed and wounded. He held his ground, +however, and by the last advices had killed 800 and taken 1,400 +prisoners, with which he had fallen back again on Yolo itself. This +retrogression, it seems, is in accordance with his original orders: he +was either to hold Yolo, or if possible advance on Savannah via Brierly. +This last he judged unwise, so that he was obliged to cling to Yolo +itself. This also is seriously criticised in the best-informed circles. +Osbourne himself is reported to be in Savannah. + +YALLOBALLY RECORD.--"We have never concealed our opinion that Osbourne +was a bummer and a scallywag; but the entire collapse of his campaign +beats the worst that we imagined possible. We have received, at the same +moment, news of Green and Lafayette's column being beaten ignominiously +back again across the Sandusky river and out of Grierson, a place on our +own side; and next of the appearance of a large body of troops at Yolo, +in the very heart of this great land, where they seem to have played the +very devil, taking prisoners by the hundred and marching with arrogant +footsteps on the sacred soil of the province of Savannah. General +Napoleon, the only commander who has not yet disgraced himself, still +fights an uphill battle in the centre, inflicting terrific losses and +upholding the honour of his country single-handed. The infamous Osbourne +is shaking in his spectacles at Savannah. He was roundly taken to task +by a public-spirited reporter, and babbled meaningless excuses; he did +not know, he said, that the force now falling in on us at Yolo was so +large. It was his business to know. What is he paid for? That force has +been ten days at least turning the east of the Mar Mountains, a week at +least on our own side of the frontier. Where were Osbourne's wits? Will +it be believed, the column at Lone Bluff is again short of ammunition? +This old man of the sea, whom all the world knows to be an ass and whom +we can prove to be a coward, is apparently a peculator also. If we were +to die to-morrow, the word Osbourne would be found engraven backside +foremost on our hearts." + +Note. _The Tergiversation of the Army of the West_.--The delay of the +Army of the West, and the timorous counsels of Green and Lafayette, were +the salvation of Potty, Pipes, and Piffle. This is the third time we +hear of this great army crossing the river. It never should have left +hold. Lafayette had an overwhelming force at his back; and with a little +firmness, a little obstinacy even, he might have swallowed up the thin +lines opposed to him. On this day, the 16th, when we hear of his leaving +Grierson for the third time, his headquarters should have been in +Scarlet, and his guns should have enfiladed the weak posts of Piffle. + +_Sandusky. Noon_.--Great gloom here. As everyone predicted, Stevenson +has already lost 600 men in the marshes at the mouth of the Sandusky, +men simply sacrificed. His wilful conduct in not mounting the river, +following on his melancholy defeat before Mar, and his long and fatal +hesitation as to the Armies of the West and Centre, fill up the measure +of his incapacity. His uncontrolled temper and undisguised incivility, +not only to the Press, but to fellow-soldiers of the stamp of Piffle, +have alienated from him even the sympathy that sometimes improperly +consoles demerit. + +_Editorial_.--We leave our correspondents to speak for themselves, +reserving our judgment with a heavy heart. Piffle has the sympathy of +the nation. + +_Scarlet_. 9 P.M.--The attack has ceased. Napoleon is moving off +southward. Our fellows smartly pursued and cut off 1,600 men; in +spreading along the other side of the Sandusky they fell on a flanking +column of the enemy's Army of the West and sent it to the right-about +with a loss of 800 left upon the field. This shows how perilously near +to a junction these two formidable armies were, and should increase our +joy at Napoleon's retreat. That movement is variously explained, but +many suppose it is due to some advance from Sandusky. + +_Sandusky_.8 P.M.--Stevenson this afternoon occupied the angle between +the Glendarule and the Sandusky; his guns command the Garrard and +Savannah highroad, the only line of retreat for General Napoleon's guns, +and he has already hopelessly defeated and scattered a strong body of +supports advancing from Savannah to the aid of that commander. The enemy +lost 1,600 men; it is thought that this success and Stevenson's present +position involve the complete destruction or the surrender of the +enemy's Army of the Centre. The enemy have retired from the passes +behind Mar; but it is thought they have moved too late to save Savannah. +Pleasant news from Colonel Delafield, who, with a loss of 600, has +destroyed thrice that number of the enemy before Yolo. + +17th. _Scarlet_.--The enemy turned last night, inflicting losses on the +combined forces of Generals Pipes and Piffle, amounting together to +1,600 men. But his retreat still continues, harassed by our cavalry and +guns. The rest of the troops out of Cinnabar have arrived, via +Glentower, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Everyone is in high +spirits. Potty has resumed command of his division; I met him half an +hour ago at lunch, when he expressed himself delighted with the +campaign. + +_Sandusky_.--A great victory must be announced. Today Stevenson passed +the Sandusky, and occupied the right bank of the Glendarule and the +country in front of Savannah. General Napoleon, in full retreat upon +that place, found himself cut off, and, after a desperate struggle, in +which 2,600 fell, surrendered with 6,000 men. The wrecks of his army are +scattered far and wide, and his guns are lying deserted on the Garrard +road. At the very moment while Napoleon was surrendering his sword to +General Stevenson, the head of our colours cut off 1,400 men before +Savannah, which was under the fire of our guns, and destroyed a convoy +on the Mar and Savannah highroad. This completes the picture; the enemy +have now only one bridge over the Glendarule not swept by our artillery. +Delafield has had another partial success; with a loss of 1,000 he has +cut off 1,200 and made 400 prisoners, but a strong force ts reported on +the Yolo and Yallobally road, which, by placing him between two fires, +may soon render his hold on the Yolo untenable. + +Note.--General Napoleon. His real name was Clamborough. The son of a +well-known linen-draper in Yolo, he was educated at the military college +of Savannah. His chief fault was an overwhelming vanity, which betrayed +itself in his unfortunate assumption of a pseudonym, and in the gorgeous +Oriental costumes by which he rendered himself conspicuous and absurd. +He received early warning of Stevenson's advance from Sandusky, but +refused to be advised, and did not begin to retreat until his army was +already circumvented. A characteristic anecdote is told of the +surrender. "General," said Napoleon to his captor, "you have to-day +immortalised your name." "Sir," returned Stevenson, whose brutality of +manner was already proverbial, "if you had taken as much trouble to +direct your army as your tailor to make your clothes, our positions +might have been reversed." + +[Illustration: From the original sketch in Stevenson's Note-book] + +_Editorial Comment_.--Unlike many others, we have never lost confidence +in General Stevenson; indeed, as our readers may remember, we have +always upheld him as a capable, even a great commander. Some little +ruffle at Scarlet did occur, but it was, no doubt, chargeable to the +hasty Potty; and now, by one of the finest manoeuvres on record, the +head general of our victorious armies has justified our most hopeful +prophecies and aspirations. There is not, perhaps, an officer in the +army who would not have chosen the obvious and indecisive move up the +Sandusky, which even our correspondent, able as he is, referred to with +apparent approval. Had Stevenson done that, the brave enemy who chooses +to call himself Napoleon might have been defeated twelve hours earlier, +and there would have been less sacrifice of life in the divisions of +Potty and the ignorant Piffle. But the enemy's retreat would not have +been cut off; his general would not now have been a prisoner in our +camp, nor should our cannon, advanced boldly into the country of our +foes, thunder against the gates of Savannah and cut off the supplies +from the army behind Mar. A glance at the map will show the authority of +our position; not a loaf of bread, not an ounce of powder can reach +Savannah or the enemy's Army of the East, but it must run the gauntlet +of our guns. And this is the result produced by the turning movement at +Yolo, General Stevenson's long inactivity in Sandusky, and his advance +at last, the one right movement and in the one possible direction. + +YALLOBALLY RECORD.--"The humbug who had the folly and indecency to pick +up the name of Napoleon second-hand at a sale of old pledges, has been +thrashed and is a prisoner. Except the Army of the West, and the +division on the Mar road, which is commanded by an old woman, we have +nothing on foot but scattered, ragamuffin regiments. Savannah is under +fire; that will teach Osbourne to skulk in cities instead of going to +the front with the poor devils whom he butchers by his ignorance and +starves with his peculations. What we want to know is, when is Osbourne +to be shot?" + +Note.--The _Record_ editor, a man of the name of McGuffog, was +subsequently hanged by order of General Osbourne. Public opinion +endorsed this act of severity. My great-uncle, Mr. Phelim Settle, was +present and saw him with the nightcap on and a file of his journals +around his neck; when he was turned off, the applause, according to Mr. +Settle, was deafening. He was a man, as the extracts prove, not without +a kind of vulgar talent. + +YALLOBALLY EVENING HERALD.--"It would be idle to disguise the fact that +the retreat of our Army of the Centre, and the accidental capture of the +accomplished soldier whose modesty conceals itself under the pseudonym +of Napoleon, have created a slight though baseless feeling of alarm in +this city. Nearer the field the troops are quite steady, the inhabitants +enthusiastic, and the loyal and indefatigable Osbourne multiplies his +bodily presence. The events of yesterday were much exaggerated by some +papers, and the publication of one rowdy sheet, suspected of receiving +pay from the enemy, has been suspended by an order from headquarters. +Our Army of the West still advances triumphantly unresisted into the +heart of the enemy's country; the force at Yolo, which is a mere handful +and quite without artillery, will probably be rooted out to-morrow. +Addresses and congratulations pour in to General Osbourne; subscriptions +to the great testimonial Osbourne statue are received at the _Herald_ +office every day between the hours of 10 and 4." + +ABSTRACT OF SIX DAYS' FIGHTING, FROM THE 19TH TO THE 24TH, FROM THE +GLENDARULE TIMES SATURDAY SPECIAL.--"This week has been, on the whole, +unimportant; there are few changes in the aspect of the field of war, +and perhaps the most striking fact is the collapse of Colonel +Delafield's Yolo column. Fourteen hundred killed and eighteen hundred +prisoners is assuredly a serious consideration for our small army; yet +the good done by that expedition is not wiped away by the present +defeat; large reinforcements of troops and much ammunition have been +directed into the far east, and the city of Savannah and the enemy's +forces in the pass have thus been left without support. Delafield +himself has reached Mar, now in our hands, and the cavalry and stores of +the expedition, all safe, are close behind him. Yolo is a name that will +never be forgotten. Our forces are now thus disposed: Potty, with the +brave artillery, lies behind the south-east shoulder of the Blue +Mountains, on the Sandusky and Samuel City road; Piffle, with the Army +of the Centre, has fallen back into Sandusky itself; while Stevenson +still holds the same position across the Sandusky river, his advance to +which will constitute his chief claim to celebrity. Savannah was +bombarded from the 18th to the 20th, inclusive; 4,000 men fell in its +defence. Osbourne himself, directing operations, was seriously wounded +and sent to Yallobally; and on the evening of the 20th the city +surrendered, only 600 men being found within its walls. A heavy +contribution was raised: but the general himself, fearing to expose his +communications, remains in the same position and has not even occupied +the fallen city. + +"In the meantime the army from the pass has been slowly drawing down to +the support of Savannah, suffering cruelly at every step. Yesterday +(24th) Mar was occupied by a corps of our infantry, who fell on the rear +of the retreating enemy, inflicting heavy loss." + +NOTE.--Retreat of the Mar column. The army which so long and so usefully +held the passes behind Mar, over the neck of Long Bluff, did not begin +to retreat until the enemy had already occupied Mar and begun to engage +their outposts. Supplies had already been cut off by the advanced +position of Stevenson. The men were short of bread. The roads were +heavy; the horses starving. The rear of the column was continually and +disastrously engaged with the enemy pouring after. It is perhaps the +saddest chapter in the history of the war. My grandmother, Mrs. Hankey +(_nee_ Pillworthy), then a young girl on a mountain farm on the line of +the retreat, distinctly remembers giving a soda biscuit, which was +greedily received, to Colonel Diggory Jacks, then in command of our +division, and lending him an umbrella, which was never returned. This +incident, trivial as it may be thought, emphatically depicts the +destitution of our brave soldiers. + +In the meantime, in the west, the enemy are slowly passing the rivers +and advancing with their main body on Scarlet, and with a single corps +on Glentower. Cinnabar was occupied on the 21st in the morning, and a +heavy contribution raised. The situation may thus be stated: In the +centre we are the sole arbiters, commanding the roads and holding a +position which can only be described as authoritative. In the east, +Delafield's corps has been destroyed; but the enemy's army of the pass, +on the other hand, is in a critical position and may, in the course of a +few days or so, be forced to lay down its arms. In the west, nothing as +yet is decided, and the movement through the Glentower Pass somewhat +hampers General Potty's position. + +The comparative losses during these days are very encouraging, and +compare pleasingly with the cost of the early part of the campaign. The +enemy have lost 12,800 men, killed, wounded, and prisoners, as against +4,800 on our side. + +YALLOBALLY HERALD.--Interview from General Osbourne with a special +reporter.--"I met the wounded hero some miles out of Yallobally, still +working, even as he walked, and surrounded by messengers from every +quarter. After the usual salutations, he inquired what paper I +represented, and received the name of the _Herald_ with satisfaction. +'It is a decent paper,' he said. 'It does not seek to obstruct a general +in the exercise of his discretion.' He spoke hopefully of the west and +east, and explained that the collapse of our centre was not so serious +as might have been imagined. 'It is unfortunate,' he said, 'but if Green +succeeds in his double advance on Glendarule, and if our army can +continue to keep up even the show of resistance in the province of +Savannah, Stevenson dare not advance upon the capital; that would expose +his communications too seriously for such a cautious and often cowardly +commander. I call him cowardly,' he added, 'even in the face of the +desperate Yolo expedition, for you see he is withdrawing all along the +west, and Green, though now in the heart of his country, encounters no +resistance.' The General hopes soon to recover; his wound, though +annoying, presents no character of gravity." + +NOTE.--General Osbourne's perfect sincerity is doubtful. He must have +known that Green was hopelessly short of ammunition. "Unfortunate," as +an epithet describing the collapse of the Army of the Centre, is perhaps +without parallel in military criticism. It was not unfortunate, it was +ruinous. Stevenson was a man of uneven character, whom his own successes +rendered timid; this timidity it was that delayed the end; but the war +was really over when General Napoleon surrendered his sword on the +afternoon of the 17th. + + + + +THE DAVOS PRESS + + + _In the Reproductions which follow of Moral Emblems, etc., by R. L. + Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, the tint shows the actual size of the + paper on which the pamphlets were printed_ + + + NOTICE. + + Today is published by _S. L. Osbourne & Co._ + + ILLUSTRATED + BLACK CANYON, + + _or_ + + Wild Adventures in the FAR WEST. + + AN + Instructive and amusing TALE written by + _SAMUEL LLOYD OSBOURNE_ + + PRICE 6D. + + +OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. + +Although _Black Canyon_ is rather shorter than ordinary for that kind of +story, it is an excellent work. We cordially recommend it to our +readers. + + _Weekly Messenger._ + + +S. L. Osbourne's new work (_Black Canyon_) is splendidly illustrated. In +the story, the characters are bold and striking. It reflects the highest +honor on its writer. + + _Morning Call._ + + +A very remarkable work. Every page produces an effect. The end is as +singular as the beginning. I never saw such a work before. + + _R. L. Stevenson._ + + + + + BLACK CANYON, + + _or_ + Wild Adventures in the FAR WEST + + A + + Tale of Instruction and Amusement + for the Young. + + _BY_ + + _SAMUEL OSBOURNE_ + + + ILLUSTRATED. + + _Printed by the Author._ + Davos-Platz. + + + + +_Chapter I._ + + +In this forest we see, in a misty morning, a camp fire! Sitting lazily +around it are three men. The oldest is evidently a sailor. The sailor +turns to the fellow next to him and says, "blast my eyes if I know where +we is." "I's rather think we're in the vecenty of tho Rocky Mount'ins." +Remarked the young man. + +Suddenly the bushes parted. 'WHAT!' they all exclaim, '_Not BLACK +EAGLE?_' + +Who is Black Eagle? We shall see. + + + + +_Chapter II._ + + +James P. Drake was a gambler! Not in cards, but _in lost luggage_! In +America, all baggage etc. lost on trains and not reclaimed is put up to +auction _unopened_. + +James was one who always expected to find a fortune in some one of these +bags. + +[Illustration] + +One day he was at the auction house as usual, when a small and +exceedingly light trunk was put up for sale. He bought and opened it. + +_It was empty! NO! A little bit of paper_ was in the bottom with this +written on it. + +IDAHO + +[Illustration: Black Canyon 570 fR0(1)m west 10 L Beware Indian Black +Eagle] + +Being an intelligent young man he knew that this was _a clue for finding +Hidden TREASURE_! Then after a while he made this: _In Black Canyon, +Idaho, 570 feet west of some mark, 10 feet below a tree Treasure will be +found. Beware of Black Eagle (Indian)._ But he forgot the (1). + + + + +_Chapter III._ + + +James at once took two friends into his secret: an old sailor (Jack), +and a young frontiersman. + +[Illustration] + +They all agreed that they must start for Black Canyon at once. The +frontiersman said he had heard of Black Canyon in Idaho. + +But who could Black Eagle be? + + + + +_Chapter IV._ + + +Lost! Certainly lost! Lost in the Far West! The Frontiersman had lost +them in a large forest. They had travelled for about a month, first by +water (See page 4) then by stage, then by horse. + +[Illustration] + +This was their third day in it. Just after their morning meal the bushes +parted. + +[Illustration] + +_An Indian stood before them! (See 1st Chap.)_ He merely said '_COME_.' +They take up their arms and do so. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + + + + +Chapter V. + + +After following him for four hours, he stopped, turned around and said, +"Rest, eat you fellows." They did so. In about an hour they started +again. After walking ten miles they heard the roaring of an immense +cataract. Suddenly they find themselves face to face _with a long deep +gorge or canyon. 'Black Canyon,'_ they all cry. '_Stop_,' says the +Indian. He pushes a stone aside. It uncovers the mouth of a small cave. +The Indian struck a light with _two sticks_. They follow him into this +cave for about a mile when the cave opens into an immense Grotto. The +Indian whistled, _a bear and dog appeared_. "Bring meat, Nero," said the +Indian. + +The bear at once brought a deer. Which they cooked and ate. Then the +Indian said, _"Show me the Treasure clue." His eyes flashed when he saw +it._ + + + + +_Chapter VI._ + + +[Illustration] + +MIDNIGHT! _The Indian is about to light a fuse to a cask of gunpowder! +But James sees him and shoots him before he is able to light the fuse._ + +[Illustration] + +He ran to the side of the dying Indian who made this confession. "I am +not an Indian. 10 years ago I met G. Gidean, a man who found a quantity +of gold here. Before be died, he sent that clue to a friend _who never +received it_. I knew the gold was here. I have hunted 10 years for it, +your clue showed me where IT was," _(here Black Eagle told it to James.) +Then Black Eagle DIED_. + + + + +_Chapter VII._ + + +20 years have passed! James is the same as ever. Jack is owner of a +yacht. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Frontiersman owns a large cattle and hog ranch. + +[Illustration] + +Finis. + + + + + NOT I, + And Other POEMS, + + _BY_ + + Robert Louis Stevenson, + + Author of + + _The Blue Scalper, Travels + with a Donkey etc._ + PRICE 6d. + + + Dedicated to + + _Messrs. R.& R. CLARKE_ + + by + _S.L.Osbourne_ + Davos + + 1881 + + + + +_Not I._ + + + Some like drink + In a pint pot, + Some like to think; + Some not. + + Strong Dutch Cheese, + Old Kentucky Rye, + Some like these; + Not I. + + Some like Poe + And others like Scott, + Some like Mrs. Stowe; + Some not. + + Some like to laugh, + Some like to cry. + Some like chaff; + Not I. + +[Illustration] + + Here, perfect to a wish, + We offer, not a dish, + But just the platter: + A book that's not a book, + A pamphlet in the look + But not the matter. + + I own in disarray; + As to the flowers of May + The frosts of Winter, + To my poetic rage, + The smallness of the page + And of the printer. + + As seamen on the seas + With song and dance descry + Adown the morning breeze + An islet in the sky: + In Araby the dry, + As o'er the sandy plain + The panting camels cry + To smell the coming rain. + + So all things over earth + A common law obey + And rarity and worth + Pass, arm in arm, away; + And even so, today, + The printer and the bard, + In pressless Davos, pray + Their sixpenny reward. + +[Illustration] + + The pamphlet here presented + Was planned and printed by + A printer unindent-ed, + A bard whom all decry. + + The author and the printer, + With various kinds of skill, + Concocted it in Winter + At Davos on the Hill. + + They burned the nightly taper + But now the work is ripe + Observe the costly paper, + Remark the perfect type! + +[Illustration] + + Begun FEB ended OCT 1881 + + + + + MORAL EMBLEMS + + A + Collection of Cuts and Verses. + + _By_ + _ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + + Author of + + _The Blue Scalper, Travels with a Donkey, + Treasure Island, Not I etc._ + + + Printers: + + S. L. OSBOURNE & COMPANY. + Davos-Platz. + + + + +[Illustration] + + See how the children in the print + Bound on the book to see what's in't! + O, like these pretty babes, may you + Seize and _apply_ this volume too! + And while your eye upon the cuts + With harmless ardour open and shuts, + Reader, may your immortal mind + To their sage lessons not be blind. + +[Illustration] + + Reader, your soul upraise to see, + In yon fair cut designed by me, + The pauper by the highwayside + Vainly soliciting from pride. + Mark how the Beau with easy air + Contemps the anxious rustic's prayer, + And casting a disdainful eye, + Goes gaily gallivanting by. + He from the poor averts his head.... + He will regret it when he's dead. + +[Illustration] + + _A Peak in Darien_. + + Broad gazing on untrodden lands, + See where adventurous Cortez stands; + While in the heavens above his head, + The Eagle seeks its daily bread. + How aptly fact to fact replies: + Heroes and Eagles, hills and skies. + Ye, who contemn the fatted slave, + Look on this emblem and be brave + +[Illustration] + + See in the print, how moved by whim + Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, + Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, + To noose that individual's hat. + The sacred Ibis in the distance + Joys to observe his bold resistance. + +[Illustration] + + Mark, printed on the opposing page, + The unfortunate effects of rage. + A man (who might be you or me) + Hurls another into the sea. + Poor soul, his unreflecting act + His future joys will much contract, + And he will spoil his evening toddy + By dwelling on that mangled body. + + + + + Works recently issued by + + SAMUEL OSBOURNE & CO. DAVOS. + +NOT I and other poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson. + +_A volume of enchanting poetry._ + +BLACK CANYON or wild adventures in the Far West, by S. Osbourne. + +_A beautiful gift-book._ + +_To be obtained from the Publishers and all respectable BOOK-SELLERS._ + + + + +[Illustration] + + Stevenson's Moral Emblems. + + _Edition de Luxe: 5 full-page Illustrations._ + + Price 9 PENCE. + +The above speciman cut, illustrates a new departure in the business of +OSBOURNE & Co. + +Wood engraving, designed and executed by Mr. & Mrs. Stevenson and +printed under the PERSONAL supervision of Mr. Osbourne, now form a +branch of their business. + + + + + Today is published by _S. L. Osbourne & Co._ + + A + Second Collection Of + + MORAL + EMBLEMS. + By + + _ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + +_Edition de Luxe_, tall paper, (extra fine) first impression. Price 10 +pence. + +_Popular Edition_, for the Million, small paper, cuts slightly worn, a +great bargain, 8 pence. + +NOTICE!!! + +A literary curiosity: Part of the M. S. of '_Black Canyon_.' Price 1s. +6d. + +Apply to + +SAMUEL OSBOURNE & C^o + +Buol Chalet (Villa Stein,) Davos. + + + + + MORAL EMBLEMS + + A Second Collection of Cuts and Verses. + + _By_ + _ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + + Author of + + _Latter-day Arabian Nights, Travels + with a Donkey, Not I, &c._ + + Printers: + + S. L. OSBOURNE & COMPANY. + Davos-Platz. + + + + +[Illustration] + + With storms a-weather, rocks a-lee, + The dancing skiff puts forth to sea. + The lone dissenter in the blast + Recoils before the sight aghast. + But she, although the heavens be black, + Holds on upon the starboard tack. + For why? although today she sink + Still safe she sails in printers' ink, + And though today the seamen drown, + My cut shall hand their memory down. + +[Illustration] + + The careful angler chose his nook + At morning by the lilied brook, + And all the noon his rod he plied + By that romantic riverside. + Soon as the evening hours decline + Tranquilly he'll return to dine, + And breathing forth a pious wish, + Will cram his belly full of fish. + +[Illustration] + + The Abbot for a walk went out + A wealthy cleric, very stout, + And Robin has that Abbot stuck + As the red hunter spears the buck. + The djavel or the javelin + Has, you observe, gone bravely in, + And you may hear that weapon whack + Bang through the middle of his back. + _Hence we may learn that abbots should + Never go walking in a wood._ + +[Illustration] + + The frozen peaks he once explored, + But now he's dead and by the board. + How better far at home to have stayed + Attended by the parlour maid, + And warmed his knees before the fire + Until the hour when folks retire! + _So, if you would be spared to friends. + Do nothing but for business ends_. + +[Illustration] + + Industrious pirate! see him sweep + The lonely bosom of the deep, + And daily the horizon scan + From Hatteras or Matapan. + Be sure, before that pirate's old, + He will have made a pot of gold, + And will retire from all his labours + And be respected by his neighbors. + _You also scan your life's horizon + For all that you can clap your eyes on._ + + + + + Works recently issued by + + SAMUEL OSBOURNE & C^o. + DAVOS. + +NOT I and other poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson. + +_A volume of enchanting poetry._ + +BLACK CANYON or wild adventures in the Far West, by S. L. Osbourne. + +_A beautiful gift-book._ + +MORAL EMBLEMS, (first Series.) by Robert Louis Stevenson. + +_Has only to be seen to be admired._ + +_To be obtained from the Publishers and all respectable Book-sellers._ + + + + +A Martial Elegy for some lead Soldiers. + + + For certain soldiers lately dead + Our-reverent dirge shall here be said. + Them, when their martial leader called, + No dread preparative appalled; + But leaden hearted, leaden heeled, + I marked them steadfast in the field + Death grimly sided with the foe, + And smote each leaden hero low. + Proudly they perished one by one: + The dread Pea-cannon's work was done + O not for them the tears we shed, + Consigned to their congenial lead; + But while unmoved their sleep they take, + We mourn for their dear Captain's sake, + For their dear Captain, who shall smart + Both in his pocket and his heart, + Who saw his heros shed their gore + And lacked a shilling to buy more! + Price 1 penny. (1st Edition.) + + + + + Today is published by SAMUEL OSBOURNE & Co. + + THE + GRAVER and the PEN + + OR + Scenes from Nature with Appropriate Verses + + by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON author of the 'EMBLEMS.' + +'The Graver and the Pen' is a most strikingly illustrated little work +and the poetry so pleasing that when it is taken up to be read is +finished before it is set down. + +It contains 5 full-page illustrations (all of the first class) and 11 +pages of poetry finely printed on superb paper (especially obtained from +C. G. Squintani & Co. London) with the title on the cover in red +letters. + +Small 8vo. Granite paper cover with coloured title + +_Price Ninepence per Copy_. + +Splendid chance for an energetic publisher!!! + +For Sale--Copyright of 'Black Canyon' price 1 / 3/4 + +Autograph of Mr. R. L. Stevenson price -/3, ditto of Mr. S. L. Osbourne +price 1/- each. + +If copies of the 'Graver,' 'Emblems,' or 'Black Canyon' are wanted apply +to the publisher, 17 Harlot Row Edinburgh. + + + + +THE GRAVER & THE PEN. + + + + + THE + _GRAVER & THE PEN_, + + or + + Scenes from Nature with + Appropriate Verses + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + author of + +'The New Arabian Nights,' 'Moral Emblems,' 'Not I,' 'Treasure Island,' +etc. + + _Illustrated._ + + EDINBURGH + + _S. L. Osbourne & Company_ + No. 17 HERIOT ROW. + +[It was only by the kindness of Mr. CRERAR of Kingussie that we are able +to issue this little work--having allowed us to print with his own press +when ours was broken.] + + + + +PROEM. + + + Unlike the common run of men, + I wield a double power to please, + And use the GRAVER and the PEN + With equal aptitude and ease. + + I move with that illustrious crew, + The ambidextrous Kings of Art; + And every mortal thing I do + Brings ringing money in the mart. + + Hence, to the morning hour, the mead, + The forest and the stream perceive + Me wandering as the muses lead---- + Or back returning in the eve. + + Two muses like two maiden aunts, + The engraving and the singing muse, + Follow, through all my favorite haunts, + My devious traces in the dews. + + To guide and cheer me, each attends; + Each speeds my rapid task along; + One to my cuts her ardour lends, + One breathes her magic in my song. + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Precarious Mill._ + + + Alone above the stream it stands, + Above the iron hill, + The topsy-turvy, tumble-down, + Yet habitable mill. + + Still as the ringing saws advance + To slice the humming deal, + All day the pallid miller hears + The thunder of the wheel. + + He hears the river plunge and roar + As roars the angry mob; + He feels the solid building quake, + The trusty timbers throb. + + All night beside the fire he cowers: + He hears the rafters jar: + O why is he not in a proper house + As decent people are! + + The floors are all aslant, he sees, + The doors are all a-jam; + And from the hook above his head + All crooked swings the ham. + + "Alas," he cries and shakes his head, + "I see by every sign, + There soon will be the deuce to pay, + With this estate of mine." + +[Illustration] + + + + +The Disputatious Pines. + + + The first pine to the second said: + "My leaves are black, my branches red; + I stand upon this moor of mine, + A hoar, _unconquerable pine_." + + The second sniffed and answered: "Pooh, + I am as good a pine as you." + + "Discourteous tree" the first replied, + "The tempest in my boughs had cried, + The hunter slumbered in my shade, + A hundred years ere you were made." + + The second smiled as he returned: + "I shall be here when you are burned." + + So far dissension ruled the pair, + Each turned on each a frowning air, + When flickering from the bank anigh, + A flight of martens met their eye. + Sometime their course they watched; and then + They nodded off to sleep again. + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Tramps_. + + + Now long enough has day endured, + Or King Apollo Palinured, + Seaward be steers his panting team, + And casts on earth his latest gleam. + + But see! the Tramps with jaded eye + Their destined provinces espy. + Long through the hills their way they took, + Long camped beside the mountain brook; + 'Tis over; now with rising hope + They pause upon the downward slope, + And as their aching bones they rest, + Their anxious captain scans the west. + + So paused Alaric on the Alps + And ciphered up the Roman scalps. + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Foolhardy Geographer._ + + + The howling desert miles around, + The tinkling brook the only sound-- + Wearied with all his toils and feats, + The traveller dines on potted meats; + On potted meats and princely wines, + Not wisely but too well he dines. + + The brindled Tiger loud may roar, + High may the hovering Vulture soar, + Alas! regardless of them all, + Soon shall the empurpled glutton sprawl-- + Soon, in the desert's hushed repose, + Shall trumpet tidings through his nose! + Alack, unwise! that nasal song + Shall be the Ounce's dinner-gong! + + * * * * * + + A blemish in the cut appears; + Alas! it cost both blood and tears. + The glancing graver swerved aside, + Fast flowed the artist's vital tide! + And now the apologetic bard + Demands indulgence for his pard! + +[Illustration] + + + + +_The Angler & the Clown._ + + + The echoing bridge you here may see, + The pouring lynn, the waving tree, + The eager angler fresh from town-- + Above, the contumelious clown. + 'The angler plies his line and rod, + The clodpole stands with many a nod,-- + With many a nod and many a grin, + He sees him cast his engine in. + + "What have you caught?" the peasant cries. + + "Nothing as yet," the Fool replies. + + + + +MORAL TALES + + + + +[Illustration] + + Rob and Ben + + or + The PIRATE and the APOTHECARY. + Scene the First. + + + + +[Illustration] + + Rob and Ben + + or + The PIRATE and the APOTHECARY. + Scene the Second. + + + + +[Illustration] + + Rob and Ben + + or + The PIRATE and the APOTHECARY. + Scene the Third. + + + + +ROBIN AND BEN: OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY + + + Come lend me an attentive ear + A startling moral tale to hear, + Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben, + And different destinies of men. + + Deep in the greenest of the vales + That nestle near the coast of Wales, + The heaving main but just in view, + Robin and Ben together grew, + Together worked and played the fool, + Together shunned the Sunday school, + And pulled each other's youthful noses + Around the cots, among the roses. + + Together but unlike they grew; + Robin was rough, and through and through + Bold, inconsiderate, and manly, + Like some historic Bruce or Stanley. + Ben had a mean and servile soul, + He robbed not, though he often stole. + He sang on Sunday in the choir, + And tamely capped the passing Squire. + + At length, intolerant of trammels-- + Wild as the wild Bithynian camels, + Wild as the wild sea-eagles--Bob + His widowed dam contrives to rob, + And thus with great originality + Effectuates his personality. + Thenceforth his terror-haunted flight + He follows through the starry night; + And with the early morning breeze, + Behold him on the azure seas. + The master of a trading dandy + Hires Robin for a go of brandy; + And all the happy hills of home + Vanish beyond the fields of foam. + + Ben, meanwhile, like a tin reflector, + Attended on the worthy rector; + Opened his eyes and held his breath, + And flattered to the point of death; + And was at last, by that good fairy, + Apprenticed to the Apothecary. + + So Ben, while Robin chose to roam, + A rising chemist was at home, + Tended his shop with learned air, + Watered his drugs and oiled his hair, + And gave advice to the unwary, + Like any sleek apothecary. + + Meanwhile upon the deep afar + Robin the brave was waging war, + With other tarry desperadoes + About the latitude of Barbadoes. + He knew no touch of craven fear; + His voice was thunder in the cheer; + First, from the main-to'-gallan' high, + The skulking merchantman to spy-- + The first to bound upon the deck, + The last to leave the sinking wreck. + His hand was steel, his word was law, + His mates regarded him with awe. + No pirate in the whole profession + Held a more honourable position. + + At length, from years of anxious toil, + Bold Robin seeks his native soil; + Wisely arranges his affairs, + And to his native dale repairs. + The Bristol _Swallow_ sets him down + Beside the well-remembered town. + He sighs, he spits, he marks the scene, + Proudly he treads the village green; + And free from pettiness and rancour, + Takes lodgings at the 'Crown and Anchor.' + + Strange when a man so great and good, + Once more in his home-country stood, + Strange that the sordid clowns should show + A dull desire to have him go. + + His clinging breeks, his tarry hat, + The way he swore, the way he spat, + A certain quality of manner, + Alarming like the pirate's banner-- + Something that did not seem to suit all-- + Something, O call it bluff, not brutal-- + Something at least, howe'er it's called, + Made Robin generally black-balled. + + His soul was wounded; proud and glum, + Alone he sat and swigged his rum, + And took a great distaste to men + Till he encountered Chemist Ben. + Bright was the hour and bright the day, + That threw them in each other's way; + Glad were their mutual salutations, + Long their respective revelations. + Before the inn in sultry weather + They talked of this and that together; + Ben told the tale of his indentures, + And Rob narrated his adventures. + Last, as the point of greatest weight, + The pair contrasted their estate, + And Robin, like a boastful sailor, + Despised the other for a tailor. + + 'See,' he remarked, 'with envy, see + A man with such a fist as me! + Bearded and ringed, and big, and brown, + I sit and toss the stingo down. + Hear the gold jingle in my bag-- + All won beneath the Jolly Flag!' + + Ben moralised and shook his head: + 'You wanderers earn and eat your bread. + The foe is found, beats or is beaten, + And either how, the wage is eaten. + And after all your pully-hauly + Your proceeds look uncommon small-ly. + You had done better here to tarry + Apprentice to the Apothecary. + The silent pirates of the shore + Eat and sleep soft, and pocket more + Than any red, robustious ranger + Who picks his farthings hot from danger. + You clank your guineas on the board; + Mine are with several bankers stored. + You reckon riches on your digits, + You dash in chase of Sals and Bridgets, + You drink and risk delirium tremens, + Your whole estate a common seaman's! + Regard your friend and school companion, + Soon to be wed to Miss Trevanion + (Smooth, honourable, fat and flowery, + With Heaven knows how much land in dowry) + Look at me--am I in good case? + Look at my hands, look at my face; + Look at the cloth of my apparel; + Try me and test me, lock and barrel; + And own, to give the devil his due, + I have made more of life than you. + Yet I nor sought nor risked a life; + I shudder at an open knife; + The perilous seas I still avoided + And stuck to land whate'er betided. + I had no gold, no marble quarry, + I was a poor apothecary, + Yet here I stand, at thirty-eight, + A man of an assured estate.' + + 'Well,' answered Robin--'well, and how?' + + The smiling chemist tapped his brow. + 'Rob,' he replied,'this throbbing brain + Still worked and hankered after gain. + By day and night, to work my will, + It pounded like a powder mill; + And marking how the world went round + A theory of theft it found. + Here is the key to right and wrong: + _Steal little but steal all day long_; + And this invaluable plan + Marks what is called the Honest Man. + When first I served with Doctor Pill, + My hand was ever in the till. + Now that I am myself a master + My gains come softer still and faster. + As thus: on Wednesday, a maid + Came to me in the way of trade. + Her mother, an old farmer's wife, + Required a drug to save her life. + 'At once, my dear, at once,' I said, + Patted the child upon the head, + Bade her be still a loving daughter, + And filled the bottle up with water. + + 'Well, and the mother?' Robin cried. + + 'O she!' said Ben, 'I think she died.' + + 'Battle and blood, death and disease, + Upon the tainted Tropic seas-- + The attendant sharks that chew the cud-- + The abhorred scuppers spouting blood-- + The untended dead, the Tropic sun-- + The thunder of the murderous gun-- + The cut-throat crew--the Captain's curse-- + The tempest blustering worse and worse-- + These have I known and these can stand, + But you, I settle out of hand!' + + Out flashed the cutlass, down went Ben + Dead and rotten, there and then. + + + + +THE BUILDER'S DOOM + + + In eighteen twenty Deacon Thin + Feu'd the land and fenced it in, + And laid his broad foundations down + About a furlong out of town. + + Early and late the work went on. + The carts were toiling ere the dawn; + The mason whistled, the hodman sang; + Early and late the trowels rang; + And Thin himself came day by day + To push the work in every way. + An artful builder, patent king + Of all the local building ring, + Who was there like him in the quarter + For mortifying brick and mortar, + Or pocketing the odd piastre + By substituting lath and plaster? + With plan and two-foot rule in hand, + He by the foreman took his stand, + With boisterous voice, with eagle glance + To stamp upon extravagance. + Far thrift of bricks and greed of guilders, + He was the Buonaparte of Builders. + + The foreman, a desponding creature, + Demurred to here and there a feature: + 'For surely, sir--with your permeession-- + Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion...' + The builder goggled, gulped and stared, + The foreman's services were spared. + Thin would not count among his minions + A man of Wesleyan opinions. + + 'Money is money,' so he said. + 'Crescents are crescents, trade is trade. + Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons + Built, I believe, for different reasons-- + Charity, glory, piety, pride-- + To pay the men, to please a bride, + To use their stone, to spite their neighbours, + Not for a profit on their labours. + They built to edify or bewilder; + I build because I am a builder. + Crescent and street and square I build, + Plaster and paint and carve and gild. + Around the city see them stand, + These triumphs of my shaping hand, + With bulging walls, with sinking floors, + With shut, impracticable doors, + Fickle and frail in every part, + And rotten to their inmost heart. + There shall the simple tenant find + Death in the falling window-blind, + Death in the pipe, death in the faucit, + Death in the deadly water-closet! + A day is set for all to die: + _Caveat emptor!_ what care I?' + + As to Amphion's tuneful kit + Troy rose, with towers encircling it; + As to the Mage's brandished wand + A spiry palace clove the sand; + To Thin's indomitable financing, + That phantom crescent kept advancing. + When first the brazen bells of churches + Called clerk and parson to their perches, + The worshippers of every sect + Already viewed it with respect; + A second Sunday had not gone + Before the roof was rattled on: + And when the fourth was there, behold + The crescent finished, painted, sold! + + The stars proceeded in their courses, + Nature with her subversive forces, + Time, too, the iron-toothed and sinewed; + And the edacious years continued. + Thrones rose and fell; and still the crescent, + Unsanative and now senescent, + A plastered skeleton of lath, + Looked forward to a day of wrath. + In the dead night, the groaning timber + Would jar upon the ear of slumber, + And, like Dodona's talking oak, + Of oracles and judgments spoke. + When to the music fingered well + The feet of children lightly fell, + The sire, who dozed by the decanters, + Started, and dreamed of misadventures. + The rotten brick decayed to dust; + The iron was consumed by rust; + Each tabid and perverted mansion + Hung in the article of declension. + + So forty, fifty, sixty passed; + Until, when seventy came at last, + The occupant of number three + Called friends to hold a jubilee. + Wild was the night; the charging rack + Had forced the moon upon her back; + The wind piped up a naval ditty; + And the lamps winked through all the city. + Before that house, where lights were shining, + Corpulent feeders, grossly dining, + And jolly clamour, hum and rattle, + Fairly outvoiced the tempest's battle. + As still his moistened lip he fingered, + The envious policeman lingered; + While far the infernal tempest sped, + And shook the country folks in bed, + And tore the trees and tossed the ships, + He lingered and he licked his lips. + Lo, from within, a hush! the host + Briefly expressed the evening's toast; + And lo, before the lips were dry, + The Deacon rising to reply! + 'Here in this house which once I built, + Papered and painted, carved and gilt, + And out of which, to my content, + I netted seventy-five per cent.; + Here at this board of jolly neighbours, + I reap the credit of my labours. + These were the days--I will say more-- + These were the grand old days of yore! + The builder laboured day and night; + He watched that every brick was right; + The decent men their utmost did; + And the house rose--a pyramid! + These were the days, our provost knows, + When forty streets and crescents rose, + The fruits of my creative noddle, + All more or less upon a model, + Neat and commodious, cheap and dry, + A perfect pleasure to the eye! + I found this quite a country quarter; + I leave it solid lath and mortar. + In all, I was the single actor-- + And am this city's benefactor! + Since then, alas! both thing and name, + Shoddy across the ocean came-- + Shoddy that can the eye bewilder + And makes me blush to meet a builder! + Had this good house, in frame or fixture, + Been tempered by the least admixture + Of that discreditable shoddy, + Should we to-day compound our toddy, + Or gaily marry song and laughter + Below its sempiternal rafter? + Not so!' the Deacon cried. + + The mansion + Had marked his fatuous expansion. + The years were full, the house was fated, + The rotten structure crepitated! + + A moment, and the silent guests + Sat pallid as their dinner vests. + A moment more, and root and branch, + That mansion fell in avalanche, + Story on story, floor on floor, + Roof, wall and window, joist and door, + Dead weight of damnable disaster, + A cataclysm of lath and plaster. + + _Siloam did not choose a sinner-- + All were not builders at the dinner._ + + + + +[Illustration: LORD NELSON AND HIS TAR.] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: (_Facsimile of Letter addressed by R. L. Stevenson, in +his Tenth Year, to his Aunt Miss Balfour._)] + + + + + PRINTED BY + CASSELL & CO., LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, + LONDON, E.C. + + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +The following typographical errors were corrected: + + Page 159: "The hunting still goes on, and at any moment", 'moment' + amended from 'monent'. + + Footnote 46: "Jour. Scot. Met. Soc., New Ser. xxvi." 'Scot.' + amended from 'Sbot.' + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON +- SWANSTON EDITION VOL. XXII (OF 25)*** + + +******* This file should be named 31291.txt or 31291.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/2/9/31291 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/31291.zip b/31291.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..24bba4c --- /dev/null +++ b/31291.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44603b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #31291 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31291) |
