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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best literature,
+Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12, by Various
+
+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: Library of the World's Best literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2010 [EBook #32308]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: _JAVANESE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT._
+
+    The origin of the Oceanic dialects, and of those of India
+    beyond the Ganges more especially the civilized idioms of the
+    Indian Archipelago, is referred to a language which was that
+    of an unknown people inhabiting the island of Java. From this
+    primitive language the modern Javanese is supposed to be
+    immediately derived. Javanese literature consists of poems,
+    dramas, songs, and historical and religious writings. The
+    accompanying facsimile is from a mythological-religious tract
+    written upon a vegetable paper of native manufacture, and
+    ornamented with grotesque drawings.]
+
+
+
+
+                            LIBRARY OF THE
+                       WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
+                          ANCIENT AND MODERN
+
+
+                        CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
+
+                                EDITOR
+
+
+            HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE    LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE
+                         GEORGE HENRY WARNER
+
+                          ASSOCIATE EDITORS
+
+
+                         Connoisseur Edition
+
+                              VOL. XII.
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                      THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
+
+
+
+
+                         Connoisseur Edition
+
+            LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA
+
+                         _No_.    ..........
+
+
+                         Copyright, 1896, by
+                      R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
+                        _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+                         THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
+
+
+  CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D.,
+    Professor of Hebrew,        HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.
+
+  THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D.,
+    Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
+                                   YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.
+
+  WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH. D., L. H. D.,
+    Professor of History and Political Science,
+                              PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N. J.
+
+  BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B.,
+    Professor of Literature,     COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.
+
+  JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D.,
+    President of the        UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.
+
+  WILLARD FISKE, A. M., PH. D.,
+    Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
+    and Literatures,               CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N. Y.
+
+  EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D.,
+    Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
+                            UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.
+
+  ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT. D.,
+    Professor of the Romance Languages,
+                                 TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.
+
+  WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A.,
+    Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
+    English and History,     UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
+
+  PAUL SHOREY, PH. D.,
+    Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
+                                UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.
+
+  WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D.,
+    United States Commissioner of Education,
+                              BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.
+
+  MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D.,
+    Professor of Literature in the
+                   CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.
+
+
+
+
+                          TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+                               VOL. XII
+
+
+                                                    LIVED       PAGE
+  DENIS DIDEROT                                   1713-1784     4689
+    From 'Rameau's Nephew'
+
+  FRANZ VON DINGELSTEDT                           1814-1881     4704
+    A Man of Business ('The Amazon')
+    The Watchman (same)
+
+  DIOGENES LAERTIUS                           200-250 A. D.?    4711
+    Life of Socrates ('Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers')
+    Examples of Greek Wit and Wisdom: Bias; Plato; Aristippus;
+            Aristotle; Theophrastus; Demetrius; Antisthenes;
+            Diogenes; Cleanthes; Pythagoras
+
+  ISAAC D'ISRAELI                                 1766-1848     4725
+    Poets, Philosophers, and Artists Made by Accident
+            ('Curiosities of Literature')
+    Martyrdom of Charles the First ('Commentaries on the
+            Reign of Charles the First')
+
+  SYDNEY DOBELL                                   1824-1874     4733
+    Epigram on the Death of Edward Forbes
+    How's My Boy?
+    The Sailor's Return
+    Afloat and Ashore
+    The Soul ('Balder')
+    England (same)
+    America
+    Amy's Song of the Willow ('Balder')
+
+  AUSTIN DOBSON                                   1840-         4741
+                         BY ESTHER SINGLETON
+    On a Nankin Plate
+    The Old Sedan-Chair
+    Ballad of Prose and Rhyme
+    The Curé's Progress
+    "Good-Night, Babbette"
+    The Ladies of St. James's
+    Dora _versus_ Rose
+    Une Marquise
+    A Ballad to Queen Elizabeth
+    The Princess De Lamballe ('Four Frenchwomen')
+
+  MARY MAPES DODGE                                1840?-        4751
+    The Race ('Hans Brinker')
+
+  JOHN DONNE                                      1573-1631     4771
+    The Undertaking
+    A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
+    Song
+    Love's Growth
+    Song
+
+  FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY                 1821-1881     4779
+                         BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
+    From 'Poor People': Letter from Varvara Debrosyeloff to
+            Makar Dyevushkin; Letter from Makar Dyevushkin
+            to Varvara Alexievna Dobrosyeloff
+    The Bible Reading ('Crime and Punishment')
+
+  EDWARD DOWDEN                                   1843-         4806
+    The Humor of Shakespeare ('Shakespeare; a Critical
+            Study of His Mind and Art')
+    Shakespeare's Portraiture of Women ('Transcripts
+            and Studies')
+    The Interpretation of Literature (same)
+
+  A. CONAN DOYLE                                  1859-         4815
+    The Red-Headed League ('The Adventures of
+            Sherlock Holmes')
+    Bowmen's Song ('The White Company')
+
+  HOLGER DRACHMANN                                1846-         4840
+    The Skipper and His Ship ('Paul and Virginia
+            of a Northern Zone')
+    The Prince's Song ('Once Upon a Time')
+
+  JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE                             1795-1820     4851
+    A Winter's Tale ('The Croakers')
+    The Culprit Fay
+    The American Flag
+
+  JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER                             1811-1882     4865
+    The Vedas and Their Theology ('The Intellectual
+            Development of Europe')
+    Primitive Beliefs Dismissed by Scientific
+            Knowledge (same)
+    The Koran (same)
+
+  MICHAEL DRAYTON                                 1563-1631     4877
+    Sonnet
+    The Ballad of Agincourt
+    Queen Mab's Excursion ('Nymphidia, the Court of Faery')
+
+  GUSTAVE DROZ                                    1832-1895     4885
+    How the Baby Was Saved ('The Seamstress's Story')
+    A Family New-Year's ('Monsieur, Madame, and Bébé')
+    Their Last Excursion ('Making an Omelette')
+
+  HENRY DRUMMOND                                  1851-         4897
+    The Country and Its People ('Tropical Africa')
+    The East-African Lake Country (same)
+    White Ants (same)
+
+  WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN                 1585-1649     4913
+    Sextain
+    Madrigal
+    Reason and Feeling
+    On Death ('Cypress Grove')
+    Degeneracy of the World
+    Briefness of Life
+    The Universe
+
+  JOHN DRYDEN                                     1631-1700     4919
+                         BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
+    From 'The Hind and the Panther'
+    To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve
+    Ode to the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew
+    A Song
+    Lines Printed under Milton's Portrait
+    Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Music
+    Achitophel ('Absalom and Achitophel')
+
+  MAXIME DU CAMP                                  1822-         4951
+    Street Scene during the Commune ('The Convulsions
+            of Paris')
+
+  ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR                         1802-1870     4957
+                         BY ANDREW LANG
+    The Cure for Dormice that Eat Peaches ('The Count of
+            Monte Cristo')
+    The Shoulder of Athos, the Belt of Porthos, and the
+            Handkerchief of Aramis ('The Three Musketeers')
+    Defense of the Bastion St.-Gervais (same)
+    Consultation of the Musketeers (same)
+    The Man in the Iron Mask ('The Viscount of Bragelonne')
+    A Trick is Played on Henry III. by Aid of Chicot
+            ('The Lady of Monsoreau')
+
+  ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR                         1824-1895     5001
+                         BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
+    The Playwright Is Born--and Made (Preface to
+            'The Prodigal Father')
+    An Armed Truce ('A Friend to the Sex')
+    Two Views of Money ('The Money Question')
+    M. De Remonin's Philosophy of Marriage
+            ('L'Étrangére')
+    Reforming a Father ('The Prodigal Father')
+    Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson ('L'Étrangére')
+
+  GEORGE DU MAURIER                               1834-1896     5041
+    At the Heart of Bohemia ('Trilby')
+    Christmas in the Latin Quarter (same)
+    "Dreaming True" ('Peter Ibbetson')
+    Barty Josselin at School ('The Martian')
+
+  WILLIAM DUNBAR                                  1465?-1530?   5064
+    The Thistle and the Rose
+    From 'The Golden Targe'
+    No Treasure Avails Without Gladness
+
+  JEAN VICTOR DURUY                               1811-1894     5069
+    The National Policy ('History of Rome')
+    Results of the Roman Dominion (same)
+
+
+
+
+                       FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                              VOLUME XII
+
+                                                                PAGE
+  Javanese Manuscript (Colored Plate)                   Frontispiece
+  The Alexandrine Manuscript (Fac-simile)                        xii
+  Old Black-Letter Quarto (Fac-simile)                          4726
+  "Charles I. Going to Execution" (Photogravure)                4730
+  "The Skater of the Zuyder Zee" (Photogravure)                 4758
+  African Arabic Manuscript (Fac-simile)                        4870
+  John Dryden (Portrait)                                        4920
+  Alexandre Dumas (Portrait)                                    4958
+  Alexandre Dumas, Fils (Portrait)                              5002
+
+
+                          VIGNETTE PORTRAITS
+
+  Denis Diderot                      Joseph Rodman Drake
+  Franz von Dingelstedt              John William Draper
+  Isaac D'Israeli                    Michael Drayton
+  Austin Dobson                      Gustav Droz
+  Mary Mapes Dodge                   Henry Drummond
+  John Donne                         William Drummond
+  Feodor Dostoévsky                  Maxime Du Camp
+  A. Conan Doyle                     George du Maurier
+  Holger Drachmann                   Jean Victor Duruy
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: _CODEX ALEXANDRINUS._
+
+    Fifth Century.                                British Museum.
+
+    The Alexandrine Manuscript of the Christian Scriptures is
+    almost complete in both Testaments, the Septuagint version of
+    the Old and the original Greek of the New. It consists of 773
+    sheets, 12-3/4 by 10-3/4 inches, of very thin gray goatskin
+    vellum, written on both sides in two columns of faint but
+    clear characters. It was made in the early part of the fifth
+    century, under the supervision of Thecla, a noble Christian
+    lady of Alexandria, in the fifth century. It was brought from
+    Alexandria to Constantinople by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of
+    Constantinople, who in 1624 gave it into the charge of the
+    English Ambassador for presentation to King James I.; but
+    owing to James' death before the presentation could be made,
+    it was presented instead to Charles I. It remained in the
+    possession of the English sovereigns until the Royal Library
+    was presented to the nation by George II. in 1753. With the
+    exception of the greater part of Matthew to Chapter xxv., two
+    leaves of John, and three of Second Corinthians, it contains
+    the whole Greek Bible, including the two Epistles of Clement
+    of Rome, which in early times ranked among the inspired
+    books. Its table of contents shows that it once included also
+    the "Psalms of Solomon," though, from their position and
+    title in the index, it is evident that they were regarded as
+    standing apart from the other books. The Museum has bound the
+    leaves of this precious manuscript in four volumes, and has
+    had photographic copies made of each page for the use of
+    students. The accompanying reproduction is from the last
+    chapter of the First Epistle of John, from "His Son," in
+    verse 9, to the end.]
+
+
+
+
+DENIS DIDEROT
+
+(1713-1784)
+
+[Illustration: DENIS DIDEROT]
+
+
+Among the French Encyclopædists of the eighteenth century Denis
+Diderot holds the place of leader. There were intellects of broader
+scope and of much surer balance in that famous group, but none of such
+versatility, brilliancy, and outbursting force. To his associates he
+was a marvel and an inspiration.
+
+He was born in October 1713, in Langres, Haute-Marne, France; and
+died in Paris July 31st, 1784. After a classical education in Jesuit
+schools, he utterly disgusted his father by turning to the Bohemian
+life of a littérateur in Paris. Although very poor, he married at
+the age of thirty. The whole story of his married life--the common
+Parisian story in those days--reflects no credit on him; though
+his _liaison_ with Mademoiselle Voland presents the aspects of a
+friendship abiding through life. Poverty spurred him to exertion.
+Four days of work in 1746 are said to have produced 'Pensées
+Philosophiques' (Philosophic Thoughts). This book, with a little
+essay following it, 'Interprétation de la Nature,' was his first open
+attack on revealed religion. Its argument, though only negative, and
+keeping within the bounds of theism, foretokened a class of utterances
+which were frequent in Diderot's later years, and whose assurance of
+his materialistic atheism would be complete had they not been too
+exclamatory for settled conviction. He contents himself with
+glorifying the passions, to the annulling of all ethical standards.
+On this point at least his convictions were stable, for long afterward
+he writes thus to Mademoiselle Voland:--"The man of mediocre passion
+lives and dies like the brute.... If we were bound to choose between
+Racine, a bad husband, a bad father, a false friend, and a sublime
+poet, and Racine, good father, good husband, good friend, and dull
+worthy man, I hold to the first. Of Racine the bad man, what remains?
+Nothing. Of Racine the man of genius? The work is eternal."
+
+About 1747 he produced an allegory, 'Promenade du Sceptique.' This
+French 'Pilgrim's Progress' scoffs at the Church of Rome for denying
+pleasure, then decries the pleasures of the world, and ends by
+asserting the hopeless uncertainty of the philosophy which both scoffs
+at the Church and decries worldly pleasure. At this period he was
+evidently inclined to an irregular attack on the only forms of
+Christianity familiar to him, asceticism and pietism.
+
+In 1749 Diderot first showed himself a thinker of original power, in
+his Letter on the Blind. This work, 'Lettre sur les Avengles à l'Usage
+de Ceux qui Voient' (Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those who See)
+opened the eyes of the public to Diderot's peculiar genius, and the
+eyes of the authorities to the menace in his principles. The result
+was his imprisonment, and from that the spread of his views. His
+offense was, that through his ingenious supposition of the mind
+deprived of its use of one or more of the bodily senses, he had shown
+the relativity of all man's conceptions, and had thence deduced
+the relativity, the lack of absoluteness, of all man's ethical
+standards--thus invalidating the foundations of civil and social
+order. The broad assertion that Diderot and his philosophic group
+caused the French Revolution has only this basis, that these men
+were among the omens of its advance, feeling its stir afar but not
+recognizing the coming earthquake. Yet it may be conceded that Diderot
+anticipated things great and strange; for his mind, although neither
+precise nor capable of sustained and systematic thought, was amazingly
+original in conception and powerful in grasp. The mist, blank to his
+brethren, seems to have wreathed itself into wonderful shapes to his
+eye; he was the seer whose wild enthusiasm caught the oracles from
+an inner shrine. A predictive power appears in his Letter on the
+Blind, where he imagines the blind taught to read by touch; and
+nineteenth-century hypotheses gleam dimly in his random guess at
+variability in organisms, and at survival of those best adapted to
+their environment.
+
+Diderot's monumental work, 'L'Encyclopédie,' dates from the middle of
+the century. It was his own vast enlargement of Ephraim Chambers's
+Cyclopædia of 1727, of which a bookseller had demanded a revision
+in French. D'Alembert was secured as his colleague, and in 1751 the
+first volume appeared. The list of contributors includes most of
+the great contemporary names in French literature. From these,
+Diderot and D'Alembert gathered the inner group known as the French
+Encyclopædists, to whose writings has been ascribed a general tendency
+to destroy religion and to reconstitute society. The authorities
+interfered repeatedly, with threats and prohibitions of the
+publication; but the science of government included the science of
+connivance for an adequate consideration, and the great work went
+forward. Its danger lurked in its principles; for Diderot dealt but
+little in the cheap flattery which the modern demagogue addresses to
+the populace. D'Alembert, wearied by ten years of persecution, retired
+in 1759, leaving the indefatigable Diderot to struggle alone through
+seven years, composing and revising hundreds of articles, correcting
+proofs, supervising the unrivaled illustrations of the mechanic arts,
+while quieting the opposition of the authorities.
+
+The Encyclopædia under Diderot followed no one philosophic path.
+Indeed, there are no signs that he ever gave any consideration to
+either the intellectual or the ethical force of consistency. His
+writing indicates his utter carelessness both as to the direction and
+as to the pace of his thought. He had an abiding conviction that
+Christianity was partly delusion and largely priestcraft, and was
+maintained chiefly for upholding iniquitous privilege. His antagonism
+was developed primarily from his emotions and sympathies rather than
+from his intellect; hence it sometimes swerved, drawing perilously
+near to formal orthodoxy. Moreover, this vivacious philosopher
+sometimes rambled into practical advice, and easily effervesced
+into fervid moralizings of the sentimental and almost tearful sort.
+His immense natural capacity for sentiment appears in his own account
+of his meeting with Grimm after a few months' absence. His
+sentimentalism, however, had its remarkable counterpoise in a most
+practical tendency of mind. In the Encyclopædia the interests of
+agriculture and of all branches of manufacture were treated with great
+fullness; and the reform of feudal abuses lingering in the laws of
+France was vigorously urged in a style more practical than cyclopædic.
+
+Diderot gave much attention to the drama, and his 'Paradoxe sur le
+Comédien' (Paradox on the Actor) is a valuable discussion. He is the
+father of the modern domestic drama. His influence upon the dramatic
+literature of Germany was direct and immediate; it appeared in the
+plays of Lessing and Schiller, and much of Lessing's criticism was
+inspired by Diderot. His 'Père de Famille' (Family-Father) and 'Le
+Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son) marked the beginning of a new era in
+the history of the stage, in the midst of which we are now living.
+Breaking with the old traditions, Diderot abandoned the lofty themes
+of classic tragedy and portrayed the life of the _bourgeoisie_.
+The influence of England, frequently manifest in the work of the
+Encyclopædists, is evident also here. Richardson was then the chief
+force in fiction, and the sentimental element so characteristic in
+him reappears in the dramas of Diderot.
+
+Goethe was strongly attracted by the genius of Diderot, and thought it
+worth his while not only to translate but to supply with a long and
+luminous commentary the latter's 'Essay on Painting.' It was by a
+singular trick of fortune, too, that one of Diderot's most powerful
+works should first have appeared in German garb, and not in the
+original French until after the author's death. A manuscript copy of
+the book chanced to fall into the hands of Goethe, who so greatly
+admired it that he at once translated, annotated, and published it.
+This was the famous dialogue 'Le Neveu de Rameau' (Rameau's Nephew),
+a work which only Diderot's peculiar genius could have produced.
+Depicting the typical parasite, shameless, quick-witted for every
+species of villainy, at home in every possible meanness, the dialogue
+is a probably unequaled compound of satire, high æsthetics, gleaming
+humor, sentimental moralizing, fine musical criticism, and scientific
+character analysis, with passages of brutal indecency.
+
+Among literary critics of painting, Diderot has his place in the
+highest rank. His nine 'Salons'--criticisms which in his good-nature
+he wrote for the use of his friend Grimm, on the annual exhibitions
+in the Paris Salon from 1759 onward--have never been surpassed among
+non-technical criticisms for brilliancy, freshness, and philosophic
+suggestiveness. They reveal the man's elemental strength; which was
+not in his knowledge, for he was without technical training in art
+and had seen scarcely any of the world's masterpieces, but in his
+sensuously sympathetic nature, which gave him quickness of insight
+and delicacy in interpretation.
+
+He had the faculty of making and keeping friends, being unaffected,
+genial, amiable, enthusiastically generous and helpful to his friends,
+and without vindictiveness to his foes. He needed these qualities to
+counteract his almost utter lack of conscientiousness, his gush of
+sentiment, his unregulated morals, his undisciplined genius, his
+unbalanced thought. His style of writing, often vivid and strong,
+is as often awkward and dull, and is frequently lacking in finish.
+As a philosophic author and thinker his voluminous work is of little
+enduring worth, for though plentiful in original power it totally
+lacks organic unity; his thought rambles carelessly, his method is
+confused. It has been said of him that he was a master who produced no
+masterpiece. But as a talker, a converser, all witnesses testify that
+he was wondrously inspiring and suggestive, speaking sometimes as from
+mysterious heights of vision or out of unsearchable deeps of thought.
+
+
+
+FROM 'RAMEAU'S NEPHEW'
+
+
+Be the weather fair or foul, it is my custom in any case at five
+o'clock in the afternoon to stroll in the Palais Royal. I am always to
+be seen alone and meditative, on the bench D'Argenson. I hold converse
+with myself on politics or love, on taste or philosophy, and yield up
+my soul entirely to its own frivolity. It may follow the first idea
+that presents itself, be the idea wise or foolish. In the Allée de Foi
+one sees our young rakes following upon the heels of some courtesan
+who passes on with shameless mien, laughing face, animated glance, and
+a pug nose; but they soon leave her to follow another, teasing them
+all, joining none of them. My thoughts are my courtesans.
+
+When it is really too cold or rainy, I take refuge in the Café de la
+Régence and amuse myself by watching the chess-players. Paris is the
+place of the world and the Café de la Régence the place of Paris where
+the best chess is played. There one witnesses the most carefully
+calculated moves; there one hears the most vulgar conversation; for
+since it is possible to be at once a man of intellect and a great
+chess-player, like Légal, so also one may be at once a great
+chess-player and a very silly person, like Foubert or Mayot.
+
+One afternoon I was there, observing much, speaking rarely, and
+hearing as little as possible, when one of the most singular
+personages came up to me that ever was produced by this land of ours,
+where surely God has never caused a dearth of singular characters.
+He is a combination of high-mindedness and baseness, of sound
+understanding and folly; in his head the conceptions of honor and
+dishonor must be strangely tangled, for the good qualities with which
+nature has endowed him he displays without boastfulness, and the bad
+qualities without shame. For the rest, he is firmly built, has an
+extraordinary power of imagination, and possesses an uncommonly strong
+pair of lungs. Should you ever meet him and succeed in escaping from
+the charm of his originality, it must be by stopping both ears with
+your fingers or by precipitate flight. Heavens, what terrible lungs!
+
+And nothing is less like him than he himself. Sometimes he is thin and
+wasted, like a man in the last stages of consumption; you could count
+his teeth through his cheeks; you would think he had not tasted food
+for several days, or had come from La Trappe.
+
+A month later he is fattened and filled out as if he had never left
+the banquets of the rich or had been fed among the Bernardines.
+To-day, with soiled linen, torn trousers, clad in rags, and almost
+barefoot, he passes with bowed head, avoids those whom he meets, till
+one is tempted to call him and bestow upon him an alms. To-morrow,
+powdered, well groomed, well dressed, and well shod, he carries his
+head high, lets himself be seen, and you would take him almost for a
+respectable man.
+
+So he lives from day to day, sad or merry, according to the
+circumstances. His first care, when he rises in the morning, is to
+take thought where he is to dine. After dinner he bethinks himself of
+some opportunity to procure supper, and with the night come new cares.
+Sometimes he goes on foot to his little attic, which is his home if
+the landlady, impatient at long arrears of rent, has not taken the key
+away from him. Sometimes he goes to one of the taverns in the suburbs,
+and there, between a bit of bread and a mug of beer, awaits the day.
+If he lacks the six sous necessary to procure him quarters for the
+night, which is occasionally the case, he applies to some cabman among
+his friends or to the coachman of some great lord, and a place on the
+straw beside the horses is vouchsafed him. In the morning he carries a
+part of his mattress in his hair. If the season is mild, he spends the
+whole night strolling back and forth on the Cours or in the Champs
+Élysées. With the day he appears again in the city, dressed yesterday
+for to-day and to-day often for the rest of the week.
+
+For such originals I cannot feel much esteem, but there are others who
+make close acquaintances and even friends of them. Once in the year
+perhaps they are able to put their spell upon me, when I meet them,
+because their character is in such strong contrast to that of
+every-day humanity, and they break the oppressive monotony which our
+education, our social conventions, our traditional proprieties have
+produced. When such a man enters a company, he acts like a cake of
+yeast that raises the whole, and restores to each a part of his
+natural individuality. He shakes them up, brings things into motion,
+elicits praise or censure, drives truth into the open, makes upright
+men recognizable, unmasks the rogues, and there the wise man sits and
+listens and is enabled to distinguish one class from another.
+
+This particular specimen I had long known; he frequented a house into
+which his talents had secured him the entrée. These people had an only
+daughter. He swore to the parents that he would marry their daughter.
+They only shrugged their shoulders, laughed in his face, and assured
+him that he was a fool. But I saw the day come when the thing was
+accomplished. He asked me for some money, which I gave him. He had,
+I know not how, squirmed his way into a few houses, where a _couvert_
+stood always ready for him, but it had been stipulated that he should
+never speak without the consent of his hosts. So there he sat and
+ate, filled the while with malice; it was fun to see him under this
+restraint. The moment he ventured to break the treaty and open his
+mouth, at the very first word the guests all shouted "O Rameau!" Then
+his eyes flashed wrathfully, and he fell upon his food again with
+renewed energy.
+
+You were curious to know the man's name; there it is. He is the nephew
+of the famous composer who has saved us from the church music of Lulli
+which we have been chanting for a hundred years, ... and who, having
+buried the Florentine, will himself be buried by Italian virtuosi; he
+dimly feels this, and so has become morose and irritable, for no one
+can be in a worse humor--not even a beautiful woman who in the morning
+finds a pimple on her nose--than an author who sees himself threatened
+with the fate of outliving his reputation, as Marivaux and Crébillon
+_fils_ prove.
+
+Rameau's nephew came up to me. "Ah, my philosopher, do I meet you once
+again? What are you doing here among the good-for-nothings? Are you
+wasting your time pushing bits of wood about?"
+
+_I_--No; but when I have nothing better to do, I take a passing
+pleasure in watching those who push them about with skill.
+
+_He_--A rare pleasure, surely. Excepting Légal and Philidor, there is
+no one here that understands it....
+
+_I_--You are hard to please. I see that only the best finds favor with
+you.
+
+_He_--Yes, in chess, checkers, poetry, oratory, music, and such other
+trumpery. Of what possible use is mediocrity in these things?
+
+_I_--I am almost ready to agree with you....
+
+_He_--You have always shown some interest in me, because I'm a poor
+devil whom you really despise, but who after all amuses you.
+
+_I_--That is true.
+
+_He_--Then let me tell you. (Before beginning, he drew a deep sigh,
+covered his forehead with both hands, then with calm countenance
+continued:--) You know I am ignorant, foolish, silly, shameless,
+rascally, gluttonous.
+
+_I_--What a panegyric!
+
+_He_--It is entirely true. Not a word to be abated; no contradiction,
+I pray you. No one knows me better than I know myself, and I don't
+tell all.
+
+_I_--Rather than anger you, I will assent.
+
+_He_--Now, just think, I lived with people who valued me precisely
+because all these qualities were mine in a high degree.
+
+_I_--That is most remarkable. I have hitherto believed that people
+concealed these qualities even from themselves, or excused them, but
+always despised them in others.
+
+_He_--Conceal them? Is that possible? You may be sure that when
+Palissot is alone and contemplates himself, he tells quite a different
+story. You may be sure that he and his companion make open confession
+to each other that they are a pair of arrant rogues. Despise these
+qualities in others? My people were much more reasonable, and I fared
+excellently well among them. I was cock of the walk. When absent, I
+was instantly missed. I was pampered. I was their little Rameau, their
+good Rameau, the shameless, ignorant, lazy Rameau, the fool, the
+clown, the gourmand. Each of these epithets was to me a smile, a
+caress, a slap on the back, a box on the ears, a kick, a dainty morsel
+thrown upon my plate at dinner, a liberty permitted me after dinner as
+if it were of no account; for I am of no account. People make of me
+and do before me and with me whatever they please, and I never give it
+a thought....
+
+_I_--You have been giving lessons, I understand, in accompaniment and
+composition?
+
+_He_--Yes.
+
+_I_--And you knew absolutely nothing about it?
+
+_He_--No, by Heaven; and for that very reason I was a much better
+teacher than those who imagine they know something about it. At all
+events, I didn't spoil the taste nor ruin the hands of my young
+pupils. If when they left me they went to a competent master, they had
+nothing to unlearn, for they had learned nothing, and that was just so
+much time and money saved.
+
+_I_--But how did you do it?
+
+_He_--The way they all do it. I came, threw myself into a chair:--"How
+bad the weather is! How tired the pavement makes one!" Then some
+scraps of town gossip:... "At the last Amateur Concert there was an
+Italian woman who sang like an angel.... Poor Dumênil doesn't know
+what to say or do," etc., etc. ... "Come, mademoiselle, where is your
+music-book?" And as mademoiselle displays no great haste, searches
+every nook and corner for the book, which she has mislaid, and finally
+calls the maid to help her, I continue:--"Little Clairon is an enigma.
+There is talk of a perfectly absurd marriage of--what is her
+name?"--"Nonsense, Rameau, it isn't possible."--"They say the affair
+is all settled." ... "There is a rumor that Voltaire is dead,"--"All
+the better."--"Why all the better?"--"Then he is sure to treat us to
+some droll skit. That's a way he has, a fortnight before his death."
+What more should I say? I told a few scandals about the families in
+the houses where I am received, for we are all great scandal-mongers.
+In short, I played the fool; they listened and laughed, and exclaimed,
+"He is really too droll, isn't he?" Meanwhile the music-book had been
+found under a chair, where a little dog or a little cat had worried
+it, chewed it, and torn it. Then the pretty child sat down at the
+piano and began to make a frightful noise upon it. I went up to her,
+secretly making a sign of approbation to her mother. "Well, now, that
+isn't so bad," said the mother; "one needs only to make up one's mind
+to a thing; but the trouble is, one will not make up one's mind; one
+would rather kill time by chattering, trifling, running about, and God
+knows what. Scarcely do you turn your back but the book is closed, and
+not until you are at her side again is it opened. Besides, I have
+never heard you reprimand her." In the mean time, since something had
+to be done, I took her hands and placed them differently. I pretended
+to lose my patience; I shouted,--"Sol, sol, sol, mademoiselle, it's a
+_sol_." The mother: "Mademoiselle, have you no ears? I'm not at the
+piano, I'm not looking at your notes, but my own feeling tells me that
+it ought to be a _sol_. You give the gentleman infinite trouble. You
+remember nothing, and make no progress." To break the force of this
+reproof a little, I tossed my head and said: "Pardon me, madame,
+pardon me. It would be better if mademoiselle would only practice a
+little, but after all it is not so bad."--"In your place I would keep
+her a whole year at one piece."--"Rest assured, I shall not let her
+off until she has mastered every difficulty; and that will not take so
+long, perhaps, as mademoiselle thinks."--"Monsieur Rameau, you flatter
+her; you are too good." And that is the only thing they would remember
+of the whole lesson, and would upon occasion repeat to me. So the
+lesson came to an end. My pupil handed me the fee, with a graceful
+gesture and a courtesy which her dancing-master had taught her. I put
+the money into my pocket, and the mother said, "That's very nice,
+mademoiselle. If Favillier were here, he would praise you." For
+appearance's sake I chattered for a minute or two more; then I
+vanished; and that is what they called in those days a lesson in
+accompaniment.
+
+_I_--And is the case different now?
+
+_He_--Heavens! I should think so. I come in, I am serious, throw my
+muff aside, open the piano, try the keys, show signs of great
+impatience, and if I am kept a moment waiting I shout as if my purse
+had been stolen. In an hour I must be there or there; in two hours
+with the Duchess So-and-so; at noon I must go to the fair Marquise;
+and then there is to be a concert at Baron de Bagge's, Rue Neuve des
+Petits Champs.
+
+_I_--And meanwhile no one expects you at all.
+
+_He_--Certainly not.... And precisely because I can further my fortune
+through vices which come natural to me, which I acquired without labor
+and practice without effort, which are in harmony with the customs of
+my countrymen, which are quite to the taste of my patrons, and better
+adapted to their special needs than inconvenient virtues would be,
+which from morning to night would be standing accusations against
+them, it would be strange indeed if I should torture myself like one
+of the damned to twist and turn and make of myself something which I
+am not, and hide myself beneath a character foreign to me, and assume
+the most estimable qualities, whose worth I will not dispute, but
+which I could acquire and live up to only by great exertions, and
+which after all would lead to nothing,--perhaps to worse than nothing.
+Moreover, ought a beggar like me, who lives upon the wealthy,
+constantly to hold up to his patrons a mirror of good conduct? People
+praise virtue but hate it; they fly from it, let it freeze; and in
+this world a man has to keep his feet warm. Besides, I should always
+be in the sourest humor: for why is it that the pious and the
+devotional are so hard, so repellent, so unsociable? It is because
+they have imposed upon themselves a task contrary to their nature.
+They suffer, and when a man suffers he makes others suffer. Now, that
+is no affair of mine or of my patrons'. I must be in good spirits,
+easy, affable, full of sallies, drollery, and folly. Virtue demands
+reverence, and reverence is inconvenient; virtue challenges
+admiration, and admiration is not entertaining. I have to do with
+people whose time hangs heavy on their hands; they want to laugh. Now
+consider the folly: the ludicrous makes people laugh, and I therefore
+must be a fool; I must be amusing, and if nature had not made me so,
+then by hook or by crook I should have made myself seem so.
+Fortunately I have no need to play the hypocrite. There are hypocrites
+enough of all colors without me, and not counting those who deceive
+themselves.... Should it ever occur to friend Rameau to play Cato, to
+despise fortune, women, good living, idleness, what would he be? A
+hypocrite. Let Rameau remain what he is, a happy robber among wealthy
+robbers, and a man without either real or boasted virtue. In short,
+your idea of happiness, the happiness of a few enthusiastic dreamers
+like you, has no charm for me....
+
+_I_--He earns his bread dearly, who in order to live must assail
+virtue and knowledge.
+
+_He_--I have already told you that we are of no consequence. We
+slander all men and grieve none.
+
+    [The dialogue reverts to music.]
+
+_I_--Every imitation has its original in nature. What is the
+musician's model when he breaks into song?
+
+_He_--Why do you not grasp the subject higher up? What is song?
+
+_I_--That, I confess, is a question beyond my powers. That's the way
+with us all. The memory is stored with words only, which we think we
+understand because we often use them and even apply them correctly,
+but in the mind we have only indefinite conceptions. When I use the
+word "song," I have no more definite idea of it than you and the
+majority of your kind have when you say reputation, disgrace, honor,
+vice, virtue, shame, propriety, mortification, ridicule.
+
+_He_--Song is an imitation in tones, produced either by the voice or
+by instruments, of a scale invented by art, or if you will,
+established by nature; an imitation of physical sounds or passionate
+utterances; and you see, with proper alterations this definition could
+be made to fit painting, oratory, sculpture, and poetry. Now to come
+to your question, What is the model of the musician or of song? It is
+the declamation, when the model is alive or sensate; it is the tone,
+when the model is insensate. The declamation must be regarded as a
+line, and the music as another line which twines about it. The
+stronger and the more genuine is this declamation, this model of song,
+the more numerous the points at which the accompanying music
+intersects it, the more beautiful will it be. And this our younger
+composers have clearly perceived. When one hears "Je suis un pauvre
+diable," one feels that it is a miser's complaint. If he didn't sing,
+he would address the earth in the very same tones when he intrusts to
+its keeping his gold: "O terre, reçois mon trésor." ... In such works
+with the greatest variety of characters, there is a convincing truth
+of declamation that is unsurpassed. I tell you, go, go, and hear the
+aria where the young man who feels that he is dying, cries out, "Mon
+coeur s'en va." Listen to the air, listen to the accompaniment, and
+then tell me what difference there is between the true tones of a
+dying man and the handling of this music. You will see that the line
+of the melody exactly coincides with the line of declamation. I say
+nothing of the time, which is one of the conditions of song; I confine
+myself to the expression, and there is nothing truer than the
+statement which I have somewhere read, "Musices seminarium
+accentus,"--the accent is the seed-plot of the melody. And for that
+reason, consider how difficult and important a matter it is to be able
+to write a good recitative. There is no beautiful aria out of which a
+beautiful recitative could not be made; no beautiful recitative out of
+which a clever man could not produce a beautiful aria. I will not
+assert that one who recites well will also be able to sing well, but I
+should be much surprised if a good singer could not recite well. And
+you may believe all that I tell you now, for it is true.
+
+(And then he walked up and down and began to hum a few arias from the
+"Île des Fons," etc., exclaiming from time to time, with upturned eyes
+and hands upraised:--) "Isn't that beautiful, great heavens! isn't
+that beautiful? Is it possible to have a pair of ears on one's head
+and question its beauty?" Then as his enthusiasm rose he sang quite
+softly, then more loudly as he became more impassioned, then with
+gestures, grimaces, contortions of body. "Well," said I, "he is losing
+his mind, and I may expect a new scene." And in fact, all at once he
+burst out singing.... He passed from one aria to another, fully thirty
+of them,--Italian, French, tragic, comic, of every sort. Now with a
+deep bass he descended into hell; then, contracting his throat, he
+split the upper air with a falsetto, and in gait, mien, and action he
+imitated the different singers, by turns raving, commanding,
+mollified, scoffing. There was a little girl that wept, and he hit off
+all her pretty little ways. Then he was a priest, a king, a tyrant; he
+threatened, commanded, stormed; then he was a slave and submissive. He
+despaired, he grew tender, he lamented, he laughed, always in the
+tone, the time, the sense of the words, of the character, of the
+situation.
+
+All the chess-players had left their boards and were gathered around
+him; the windows of the café were crowded with passers-by, attracted
+by the noise. There was laughter enough to bring down the ceiling. He
+noticed nothing, but went on in such a rapt state of mind, in an
+enthusiasm so close to madness, that I was uncertain whether he would
+recover, or if he would be thrown into a cab and taken straight to the
+mad-house; the while he sang the Lamentations of Jomelli.
+
+With precision, fidelity, and incredible warmth, he rendered one of
+the finest passages, the superb obligato recitative in which the
+prophet paints the destruction of Jerusalem; he wept himself, and the
+eyes of the listeners were moist. More could not be desired in
+delicacy of vocalization, nor in the expression of overwhelming grief.
+He dwelt especially on those parts in which the great composer has
+shown his greatness most clearly. When he was not singing, he took the
+part of the instruments; these he quickly dropped again, to return to
+the vocal part, weaving one into the other so perfectly that the
+connection, the unity of the whole, was preserved. He took possession
+of our souls and held them in the strangest suspense I have ever
+experienced. Did I admire him? Yes, I admired him. Was I moved and
+melted? I was moved and melted, and yet something of the ludicrous
+mingled itself with these feelings and modified their nature.
+
+But you would have burst out laughing at the way he imitated the
+different instruments. With a rough muffled tone and puffed-out
+cheeks he represented horns and bassoon; for the oboe he assumed a
+rasping nasal tone; with incredible rapidity he made his voice run
+over the string instruments, whose tones he endeavored to reproduce
+with the greatest accuracy; the flute passages he whistled; he rumbled
+out the sounds of the German flute; he shouted and sang with the
+gestures of a madman, and so alone and unaided he impersonated the
+entire ballet corps, the singers, the whole orchestra,--in short, a
+complete performance,--dividing himself into twenty different
+characters, running, stopping, with the mien of one entranced, with
+glittering eyes and foaming mouth.... He was quite beside himself.
+Exhausted by his exertions, like a man awakening from a deep sleep or
+emerging from a long period of abstraction, he remained motionless,
+stupefied, astonished. He looked about him in bewilderment, like one
+trying to recognize the place in which he finds himself. He awaited
+the return of his strength, of his consciousness; he dried his face
+mechanically. Like one who upon awaking finds his bed surrounded by
+groups of people, in complete oblivion and profound unconsciousness of
+what he had been doing, he cried, "Well, gentlemen, what's the matter?
+What are you laughing at? What are you wondering about? What's the
+matter?"
+
+_I_--My dear Rameau, let us talk again of music. Tell me how it comes
+that with the facility you display for appreciating the finest
+passages of the great masters, for retaining them in your memory, and
+for rendering them to the delight of others with all the enthusiasm
+with which the music inspires you,--how comes it that you have
+produced nothing of value yourself?
+
+(Instead of answering me, he tossed his head, and raising his finger
+towards heaven, cried:--)
+
+The stars, the stars! When nature made Leo, Vinci, Pergolese, Duni,
+she wore a smile; her face was solemn and commanding when she created
+my dear uncle Rameau, who for ten years has been called the great
+Rameau, and who will soon be named no more. But when she scraped his
+nephew together, she made a face and a face and a face.--(And as he
+spoke he made grimaces, one of contempt, one of irony, one of scorn.
+He went through the motions of kneading dough, and smiled at the
+ludicrous forms he gave it. Then he threw the strange pagoda from
+him.) So she made me and threw me down among other pagodas, some with
+portly well-filled paunches, short necks, protruding goggle eyes, and
+an apoplectic appearance; others with lank and crooked necks and
+emaciated forms, with animated eyes and hawks' noses. These all felt
+like laughing themselves to death when they saw me, and when I saw
+them I set my arms akimbo and felt like laughing myself to death, for
+fools and clowns take pleasure in one another; seek one another out,
+attract one another. Had I not found upon my arrival in this world the
+proverb ready-made, that the money of fools is the inheritance of the
+clever, the world would have owed it to me. I felt that nature had put
+my inheritance into the purse of the pagodas, and I tried in a
+thousand ways to recover it.
+
+_I_--I know these ways. You have told me of them. I have admired them.
+But with so many capabilities, why do you not try to accomplish
+something great?
+
+_He_--That is exactly what a man of the world said to the Abbé Le
+Blanc. The abbé replied:--"The Marquise de Pompadour takes me in hand
+and brings me to the door of the Academy; then she withdraws her hand;
+I fall and break both legs."--"You ought to pull yourself together,"
+rejoined the man of the world, "and break the door in with your
+head."--"I have just tried that," answered the abbé, "and do you know
+what I got for it? A bump on the head." ... (Then he drank a swallow
+from what remained in the bottle and turned to his neighbor.) Sir, I
+beg you for a pinch of snuff. That's a fine snuff-box you have there.
+You are a musician? No! All the better for you. They are a lot of poor
+deplorable wretches. Fate made me one of them, me! Meanwhile at
+Montmartre there is a mill, and in the mill there is perhaps a miller
+or a miller's lad, who will never hear anything but the roaring of the
+mill, and who might have composed the most beautiful of songs. Rameau,
+get you to the mill, to the mill; it's there you belong . . . But it
+is half-past five. I hear the vesper bell which summons me too.
+Farewell. It's true, is it not, philosopher, I am always the same
+Rameau?
+
+_I_--Yes, indeed. Unfortunately.
+
+_He_--Let me enjoy my misfortune forty years longer. He laughs best
+who laughs last.
+
+        Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ VON DINGELSTEDT
+
+(1814-1881)
+
+[Illustration: DINGELSTEDT]
+
+
+Franz von Dingelstedt was born at Halsdorf, Hessen, Germany, June
+30th, 1814. He attained eminence as a poet and dramatist, but his best
+powers were devoted to his principal calling as theatre director.
+
+His boyhood's education was received at Rinteln. At the University
+of Marburg he applied himself to theology and philology, but more
+especially to modern languages and literature. After leaving the
+university he became instructor at Ricklingen, near Hanover. He was
+characterized, even as a young man, by his political freedom and
+independence of thought; and at Cassel, where in 1836 he was teacher
+in the Lyceum, he was on this account looked upon so much askance that
+it was found expedient to transfer him to the gymnasium at Fulda
+(1838). He resigned this position, however, in order to devote himself
+to writing. A collection of his poems appeared in 1838-45, and of
+these, 'Lieder eines Kosmopolitischen Nachtwächters' (Songs of a
+Cosmopolitan Night-Watchman: 1841) may be said to have produced a
+genuine agitation. These were not only important as literature, but
+as political promulgations, boldly embodying the radical sentiments
+of freethinking Germany.
+
+In 1841 he went to Augsburg, connected himself with the Allgemeine
+Zeitung, and traveled as newspaper correspondent in France, Holland,
+Belgium, and England. 'Das Wanderbuch' (The Wander-Book), and 'Jusqu'
+à la Mer--Erinnerungen aus Holland' (As Far as the Sea--Remembrances
+of Holland: 1847), were the fruits of these journeys. He had in
+contemplation a voyage to the Orient, and preparatory to this he
+settled for a short time in Vienna; but the journey was not
+undertaken, for just at this time he was appointed librarian of the
+Royal Library of Stuttgart, and reader to the king, with the title of
+Court Councilor. Here in 1844 he married the celebrated singer Jenny
+Lutzer. He returned to Vienna, where in 1850 his drama 'Das Haus der
+Barneveldt' (The House of the Barneveldts) was produced with such
+brilliant success that he was thereupon appointed stage manager of the
+National Theatre at Munich. To this for six years he devoted his best
+efforts, presenting in the most admirable manner the finest of the
+German classics. The merit of his work was recognized by the king, who
+ennobled him in 1857. He was pre-eminently a theatrical manager, and
+served successively at Weimar (1857) and at Vienna, where he was
+appointed director of the Court Opera House in 1867, and of the Burg
+Theatre in 1870. He brought the classic plays of other lands upon the
+stage, and his revivals of Shakespeare's historical plays and the
+'Winter's Tale,' and of Molière's 'L'Avare' (The Miser), were
+brilliant events in the theatrical annals of Vienna. He was made
+Imperial Councilor by the Emperor, and raised in 1876 to the rank of
+baron. In 1875 he took the position of general director of both court
+theatres of Vienna. He died at Vienna, May 15th, 1881.
+
+The novels 'Licht und Schatten der Liebe' (The Light and Shadow of
+Love: 1838); 'Heptameron,' 1841; and 'Novellenbuch,' 1855, were not
+wholly successful; but in contrast to these, 'Unter der Erde' (Under
+the Earth: 1840); 'Sieben Friedliche Erzählungen' (Seven Peaceful
+Tales: 1844), and 'Die Amazone' (The Amazon: 1868), are admirable.
+
+Regarded purely as literature, Dingelstedt's best productions are his
+early poems, although his commentaries upon Shakespeare and Goethe are
+wholly praiseworthy. He was successful chiefly as a political poet,
+but his muse sings also the joys of domestic life. 'Hauslieder'
+(Household Songs: 1844), and his poems upon Chamisso and Uhland,
+are among the most beautiful personal poems in German literature.
+
+
+
+A MAN OF BUSINESS
+
+From 'The Amazon': copyrighted by G.P. Putnam's Sons
+
+
+Herr Krafft was about to reply, but was prevented by the hasty
+appearance of Herr Heyboldt, the first procurist, who entered the
+apartment; not an antiquated comedy figure in shoe-buckles, coarse
+woolen socks, velvet pantaloons, and a long-tailed coat, his vest full
+of tobacco, and a goose-quill back of his comically flexible ear; no,
+but a fine-looking man, dressed in the latest style and in black, with
+a medal in his button-hole, and having an earnest, expressive
+countenance. He was house-holder, member of the City Council, and
+militia captain; the gold medal and colored ribbon on his left breast
+told of his having saved, at the risk of his own life, a Leander who
+had been carried away by the current in the swimming-baths.
+
+His announcement, urgent as it was, was made without haste, deliberate
+and cool, somewhat as the mate informs the captain that an ugly wind
+has sprung up. "Herr Principal," he said, "the crowd has broken in the
+barriers and one wing of the gateway; they are attacking the
+counting-house." "Who breaks, pays," said Krafft, with a joke; "we
+will charge the sport to their account."--"The police are not strong
+enough; they have sent to the Royal Watch for military."--"That is
+right, Heyboldt. No accident, no arms or legs broken?"--"Not that I
+know of."--"Pity for Meyer Hirsch; he would have thundered
+magnificently in the official Morning News against the excesses of the
+rage for speculation. Nor any one wounded by the police?"--"Not any,
+so far."--"Pity for Hirsch Meyer. The oppositional Evening Journal has
+missed a capital opportunity of weeping over the barbarity of the
+soldateska. At all events, the two papers must continue to write--one
+for, the other against us. Keep Hirsch Meyer and Meyer Hirsch
+going."--"All right, Herr Principal."--"Send each of them a polite
+line, to the effect that we have taken the liberty of keeping a few
+shares for him, to sell them at the most favorable moment, and pay him
+over the difference."--"It shall be attended to, Herr Principal."--"So
+our Southwestern Railway goes well, Heyboldt?"--"By steam, Herr
+Principal." The sober man smiled at his daring joke, and Herr Krafft
+smiled affably with him. "The amount that we have left to furnish will
+be exhausted before one has time to turn around. The people throw
+money, bank-notes, government bonds, at our cashiers, who cannot fill
+up the receipts fast enough. On the Bourse they fought for the
+blanks."--"For the next four weeks we will run the stock up, Heyboldt;
+after that it can fall, but slowly, with decorum."--"I understand,
+Herr Principal."
+
+A cashier came rushing in without knocking. "Herr Principal," he
+stammered in his panic, "we have not another blank, and the people are
+pouring in upon us more and more violently. Wild shouts call for you."
+"To your place, sir," thundered Krafft at him. "I shall come when I
+think it time. In no case," he added more quietly, "before the
+military arrive. We need an interference, for the sake of the market."
+The messenger disappeared; but pale, bewildered countenances were to
+be seen in the doorways of the comptoir; the house called for its
+master: the trembling daughter sent again and again for her father.
+
+"Let us bring the play to a close," said Herr Krafft, after brief
+deliberation; he stepped into the middle office, flung open a window,
+and raising his harsh voice to its loudest tones, cried to the throng
+below, "You are looking for me, folks. Here I am. What do you want of
+me?" "Shares, subscriptions," was the noisy answer.--"You claim
+without any right or any manners. This is my house, a peaceable
+citizen's house. You are breaking in as though it were a dungeon, an
+arsenal, a tax-office,--as though we were in the midst of a
+revolution. Are you not ashamed of yourselves?" A confused murmur rang
+through the astonished ranks. "If you wish to do business with me,"
+continued the merchant, "you must first learn manners and discipline.
+Have I invited your visit? Do I need your money, or do you need my
+shares? Send up some deputies to convey your requests. I shall have
+nothing to do with a turbulent mob." So saying, he closed the window
+with such violence that the panes cracked, and the fragments fell down
+on the heads of the assailants.
+
+"The Principal knows how to talk to the people," said Heyboldt with
+pride to Roland, the mute witness of this strange scene. "He speaks
+their own language. He replies to a broken door with a broken window."
+
+Meantime a company of soldiers had arrived on double-quick, with a
+flourish of drums. The officer's word of command rang through the
+crowd, now grown suddenly quiet: "Fix bayonets! form line! march!"
+Yard and passages were cleared, the doors guarded; in the street the
+low muttering tide, forced back, made a sort of dam. Three deputies,
+abashed and confused, appeared at Krafft's door and craved audience.
+The merchant received them like a prince surrounded by his court, in
+the midst of his clerks, in the large counting-room. The spokesman
+commenced: "We ask your pardon, Herr Krafft, for what has
+happened."--"For shame, that you should drag in soldiers as witnesses
+and peacemakers in a quiet little business affair among order-loving
+citizens."--"It was reported that we had been fooled with these
+subscriptions, and that the entire sum had been already disposed of on
+the Bourse."--"And even if that were so, am I to be blamed for it? The
+Southwestern Railway must raise thirty millions. Double, treble that
+amount is offered it. Can I prevent the necessity of reducing the
+subscriptions?"--"No; but they say that we poor folks shall not get a
+cent's worth; the big men of the Bourse have gobbled up the best bits
+right before our noses."--"They say so? Who says so? Court Cooper
+Täubert, I ask you who says so?"--"Gracious Herr Court Banker--"
+"Don't Court or Gracious me. My name is Krafft, Herr Hans Heinrich
+Krafft. I think we know each other, Master Täubert. It is not the
+first time that we have done business together. You have a very snug
+little share in my workingmen's bank. Grain-broker Wüst, you have
+bought one of the houses in my street. Do I ever dun you for the
+installments of purchase money?" "No indeed, Herr Krafft; you are a
+good man, a public-spirited man, no money-maker, no leech, no Jew!"
+cried the triumvirate of deputies in chorus.--"I am nothing more than
+you are: a man of business, who works for his living, the son of a
+peasant, a plain simple citizen. I began in a smaller way than any of
+you; but I shall never forget that I am flesh of your flesh, blood of
+your blood. Facts have proved it. I will give you a fresh proof
+to-day. Go home and tell the people who have sent you, Hans Heinrich
+Krafft will give up the share which his house has subscribed to the
+Southwestern Railway, in favor of the less wealthy citizens of this
+city. This sum of five hundred thousand thalers shall be divided up
+_pro rata_ among the subscriptions under five hundred dollars."
+
+"Heaven bless you, Herr Krafft!" stammered out the court cooper, and
+the grain-broker essayed to shed a tear of gratitude; the confidential
+clerk Herr Lange, the third of the group, caught at the hand of the
+patron to kiss it, with emotion. Krafft drew it back angrily. "No
+self-abasement, Herr Lange," he said. "We are men of the people; let
+us behave as such. God bless you, gentlemen. You know my purpose. Make
+it known to the good people waiting outside, and see that I am rid of
+my billeting. Let the subscriptions be conducted quietly and in good
+order. Adieu, children!" The deputation withdrew. A few minutes
+afterwards there was heard a thundering hurrah:--"Hurrah for Herr
+Krafft! Three cheers for Father Krafft!" He showed himself at the
+window, nodded quickly and soberly, and motioned to them to disperse.
+
+While the tumult was subsiding, Krafft and Roland retired into the
+private counting-room. "You have," the latter said, "spoken nobly,
+acted nobly."--"I have made a bargain, nothing more, nothing less;
+moreover, not a bad one."--"How so?"--"In three months I shall buy at
+70, perhaps still lower, what I am now to give up to them at
+90."--"You know that beforehand?"--"With mathematical certainty. The
+public expects an El Dorado in the Southwestern Railway, as it does in
+every new enterprise. The undertaking is a good one, it is true, or I
+should not have ventured upon it. But one must be able to wait until
+the fruit is ripe. The small holders cannot do that; they sow today,
+and tomorrow they wish to reap. At the first payment their heart and
+their purse are all right. At the second or third, both are gone. Upon
+the least rise they will throw the paper, for which they were ready to
+break each other's necks, upon the market, and so depreciate their
+property. But if some fortuitous circumstance should cause a pressure
+upon the money market, then they drop all that they have, in a perfect
+panic, for any price. I shall watch this moment, and buy. In a year or
+so, when the road is finished and its communications complete, the
+shares that were subscribed for at 90, and which I shall have bought
+at 60 to 70, will touch 100, or higher."
+
+"That is to say," said Roland, thoughtfully, "you will gain at the
+expense of those people whose confidence you have aroused, then
+satisfied with objects of artificial value, and finally drained for
+yourself." "Business is business," replied the familiar harsh voice.
+"Unless I become a counterfeiter or a forger I can do nothing more
+than to convert other persons' money into my own; of course, in an
+honest way."--"And you do this, without fearing lest one day some one
+mightier and luckier than you should do the same to you?"--"I must be
+prepared for that; I am prepared."--"Also for the storm,--not one of
+your own creating, but one sent by the wrath of God, that shall
+scatter all this paper splendor of our times, and reduce this
+appalling social inequality of ours to a universal zero?" "Let us
+quietly abide this Last Day," laughed the banker, taking the artist
+by the arm.
+
+
+
+THE WATCHMAN
+
+  The last faint twinkle now goes out
+    Up in the poet's attic;
+  And the roisterers, in merry rout,
+    Speed home with steps erratic.
+
+  Soft from the house-roofs showers the snow,
+    The vane creaks on the steeple,
+  The lanterns wag and glimmer low
+    In the storm by the hurrying people.
+
+  The houses all stand black and still,
+    The churches and taverns deserted,
+  And a body may now wend at his will,
+    With his own fancies diverted.
+
+  Not a squinting eye now looks this way,
+    Not a slanderous mouth is dissembling,
+  And a heart that has slept the livelong day
+    May now love and hope with trembling.
+
+  Dear Night! thou foe to each base end,
+    While the good still a blessing prove thee,
+  They say that thou art no man's friend,--
+    Sweet Night! how I therefore love thee!
+
+
+
+
+DIOGENES LAERTIUS
+
+(200-250 A. D.?)
+
+
+It is curious how often we are dependent, for our knowledge of some
+larger subject, upon a single ancient author, who would be hardly
+worthy of notice but for the accidental loss of the books composed by
+fitter and abler men. Thus, our only general description of Greece at
+the close of the classical period is written by a man who describes
+many objects that he certainly did not see, who leaves unmentioned
+numberless things we wish explained, and who has a genius for so
+misplacing an adverb as to bring confusion into the most commonplace
+statement. But not even to Pausanias do we proffer such grudging
+gratitude and such ungrateful objurgations as to Diogenes Laertius,
+our chief--often our sole--authority for the 'Lives and Sayings of the
+Philosophers.' His book is a fascinating one, and even amusing, if we
+can forget what we so much wanted in its stead. At second or third
+hand, from the compendiums of the schools rather than from the
+original works of the great masters themselves, Diogenes does give us
+a fairly intelligible sketch, as a rule, of the outward life lived by
+each sage. This slight frame is crammed with anecdotes, evidently
+culled with most eager and uncritical hand from miscellaneous
+collections. Many of these stories are so fragmentary as to be
+pointless. Others are unquestionably attached to the wrong person.
+This method is at its maddest in the author's sketch of his namesake,
+the Recluse of the Tub. (One of Ali Baba's _jars_, by the way, would
+give a better notion of the real hermitage.) Since this "philosopher"
+had himself little character and no doctrines, the loose string of
+anecdotes, puns, and saucy answers suits all our needs. Throughout the
+work are scattered, apocryphal letters, and feeble poetic epigrams
+composed by the compiler himself. The leaning of our most
+unphilosophic author was apparently toward Epicurus. The loss of that
+teacher's own works causes us to prize doubly the extensive fragments
+of them preserved in this relatively copious and serious study. The
+lover of the great Epicurean poem of Lucretius on the 'Nature of
+Things' will often be surprised to find here the source of many among
+the Roman poet's most striking doctrines and images. The sketch of
+Zeno is also an important authority on Stoicism. Instruction in these
+particular chapters, then, and rich diversion elsewhere, await the
+reader of this most gossipy, formless, and uncritical volume. The
+English reader, by the way, ought to be provided with something
+better than the "Bohn" version. This adds a goodly harvest of
+ludicrous misprints and other errors of every kind to Diogenes's own
+mixture of borrowed wisdom and native silliness. The classical student
+will prefer the _Didot_ edition by Cobet, with the Latin version in
+parallel columns.
+
+It has been thought desirable to offer here a version, slightly
+abridged, of Diogenes's chapter on Socrates. The original sources, in
+Plato's and Xenophon's extant works, will almost always explain, or
+correct, the statements of Diogenes. Such wild shots as the assertion
+that the plague repeatedly visited Athens, striking down _every
+inhabitant_ save the temperate Socrates, hardly need a serious
+rejoinder. Diogenes cannot even speak with approximate accuracy of
+Socrates's famous Dæmon or Inward Monitor. We know, on the best
+authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing, but only
+vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But to apply the
+tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criticizing Uncle
+Remus for his sins against English syntax.
+
+Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to the
+third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers of
+the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.
+
+
+
+LIFE OF SOCRATES
+
+From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers'
+
+
+Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phænarete a
+midwife [as Plato also states in the 'Theaetetus'], and an Athenian,
+of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid Euripides in composing his
+dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks thus:--
+
+  "This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians':
+  And Socrates has furnished him the sticks."
+
+And again:--
+
+  "Euripides, Socratically patched."
+
+Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:--
+
+  _A_--"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs?
+  _B_--Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates."
+
+Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:--
+
+  "And this is he who for Euripides
+  Composed the talkative wise tragedies."
+
+He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but also
+of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions.' After the former's
+condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the natural
+philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried stones. Some
+say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his; they are clothed
+figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli' declares:--
+
+  "From them proceeded the stone-polisher,
+  Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks,
+  Who taught the art of subtle argument,
+  The nose-in-air, mocker of orators,
+  Half Attic, the adept in irony."
+
+For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants, as
+Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing.
+Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse Argument
+seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his pupil Æschines,
+to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who conversed about life,
+and the first of the philosophers who came to his end by being
+condemned to death. We are also told that he lent out money. At least,
+investing it, he would collect what was due, and then after spending
+it invest again. But Demetrius the Byzantine says it was Crito who,
+struck by the charm of his character, took him out of the workshop and
+educated him.
+
+Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men, it is
+said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the agora, and used
+to say he was seeking
+
+  "Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil."
+
+And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he conversed
+too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out, and was
+usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked, and bore it
+patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said, "If an ass had
+kicked me, would I bring an action against him?"
+
+Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except when he had
+to serve in the army. At other times, remaining in Athens, he disputed
+in argumentative fashion with those who conversed with him, not so as
+to deprive them of their belief, but to strive for the ascertainment
+of truth. They say Euripides gave him the work of Heraclitus, and
+asked him, "What do you think of it?" And he said, "What I understood
+is fine; I suppose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a
+Delian diver!" He attended also to physical training, and was in
+excellent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to
+Amphipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the battle
+of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed, when all the other
+Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly, turning about calmly, and
+on the lookout to defend himself if attacked. He also joined the
+expedition to Potidæa--by sea, for the war prevented a march by land;
+and it was there he was said once to have remained standing in one
+position all night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in
+valor, but gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to
+have been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young he
+visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he went to
+Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his 'Commentaries' says
+he went to the Isthmus.
+
+He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the democracy,
+as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and his associates
+when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a wealthy man, to them to be
+put to death. He was also the only one who opposed the condemnation of
+the ten generals. When he could have escaped from prison, too, he
+would not. The friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in
+prison he composed those beautiful discourses.
+
+He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells us in the
+seventh book of her 'Commentaries,' Alcibiades offered him a great
+estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If I needed sandals,
+and you offered me a hide from which to make them for myself, I should
+be laughed at if I took it." Often, too, beholding the multitude of
+things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I do not
+need!" He used constantly to repeat aloud these iambic verses:--
+
+  "But silver plate and garb of purple dye
+  To actors are of use,--but not in life."
+
+He disdained the tyrants,--Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Crannon,
+Eurylochus of Melissa,--not accepting gifts from them nor visiting
+them. He was so regular in his way of living that he was frequently
+the only one not ill when Athens was attacked by the plague.
+
+Aristotle says he wedded two wives, the first Xanthippe, who bore him
+Lamprocles, and the second Myrto, daughter of Aristides the Just,
+whom he received without dowry and by whom he had Sophroniscus and
+Menexenus. Some however say he married Myrto first; and some again
+that he had them both at once, as the Athenians on account of scarcity
+of men passed a law to increase the population, permitting any one to
+marry one Athenian woman and have children by another; so Socrates did
+this.
+
+He was a man also able to disdain those who mocked him. He prided
+himself on his simple manner of living, and never exacted any pay.
+He used to say he who ate with best appetite had least need of
+delicacies, and he who drank with best appetite had least need to seek
+a draught not at hand; and that he who had fewest needs was nearest
+the gods. This indeed we may learn from the comic poets, who in their
+very ridicule covertly praise him. Thus Aristophanes says:--
+
+  "O thou who hast righteously set thy heart on attaining to noble
+            wisdom,
+  How happy the life thou wilt lead among the Athenians and the
+            Hellenes!
+  Shrewdness and memory both are thine, and energy unwearied
+  Of mind; and never art thou tired from standing or from walking.
+  By cold thou art not vexed at all, nor dost thou long for breakfast.
+  Wine thou dost shun, and gluttony, and every other folly."
+
+Ameipsias also, bringing him upon the stage in the philosopher's
+cloak, says:--
+
+  "O Socrates, best among few men, most foolish of many, thou also
+  Art come unto us; thou'rt a patient soul; but where didst get that
+            doublet?
+  That wretched thing in mockery was presented by the cobblers!
+  Yet though so hungry, he never however has stooped to flatter a
+            mortal."
+
+This disdain and arrogance in Socrates has also been exposed by
+Aristophanes, who says:--
+
+  "Along the streets you haughtily strut; your eyes roll hither and
+            thither:
+  Barefooted, enduring discomforts, you go with countenance solemn
+            among us."
+
+And yet sometimes, suiting himself to the occasion, he dressed finely;
+as when for instance in Plato's 'Symposium' he goes to Agathon's.
+
+He was a man able both to urge others to action, and to dissuade them.
+Thus, when he conversed with Theætetus on Knowledge, he sent him away
+inspired, as Plato says. Again, when Euthyphron had indicted his own
+father for manslaughter, by conversing with him on piety Socrates
+turned him from his purpose. Lysis also by his exhortations he
+rendered a most moral man. He was moreover skillful in fitting his
+arguments to the circumstances. He changed the feeling of his son
+Lamprocles when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon somewhere
+relates. Plato's brother Glaucon, who wished to be active in politics,
+he dissuaded because of his inexperience, as Xenophon states; but
+Charmides on the other hand, who was well fitted, he urged on. He
+roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general also, pointing out to him
+the cocks of Midias the barber fighting those of Callias. He said it
+was strange that every man could tell easily how many sheep he had,
+but could not call by name the friends whom he had acquired, so
+negligent were men in that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great
+pains to captious arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to
+manage sophists--but men, never!" For he thought hair-splitting on
+such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus.'
+
+When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might make a profit
+on them, he did not take them.
+
+He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon also says
+in his 'Symposium.' He used to say, too, that there was but one
+good--knowledge; and one evil--ignorance. Wealth and birth, he said,
+had no value, but were on the contrary wholly an evil. So when some
+one told him Antisthenes's mother was a Thracian, "Did you think,"
+quoth he, "so fine a man must be the child of two Athenians?" When
+Phaedo had been captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade
+Crito ransom him, and made him a philosopher.
+
+He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre, saying
+there was no absurdity in learning what one did not know. He used to
+dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise helpful to health. This
+Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium.'
+
+He used to say that his Dæmon foretold future events: and that he knew
+nothing, except that very fact that he did know nothing. Those who
+bought at a great price what was out of season, he said, had no hope
+of living till the season came around. Once being asked what was
+virtue in a young man, he said, "To avoid excess in all things." He
+used to say one should study geometry (surveying) just enough to be
+able to measure land in buying and selling it.
+
+When Euripides in the 'Auge' said of virtue:--
+
+  "These things were better left to lie untouched,"
+
+he rose up and left the theatre, saying it was absurd to think it
+proper to seek for a slave if he was not to be found, but to let
+virtue perish unregarded. When his advice was asked whether to marry
+or not, he said, "Whichever you do, you will regret it!" He used to
+say that he marveled that those who made stone statues took pains to
+make the stone as like the man as possible, but took none with
+themselves, that they might not be like the stone. He thought it
+proper for the young to look constantly in the mirror, so that if they
+had beauty they might prove themselves worthy of it, and if they were
+ugly, that they might conceal their ugliness by their accomplishments.
+
+When he had invited rich friends to dinner, and Xanthippe was ashamed,
+he said, "Do not be troubled. If they are sensible, they will bear
+with us. If not, we shall care nothing for them." Most men, he said,
+lived to eat; but he ate to live. As to those who showed regard for
+the opinions of the ignoble multitude, he said it was as if a man
+should reject one tetradrachm [coin] as worthless, but accept a heap
+of such coins as good. When Æschines said, "I am poor and have nothing
+else, but I give you myself," he said, "Do you then not realize you
+are offering me the greatest of gifts?" To him who said, "The
+Athenians have condemned you to death," he responded, "And nature has
+condemned them also thereto:" though some ascribe this to Anaxagoras.
+When his wife exclaimed, "You die innocent!" he answered, "Do you wish
+I were guilty?"
+
+When a vision in sleep seemed to say:--
+
+  "Three days hence thou'lt come to the fertile region of Phthia,"
+
+he said to Æschines, "On the third day I shall die." When he was to
+drink the hemlock, Apollodorus gave him a fine garment to die in: "But
+why," quoth he, "is this garment of mine good enough to live in, but
+not to perish in?" To him who said, "So-and-so speaks ill of you," he
+answered, "Yes, he has not learned to speak well." When Antisthenes
+turned the ragged side of his cloak to the light, he remarked, "I see
+your vanity through your cloak." He declared we ought to put
+ourselves expressly at the service of the comedy writers: "For if they
+say anything about us that is true, they will correct us; and if what
+they say be untrue, it does not concern us at all."
+
+When Xanthippe had first reviled him, then drenched him with water,
+"Didn't I tell you," said he, "it was thundering and would soon rain?"
+To Alcibiades, who said Xanthippe's scolding was unbearable, he
+replied, "I am accustomed to it, as to a constantly creaking pulley.
+And you," he added, "endure the cackling of geese." Alcibiades said,
+"Yes, for they bring me eggs and goslings." "And Xanthippe," retorted
+Socrates, "bears me children." Once when she pulled off his cloak in
+the agora, his friends advised him to defend himself with force.
+"Yes," said he, "by Jove, so that as we fight, each of you may cry,
+'Well done, Socrates!' 'Good for you, Xanthippe!'" He used to say he
+practiced on Xanthippe just as trainers do with spirited horses. "Just
+as they if they master them are able to control any other horse, so I
+who am accustomed to Xanthippe shall get on easily with any one else."
+
+It was for such words and acts as this that the Delphic priestess bore
+witness in his honor, giving to Chairephon that famous response:--
+
+  "Wisest of all mankind is Socrates."
+
+He became extremely unpopular on account of this oracle; but also
+because he convicted of ignorance those who had a great opinion of
+themselves, particularly Anytus, as Plato also says in the 'Meno.' For
+Anytus, enraged at the ridicule Socrates brought upon him, first urged
+Aristophanes and the rest on to attack him, and then induced Meletus
+to join in indicting him for impiety and for corrupting the young men.
+Plato in the 'Apology' says there were three accusers,--Anytus, Lycon,
+and Meletus: Anytus being incensed at him in behalf of the artisans
+and politicians, Lycon for the orators, and Meletus for the poets, all
+of whom Socrates pulled to pieces. The sworn statement of the
+plaintiffs ran as follows; for it is still recorded, Favorinus says,
+in the State archives:--"Socrates is guilty, not honoring the gods
+whom the State honors, but introducing other strange divinities; and
+he is further guilty of corrupting the young. Penalty, death."
+
+When Lysias wrote a speech for his defense, he read it, and said, "A
+fine speech, Lysias, but not suited to me;" for indeed it was rather
+a lawyer's plea than a philosopher's. Lysias said, "But why, if the
+speech is a fine one, should it not be suitable for you?" Socrates
+replied, "Would not fine robes, then, and sandals, be unfitting for
+me?"
+
+While he was on trial, it is stated that Plato ascended the _bema_ and
+began, "Being the youngest, O men of Athens, of all who ever came upon
+the bema"--but at this point the judges cried out, "Come down! come
+down!" So he was convicted by two hundred and eighty-one votes more
+than were cast for his acquittal. And when the judges considered what
+penalty or fine he should receive, he said he would pay
+five-and-twenty drachmæ. Euboulides says he agreed to pay a hundred,
+but when the judges expressed their indignation aloud, he said, "For
+what I have done, I consider the proper return to be support at the
+public expense in the town hall." But they condemned him to death, the
+vote being larger than before by eighty.
+
+Not many days later he drank the hemlock in the prison, after uttering
+many noble words, recorded by Plato in the 'Phædo.' According to some,
+he wrote a poem beginning--
+
+  "Greeting, Apollo of Delos, and Artemis, youthful and famous."
+
+He also versified, not very successfully, a fable of Æsop's which
+began--
+
+  "Æsop once to the people who dwell in the city of Corinth
+  Said, 'Let virtue be judged not by the popular voice.'"
+
+So he passed from among men; but straightway the Athenians repented of
+their action, so that they closed the gymnasia, and exiling the other
+accusers, put Meletus to death. Socrates they honored with a statue of
+bronze, the work of Lysippus, which was set up in the Pompeion. Anytus
+in exile, entering Heraclea, was warned out of town that very day.
+
+The Athenians have had the same experience not only in Socrates's
+case, but with many others. Indeed, it is stated that they fined Homer
+as a madman, and adjudged Tyrtæus to be crazy. Euripides reproves them
+in the 'Palamedes,' saying:--
+
+    "Ye have slain, ye have slain the all-wise, the harmless
+    nightingale of the Muses."
+
+That is so. But Philochorus says Euripides died before Socrates.
+
+Socrates and Euripides were both disciples of Anaxagoras. It appears
+to me, too, that Socrates did talk on natural philosophy. In fact,
+Xenophon says so, though he states that Socrates held discourse only
+upon moral questions. Plato indeed, in the 'Apology,' mentioning
+Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, himself says of them things
+whereof Socrates denies any knowledge; yet it is all ascribed to
+Socrates.
+
+Aristotle states that a certain mage from Syria came to Athens, and
+among other prophecies concerning Socrates foretold that his death
+would be a violent one.
+
+The following verses upon him are our own:--
+
+  Drink, in the palace of Zeus, O Socrates, seeing that truly
+  Thou by a god wert called wise, who is wisdom itself.
+  Foolish Athenians, who to thee offered the potion of hemlock,
+  Through thy lips themselves draining the cup to the dregs!
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    William C. Lawton.
+
+
+
+EXAMPLES OF GREEK WIT AND WISDOM
+
+
+BIAS
+
+Once he was on a voyage with some impious men. The vessel was
+overtaken by a storm, and they began to call upon the gods for aid.
+But Bias said, "Be silent, so they may not discover that you are
+aboard our ship!"
+
+He declared it was pleasanter to decide a dispute between his enemies
+than between friends. "For of two friends," he explained, "one is sure
+to become my enemy; but of two enemies I make one friend."
+
+
+PLATO
+
+It is said Socrates, in a dream, seemed to be holding on his knees a
+cygnet, which suddenly grew wings and flew aloft, singing sweetly.
+Next day Plato came to him; and Socrates said he was the bird.
+
+It is told that Plato, once seeing a man playing at dice, reproved
+him. "The stake is but a trifle," said the other. "Yes, but,"
+responded Plato, "the habit is no trifle."
+
+Once when Xenocrates came into Plato's house, the latter bade him
+scourge his slave for him, explaining that he could not do it
+himself, because he was angry. Again, he said to one of his slaves,
+"You would have had a beating if I were not angry."
+
+
+ARISTIPPUS
+
+Dionysius once asked him why it is that the philosophers are seen at
+rich men's doors, not the rich men at the doors of the sages.
+Aristippus replied, "Because the wise realize what they lack, but the
+rich do not." On a repetition of the taunt on another occasion he
+retorted, "Yes, and physicians are seen at sick men's doors; yet none
+would choose to be the patient rather than the leech!"
+
+Once when overtaken by a storm on a voyage to Corinth, he was badly
+frightened. Somebody said to him, "We ordinary folk are not afraid,
+but you philosophers play the coward." "Yes," was his reply, "we are
+not risking the loss of any such wretched life as yours."
+
+Some one reproached him for his extravagance in food. He answered,
+"If you could buy these same things for threepence, wouldn't you
+do it?"--"Oh yes."--"Why then, 'tis not I who am too fond of the
+luxurious food, but you that are over-fond of your money!"
+
+
+ARISTOTLE
+
+When asked, "What is Hope?" he answered, "The dream of a man awake."
+Asked what grows old quickest, he replied, "Gratitude." When told that
+some one had slandered him in his absence, he said, "He may beat me
+too--in my absence!" Being asked how much advantage the educated have
+over the ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead."
+
+Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society of the
+beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a blind man!"
+[_Cf._ Emerson's 'Rhodora.']
+
+Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said, "As we
+would wish them to treat us." Asked what a friend is, he answered,
+"One soul abiding in two bodies."
+
+
+THEOPHRASTUS
+
+To a man who at a feast was persistently silent, he remarked, "If you
+are ignorant, you are acting wisely; if you are intelligent, you are
+behaving foolishly."
+
+
+DEMETRIUS
+
+It was a saying of his that to friends in prosperity we should go when
+invited, but to those in misfortune unbidden.
+
+When told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues, he answered,
+"But not my character, for which they erected them."
+
+
+ANTISTHENES
+
+Some one asked him what he gained from philosophy. He replied, "The
+power to converse with myself."
+
+He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were horses. When
+they thought that irrational, he said, "But certainly, your generals
+are not such because they have learned anything, but simply because
+you have elected them!"
+
+
+DIOGENES
+
+He used to say that when in the course of his life he saw pilots, and
+physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the most sensible of
+animals; but when he saw interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, and
+those who paid attention to them, and those puffed up by fame or
+wealth, he believed no creature was sillier than man.
+
+Some said to him, "You are an old man. Take life easy now." He
+replied, "And if I were running the long-distance race, should I when
+nearing the goal slacken, and not rather exert myself?"
+
+When he saw a child drink out of his hands, he took the cup out of his
+wallet and flung it away, saying, "A child has beaten me in
+simplicity."
+
+He used to argue thus, "All things belong to the gods. The wise are
+the friends of the gods. The goods of friends are common property.
+Therefore all things belong to the wise."
+
+To one who argued that _motion_ was impossible, he made no answer, but
+rose and walked away.
+
+When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mysteries,
+assuring him that in Hades those who were initiated have the front
+seats, he replied, "It is ludicrous, if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are
+to abide in the mud, and some ignoble wretches who are initiated are
+to dwell in the Isles of the Blest!"
+
+Plato made the definition "Man is a two-footed featherless animal,"
+and was much praised for it. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it
+into his school, saying "This is Plato's man!" So the addition was
+made to the definition, "with broad nails."
+
+When a man asked him what was the proper hour for lunch, he said, "If
+you are rich, when you please; if you are poor, when you can get it."
+
+He used often to shout aloud that an easy life had been given by the
+gods to men, but they had covered it from sight in their search for
+honey-cakes and perfumes and such things.
+
+The musician who was always left alone by his hearers he greeted with
+"Good morning, cock!" When the other asked him the reason, he said,
+"Because your music starts everybody up."
+
+When an exceedingly superstitious man said to him, "With one blow I
+will break your head!" he retorted, "And with a sneeze at your left
+side I will make you tremble."
+
+When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, "Of wild beasts,
+the sycophant; and of tame creatures, the flatterer."
+
+Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded, "For
+young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all."
+
+When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drinking, he answered,
+"Another man's." [Of a different temper was Dante, who knew too well
+"how salt the bread of others tastes!"]
+
+Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But he replied, "It
+is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot
+without Manes."
+
+When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said,
+"Because they expect themselves to become lame and blind; but
+philosophers, never!"
+
+
+CLEANTHES
+
+When a comic actor apologized for having ridiculed him from
+the stage, he answered gently, "It would be preposterous, when
+Bacchus and Hercules bear the raillery of the poets without
+showing any anger, if I should be indignant when I chance to
+be attacked."
+
+
+PYTHAGORAS
+
+_Precepts_
+
+  Do not stir the fire with a sword.
+  Do not devour your heart.
+  Always have your bed packed up.
+  Do not walk in the main street.
+  Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.
+  Avoid a sharp sword.
+  When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.
+          [Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death.]
+  Consider nothing exclusively your own.
+  Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.
+  Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter,
+          and yet not looking stern. [_Cf._ Emerson on Manners.]
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    William C. Lawton.
+
+
+
+
+ISAAC D'ISRAELI
+
+(1766-1848)
+
+[Illustration: ISAAC D'ISRAELI]
+
+
+Among the writers whose education and whose tastes were the outcome
+of the classicism of the eighteenth century, yet whose literary life
+lapped over into the Victorian epoch, was Isaac D'Israeli, born at
+Enfield in May 1766. D'Israeli was of Jewish origin, his ancestors
+having fled from the Spanish persecutions of the fifteenth century to
+find a home in Venice, whence a younger branch migrated to England.
+
+At the time of his birth his family had stood for generations among
+the foremost English Jews, his father having been made a citizen by
+special legislation. The boy, however, did not inherit the commercial
+spirit which had established his house. He was a lover of books and a
+dreamer of dreams, and so early developed literary tendencies that his
+frightened father sent him off to Amsterdam to school, in the hope of
+curing proclivities so dangerous. Here he became familiar with the
+works of the Encyclopædists, and adopted the theories of Rousseau.
+On returning to England in his nineteenth year, he replied to his
+father's proposition that he should enter a commercial house at
+Bordeaux, by a long poem in which he passionately inveighed against
+the commercial spirit, and avowed himself a student of philosophy and
+letters. His father's reluctant acquiescence was obtained at last
+through the good offices of the laureate Pye, to whom the youth had
+already dedicated his first book, 'A Defence of Poetry.'
+
+At the outset of his career he found himself received with
+consideration by the men whose acquaintance he most desired. Following
+the fashion of the day, and inspired by the books of anecdotes so
+successfully published by his friend Douce, D'Israeli in 1791 produced
+anonymously a small volume entitled 'Curiosities of Literature,' the
+copyright of which he magnanimously presented to his publisher. The
+extraordinary success of this book can be accounted for only by the
+curious taste of the time, which still reflected the more unworthy
+traditions of the Addisonian era. It was an age of clubs and
+tea-tables, of society scandal-mongering and fireside gossip; and the
+reading public welcomed a contribution whose refined dilettantism so
+well matched its own. The mysteries of Eleusis and the origin of wigs
+received the same grave attention. This popularity induced D'Israeli
+to buy back the copyright at a generous valuation; he enlarged the
+work to five volumes, which passed through twelve in his own lifetime,
+and still serves to illustrate a curious literary phase.
+
+Other compilations of similar nature met the same success: 'The
+Calamities of Authors,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' and 'Literary
+Recollections'; but the 'Amenities of Literature,' his last work, is
+the most purely literary in form, and affords perhaps the best index
+to D'Israeli's abilities as a writer. The reader of to-day, however,
+is struck by the ephemeral nature of this criticism, which yet by a
+curious literary experience is keeping a place among the permanent
+productions of its age. The reader is everywhere impressed by the
+human sympathy, by the wide if rather superficial knowledge, and by
+innumerable felicities of expression and style, which betray the
+cultivated mind. To lovers of the curious the books still appeal, and
+they will continue to hold an honorable place among the bric-a-brac of
+literature.
+
+The spirit of curiosity which characterized the mind of D'Israeli
+assumed its most dignified concrete form in the 'Commentaries on the
+Reign of Charles I.' D'Israeli had an artistic sense of the values in
+a historical picture, with a keen perception of the importance of side
+lights; and although the book is not a great contribution to the
+literature of history, yet it became popular, and in July 1832 earned
+for its author the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford.
+
+D'Israeli's romances were tedious tales, but his hold upon the public
+was secure, and the vast amount of miscellaneous matter which he
+published always found a delighted audience. 'The Genius of Judaism,'
+a philosophical inquiry into the historical significance of
+the permanence of the Jewish race, showed the author's psychic
+limitations. He designed a history of English literature, for which
+he had gathered much material, but increasing blindness forced him to
+abandon it. Much of D'Israeli's popularity was unquestionably due to
+his qualities of heart. His nature was fine; he was an affectionate
+and devoted friend, and held an enviable position in the literary
+circles of the day. Campbell, Byron, Rogers, and Scott alike admired
+and loved him, while a host of lesser men eagerly sought his
+friendship.
+
+Although brought up in the Jewish faith, D'Israeli affiliated early in
+life with the Church of England, in which his three sons and one
+daughter were baptized. He died in 1848, and was buried at Brandenham.
+Twenty years later his daughter-in-law, the Countess of Beaconsfield,
+erected at Hughenden a monument to his memory.
+
+    [Illustration: _OLD BLACK-LETTER QUARTO_.
+
+    Slightly reduced facsimile of title-page of first edition of
+                            "THE POSIES."
+
+    London, about 1572.           Original, 4-1/8 x 6-3/8 inches.
+
+    An example of title-page, typography, and spelling a hundred
+    years after the introduction of printing into England. The
+    Old English, Gothic, or Black-letter type was being superseded
+    by the modern "Roman;" and on this title page both forms were
+    used.
+
+    A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde vp in one small Poesie.
+
+    Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish
+    Gardins of Euripides, Ouid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others:
+    and partly by inuention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes
+    in Englande:
+
+    Yelding sundrie sweet fauours of Tragical, Comical, and
+    Morall Discourses, bothe pleasaunt and profitable to the well
+    smellyng noses of learned Readers.
+
+    =Meritum petere, graue.=
+
+    AT LONDON, Imprinted for Richarde Smith.]
+
+
+
+POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS MADE BY ACCIDENT
+
+From 'Curiosities of Literature'
+
+
+Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to
+display their powers. It was at Rome, says Gibbon, on the fifteenth of
+October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while
+the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,
+that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first
+started to my mind.
+
+Father Malebranche, having completed his studies in philosophy and
+theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some
+religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for
+him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and
+turning over a parcel of books, 'L'Homme de Descartes' fell into his
+hands. Having dipt into some parts, he read with such delight that the
+palpitations of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was
+this circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which
+made him the Plato of his age.
+
+Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found,
+when very young, Spenser's 'Fairy Queen,' and by a continual study of
+poetry he became so enchanted of the Muse that he grew irrecoverably a
+poet.
+
+Dr. Johnson informs us that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness
+of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's Treatise.
+
+Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was
+first determined by an accident: when young, he frequently attended
+his mother to the residence of her confessor; and while she wept with
+repentance, he wept with weariness! In this state of disagreeable
+vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the
+pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused; he
+approached the clock-case, and studied its mechanism; what he could
+not discover he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine, and
+gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first
+success, he proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which
+thus could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.
+
+If Shakespeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his wool trade
+and his town; if he had not engaged with a company of actors, and at
+length, disgusted with being an indifferent performer, he had not
+turned author, the prudent wool-seller had never been the celebrated
+poet.
+
+Accident determined the taste of Molière for the stage. His
+grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The
+young man lived in dissipation; the father, observing it, asked in
+anger if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the
+grandfather, "he was as good an actor as Montrose." The words struck
+young Molière; he took a disgust to his tapestry trade; and it is to
+this circumstance France owes her greatest comic writer.
+
+Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet,
+composed 'Mélite,' and afterwards his other celebrated works. The
+discreet Corneille had remained a lawyer.
+
+Thus it is that the devotion of a mother, the death of Cromwell,
+deer-stealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the beauty of a
+woman, have given five illustrious characters to Europe.
+
+We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When
+a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague
+into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the
+fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed
+the smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the
+stroke. This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling
+bodies; from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the
+foundation of his philosophy.
+
+Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman who was dangerously wounded at
+the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the
+Lives of the Saints, which were brought to him in his illness instead
+of a romance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a
+religious order; whence originated the celebrated society of the
+Jesuits.
+
+Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the
+advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy of
+Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated
+Declamation against the arts and sciences; a circumstance which
+determined his future literary efforts.
+
+La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any profession or
+devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally heard some verses
+of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which directed his future
+life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so exquisitely
+delighted with this poet that after passing the nights in treasuring
+his verses in his memory, he would run in the daytime to the woods,
+where, concealing himself, he would recite his verses to the
+surrounding dryads.
+
+Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on
+account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book 'De Sphæra' having been
+lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a
+course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural
+history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of
+Willoughby's work on birds; the same accident, of finding on the table
+of his professor Reaumur's 'History of Insects,'--of which he read
+more than he attended to the lecture.--and having been refused the
+loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet that he hastened
+to obtain a copy, but found many difficulties in procuring this costly
+work. Its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life:
+this naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to
+the microscope.
+
+Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident.
+"I found a work of Defoe's, entitled an 'Essay on Projects,' from
+which perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of
+the principal events of my life."
+
+I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his
+'Schoolmaster,' one of the most curious and useful treatises among our
+elder writers.
+
+At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil during the plague in 1563, at
+his apartments at Windsor, where the Queen had taken refuge, a number
+of ingenious men were invited. Secretary Cecil communicated the news
+of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on account
+of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error in the
+education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe
+in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defense of hard flogging. Dr.
+Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the Secretary. Sir John Mason,
+adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted
+Sir William Petre, and adduced as an evidence that the best
+schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that
+Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed that if such a master had an able
+scholar it was owing to the boy's genius and not the preceptor's rod.
+Secretary Cecil and others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir
+Richard Sackville was silent; but when Ascham after dinner went to the
+Queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside,
+and frankly told him that though he had taken no part in the debate he
+would not have been absent from that conversation for a great deal;
+that he knew to his cost the truth Ascham had supported, for it was
+the perpetual flogging of such a schoolmaster that had given him an
+unconquerable aversion to study. And as he wished to remedy this
+defect in his own children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his
+observations on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance
+which produced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES THE FIRST
+
+From the 'Commentaries on the Reign of Charles the First'
+
+
+At Whitehall a repast had been prepared. The religious emotions of
+Charles had consecrated the sacrament, which he refused to mingle with
+human food. The Bishop, whose mind was unequal to conceive the
+intrepid spirit of the King, dreading lest the magnanimous monarch,
+overcome by the severity of the cold, might faint on the scaffold,
+prevailed on him to eat half a manchet of bread and taste some claret.
+But the more consolatory refreshment of Charles had been just imparted
+to him in that singular testimony from his son, who had sent a _carte
+blanche_ to save the life of his father at any price. This was a
+thought on which his affections could dwell in face of the scaffold
+which he was now to ascend.
+
+Charles had arrived at Whitehall about ten o'clock, and was not led to
+the scaffold till past one. It was said that the scaffold was not
+completed; it might have been more truly said that the conspirators
+were not ready. There was a mystery in this delay. The fate of Charles
+the First to the very last moment was in suspense. Fairfax, though at
+the time in the palace, inquired of Herbert how the King was, when the
+King was no more! and expressed his astonishment on hearing that the
+execution had just taken place. This extraordinary simplicity and
+abstraction from the present scene of affairs has been imputed to the
+General as an act of refined dissimulation, yet this seems uncertain.
+The Prince's _carte blanche_ had been that morning confided to his
+hands, and he surely must have laid it before the "Grandees of the
+Army," as this new order of the rulers of England was called. Fairfax,
+whose personal feelings respecting the King were congenial with those
+his lady had so memorably evinced, labored to defer for a few days the
+terrible catastrophe; not without the hope of being able, by his own
+regiment and others in the army, to prevent the deed altogether. It is
+probable--inexplicable as it may seem to us--that the execution of
+Charles the First really took place unknown to the General. Fairfax
+was not unaccustomed to discover that his colleagues first acted, and
+afterwards trusted to his own discernment.
+
+    [Illustration: _CHARLES I. GOING TO EXECUTION._
+    Photogravure from a painting by E. Crofts.]
+
+Secret history has not revealed all that passed in those three awful
+hours. We know, however, that the warrant for the execution was not
+signed till within a few minutes before the King was led to the
+scaffold. In an apartment in the Palace, Ireton and Harrison were in
+bed together, and Cromwell, with four colonels, assembled in it.
+Colonel Huncks refused to sign the warrant. Cromwell would have no
+further delay, reproaching the Colonel as "a peevish, cowardly
+fellow," and Colonel Axtell declared that he was ashamed for his
+friend Huncks, remonstrating with him, that "the ship is coming into
+the harbor, and now would he strike sail before we come to anchor?"
+Cromwell stepped to a table, and wrote what he had proposed to Huncks;
+Colonel Hacker, supplying his place, signed it, and with the ink
+hardly dry, carried the warrant in his hand and called for the King.
+
+At the fatal summons Charles rose with alacrity. The King passed
+through the long gallery by a line of soldiers. Awe and sorrow seem
+now to have mingled in their countenances. Their barbarous commanders
+were intent on their own triumph, and no farther required the forced
+cry of "Justice and Execution." Charles stepped out of an enlarged
+window of the Banqueting House, where a new opening leveled it with
+the scaffold. Charles came forward with the same indifference as "he
+would have entered Whitehall on a masque night," as an intelligent
+observer described. The King looked towards St. James's and smiled.
+Curious eyes were watchful of his slightest motions; and the
+Commonwealth papers of the day express their surprise, perhaps their
+vexation, at the unaltered aspect and the firm step of the Monarch.
+These mean spirits had flattered themselves that he who had been
+cradled in royalty, who had lived years in the fields of honor, and
+was now, they presumed, a recreant in imprisonment,--"the grand
+Delinquent of England,"--as they called him, would start in horror at
+the block.
+
+This last triumph at least was not reserved for them,--it was for the
+King. Charles, dauntless, strode "the floor of Death," to use Fuller's
+peculiar but expressive phraseology. He looked on the block with the
+axe lying upon it, with attention; his only anxiety was that the block
+seemed not sufficiently raised, and that the edge of the axe might be
+turned by being swept by the flappings of cloaks, or blunted by the
+feet of some moving about the scaffold. "Take care they do not put me
+to pain!--Take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!" exclaimed the
+King to a gentleman passing by. "Hurt not the axe; that may hurt me!"
+His continued anxiety concerning these _circumstances_ proves that he
+felt not the terror of death, solely anxious to avoid the pain, for he
+had an idea of their cruelty. With that sedate thoughtfulness which
+was in all his actions, he only looked at the business of the hour.
+One circumstance Charles observed with a smile. They had a notion that
+the King would resist the executioner; on the suggestion of Hugh
+Peters, it is said, they had driven iron staples and ropes into the
+scaffold, that their victim, if necessary, might be bound down upon
+the block.
+
+The King's speech has many remarkable points, but certainly nothing so
+remarkable as the place where it was delivered. This was the first
+"King's Speech" spoken from a scaffold. Time shall confirm, as history
+has demonstrated, his principle that "They mistook the nature of
+government; for people are free under a government, not by being
+sharers in it, but by the due administration of the laws." "It was for
+this," said Charles, "that now I am come here. If I could have given
+way to an arbitrary sway, for to have all laws changed according to
+the power of the sword, I need not have come here; and therefore I
+tell you that I am _the Martyr of the People_!"
+
+
+
+
+SYDNEY DOBELL
+
+(1824-1874)
+
+
+Sydney Dobell, the son of a wine merchant, was born at Cranbrook in
+Kent. His parents, both persons of strong individuality, believed in
+home training, and not one of their eight children went either to
+school or to university. They belonged to the Broad Church Community
+founded by Sydney's maternal grandfather, Samuel Thompson; a church
+intended to recall in its principles the primitive Christian ages. The
+parents looked upon Sydney, their eldest-born, as destined to become
+the apostle of this creed. He grew up in a kind of religious fervor,
+with his precocious mind unnaturally stimulated; a course of conduct
+which materially weakened his constitution, and made him a chronic
+invalid at the early age of thirty-three. He read whatever books came
+to hand, many of them far beyond his years. At the age of eight he
+filled his diary with theological discussions.
+
+Entering his father's counting-house as a mere lad, he remained to the
+end of his life a business man of great energy. Notwithstanding his
+rare poetic endowments, he never seems to have entertained a
+single-minded purpose to be a poet and nothing more. On the contrary,
+he thought the ideal and the practical life perfectly compatible, and
+he strove to unite in himself the poet and the man of affairs. He
+wrote habitually until 1856, when regular literary work was forbidden
+by his physicians. With characteristic energy he now turned his
+thoughts into other channels; identified himself with the affairs of
+Gloucester, where he was living, looked after his business, and was
+one of the first to adopt the system of industrial co-operation. The
+last four years of his life, a period of suffering and helplessness,
+he spent at Barton-End House, above the Stroud valley, where he died
+in the spring of 1874.
+
+In the work of Dobell it is curious to find so few traces of the
+influences under which he grew up. He had every encouragement to
+become a writer of religious poetry; yet much of his work is
+philosophic and recondite. His delicate health is in a measure
+responsible for his failure to achieve the success which his natural
+endowments promised. All his literary work was done between the ages
+of twenty-three and thirty-three. 'The Roman,' his first long poem,
+appeared in 1850. Dedicated to the Italian struggle for liberty, it
+showed his breadth of sympathy. In 'Balder,' finished in 1853, Dobell
+is at his best both as thinker and as poet. Yet its many fine
+passages, its wealth of metaphor, and the exquisite songs of Amy,
+hardly counterbalance the remoteness of its theme, and its over-subtle
+analysis of morbid psychic states. It is a poem to be read in
+fragments, and has aptly been called a mine for poets.
+
+With Alexander Smith he published in 1855 a series of sonnets inspired
+by the Crimean War. This was followed in 1856 by 'England in War
+Time,' a collection of Dobell's lyrical and descriptive poems, which
+possess more general human interest than any other of his books.
+
+After continuous work was interdicted, he still contributed verse and
+prose to the periodicals. His essays have been collected by Professor
+Nichol, under the title 'Thoughts on Art, Philosophy, and Religion.'
+As a poet Dobell belongs to the so-called "spasmodic school," a school
+"characterized by an undercurrent of discontent with the mystery of
+existence, by vain effort, unrewarded struggle, skeptical unrest, and
+an uneasy striving after some incomprehensible end.... Poetry of this
+kind is marked by an excess of metaphor which darkens rather than
+illustrates, and by a general extravagance of language. On the other
+hand, it manifests freshness and originality, and a rich natural
+beauty." Dobell's descriptions of scenery are among the finest in
+English literature. His senses were abnormally acute, like those of a
+savage, a condition which intensified his appreciation of natural
+beauty. Possessing a vivid imagination and wide sympathies, he was
+often over-subtle and obscure. He strove to realize in himself his
+ideal of a poet, and during his years of ill-health gave himself up to
+promoting the welfare of his fellow-men; but of his seventeen years of
+inactivity he says:--"The keen perception of all that should be done,
+and that so bitterly cries for doing, accompanies the consciousness of
+all that I might but cannot do."
+
+
+
+EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES
+
+
+  Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.
+    He wooed and won her; and, by love made bold,
+  She showed him more than mortal man should know--
+    Then slew him lest her secret should be told.
+
+
+
+HOW'S MY BOY?
+
+
+          "Ho, sailor of the sea!
+        How's my boy--my boy?"--
+      "What's your boy's name, good wife,
+        And in what good ship sailed he?"
+
+          "My boy John--
+        He that went to sea--
+    What care I for the ship, sailor?
+        My boy's my boy to me.
+
+        "You come back from the sea,
+          And not know my John?
+  I might as well have asked some landsman,
+          Yonder down in the town.
+      There's not an ass in all the parish
+          But knows my John.
+
+        "How's my boy--my boy?
+          And unless you let me know,
+        I'll swear you are no sailor,
+          Blue jacket or no--
+        Brass buttons or no, sailor,
+          Anchor and crown or no--
+
+    "Sure, his ship was the Jolly Briton--"
+        "Speak low, woman, speak low!
+
+      "And why should I speak low, sailor,
+          About my own boy John?
+        If I was loud as I am proud
+          I'd sing him over the town!
+      Why should I speak low, sailor?"--
+          "That good ship went down."
+
+        "How's my boy--my boy?
+      What care I for the ship, sailor?
+          I was never aboard her.
+      Be she afloat or be she aground,
+      Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound
+          Her owners can afford her!
+        I say, how's my John?"--
+      "Every man on board went down,
+          Every man aboard her."
+
+        "How's my boy--my boy?
+      What care I for the men, sailor?
+          I'm not their mother.
+        How's my boy--my boy?
+          Tell me of him and no other!
+        How's my boy--my boy?"
+
+
+
+THE SAILOR'S RETURN
+
+
+      This morn I lay a-dreaming,
+        This morn, this merry morn;
+  When the cock crew shrill from over the hill,
+      I heard a bugle horn.
+
+      And through the dream I was dreaming,
+        There sighed the sigh of the sea,
+      And through the dream I was dreaming,
+          This voice came singing to me:--
+
+            "High over the breakers,
+              Low under the lee,
+                Sing ho!
+                The billow,
+          And the lash of the rolling sea!
+
+            "Boat, boat, to the billow,
+              Boat, boat, to the lee!
+            Love, on thy pillow,
+              Art thou dreaming of me?
+
+            "Billow, billow, breaking,
+              Land us low on the lee!
+            For sleeping or waking,
+          Sweet love, I am coming to thee!
+
+          "High, high, o'er the breakers,
+              Low, low, on the lee,
+                  Sing ho!
+                  The billow
+          That brings me back to thee!"
+
+
+
+AFLOAT AND ASHORE
+
+
+      "Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
+              Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port;
+      Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
+              And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love!"
+
+              "I see the ship on the sea, love;
+                        I stand alone
+                          On this rock;
+                    The sea does not shock
+                        The stone;
+              The waters around it are swirled,
+                      But under my feet
+                      I feel it go down
+                To where the hemispheres meet
+              At the adamant heart of the world.
+                Oh that the rock would move!
+                Oh that the rock would roll
+              To meet thee over the sea, love!
+                    Surely my mighty love
+                Should fill it like a soul,
+              And it should bear me to thee, love;
+                Like a ship on the sea, love,
+              Bear me, bear me, to thee, love!"
+
+    "Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering,
+                      Low on our lee, love.
+  Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over
+          and over
+            The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love;
+        And on through the loud pealing pomp of her cloud
+            The great ship is going to thee, love,
+        Blind to her mark, like a world through the dark,
+        Thundering, sundering, to the crowds wondering,
+              Thundering over to thee, love."
+
+        "I have come down to thee coming to me, love;
+                      I stand, I stand
+                      On the solid sand;
+              I see thee coming to me, love;
+              The sea runs up to me on the sand:
+      I start--'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand
+              And touched me through the sea, love.
+            I feel as if I must die,
+            For there's something longs to fly,
+              Fly and fly, to thee, love.
+
+          As the blood of the flower ere she blows
+                Is beating up to the sun,
+            And her roots do hold her down,
+            And it blushes and breaks undone
+                        In a rose,
+            So my blood is beating in me, love!
+                I see thee nigh and nigher;
+          And my soul leaps up like sudden fire,
+                    My life's in the air
+                    To meet thee there,
+            To meet thee coming to me, love!
+                      Over the sea,
+                      Coming to me,
+            Coming, and coming to me, love!"
+
+        "The boats are lowered: I leap in first,
+        Pull, boys, pull! or my heart will burst!
+            More! more!--lend me an oar!--
+        I'm thro' the breakers! I'm on the shore!
+            I see thee waiting for me, love!"
+
+                    "A sudden storm
+                      Of sighs and tears,
+                    A clenching arm,
+                      A look of years.
+                In my bosom a thousand cries,
+                A flash like light before my eyes,
+                And I am lost in thee, love!"
+
+
+
+THE SOUL
+
+From 'Balder'
+
+
+  And as the mounting and descending bark,
+  Borne on exulting by the under deep,
+  Gains of the wild wave something not the wave,
+  Catches a joy of going and a will
+  Resistless, and upon the last lee foam
+  Leaps into air beyond it,--so the soul
+  Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tossed,
+  Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged
+  To darkness, and, still wet with drops of death,
+  Held into light eternal, and again
+  Cast down, to be again uplift in vast
+  And infinite succession, cannot stay
+  The mad momentum.
+
+
+
+ENGLAND
+
+From 'Balder'
+
+
+  This dear English land!
+  This happy England, loud with brooks and birds,
+  Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees,
+  And bloomed from hill to dell: but whose best flowers
+  Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair
+  Than any rose she weaves; whose noblest floods
+  The pulsing torrent of a nation's heart;
+  Whose forests stronger than her native oaks
+  Are living men; and whose unfathomed lakes,
+  Forever calm, the unforgotten dead
+  In quiet grave-yards willowed seemly round,
+  O'er which To-day bends sad, and sees his face.
+  Whose rocks are rights, consolidate of old
+  Through unremembered years, around whose base
+  The ever-surging peoples roll and roar
+  Perpetual, as around her cliffs the seas
+  That only wash them whiter; and whose mountains,
+  Souls that from this mere footing of the earth
+  Lift their great virtues through all clouds of Fate
+  Up to the very heavens, and make them rise
+  To keep the gods above us!
+
+
+
+AMERICA
+
+
+    Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
+    Who north or south, or east or western land,
+      Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
+    Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
+      For God; O ye who in eternal youth
+    Speak with a living and creative flood
+    This universal English, and do stand
+    Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
+    Heroic utterance--parted, yet a whole,
+      Far, yet unsevered,--children brave and free
+      Of the great Mother tongue, and ye shall be
+    Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
+          Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,
+  And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.
+
+
+
+AMY'S SONG OF THE WILLOW
+
+From 'Balder'
+
+
+  The years they come, and the years they go,
+      Like winds that blow from sea to sea;
+  From dark to dark they come and go,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+  Down by the stream there be two sweet willows,
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  One hale, one blighted, two wedded willows,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+
+  She is blighted, the fair young willow;
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  She hears the spring-blood beat in the bark;
+  She hears the spring-leaf bud on the bough;
+  But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+
+  The stream runs sparkling under the willow,
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  The summer rose-leaves drop in the stream;
+  The winter oak-leaves drop in the stream;
+  But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+
+  Sometimes the wind lifts the bright stream to her,
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  The false stream sinks, and her tears fall faster;
+  Because she touched it her tears fall faster;
+  Over the stream her tears fall faster,
+        All in the sunshine or the rain.
+
+  The years they come, and the years they go;
+        Sing well-away, sing well-away!
+  And under mine eyes shines the bright life-river;
+        Sing well-away, sing well-away!
+  Sweet sounds the spring in the hale green willow,
+  The goodly green willow, the green waving willow,
+  Sweet in the willow, the wind-whispering willow;
+        Sing well-away, sing well-away!
+  But I bend blighted, the wan weeping willow,
+      All in the sun, and the dew, and the rain.
+
+
+
+
+AUSTIN DOBSON
+
+(1840-)
+
+BY ESTHER SINGLETON
+
+[Illustration: AUSTIN DOBSON]
+
+
+At first thought it seems difficult to consider Austin Dobson as
+belonging to the Victorian period, so entirely is he saturated with
+the spirit of the eighteenth century. A careful study of his verse
+reveals the fact that the Georgian era, seen through the vista of his
+poetic imagination, is divested of all that is coarse, dark, gross,
+and prosaic. The mental atmosphere and the types and characters that
+he gives, express only beauty and charm.
+
+One approaches the poems of Austin Dobson as one stands before a rare
+collection of enamels, fan-mounts, jeweled snuff-boxes, and delicate
+carvings in ivory and silver; and after delighting in the beauty and
+finish of these graceful curios, passes into a gallery of paintings
+and water-colors, suggesting Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher, Meissonier,
+and Greuze. We also wander among trim box-hedges and quaint gardens of
+roses and bright hollyhocks; lean by sun-dials to watch the shadow of
+Time; and enjoy the sight of gay belles, patched and powdered and
+dressed in brocaded gowns and gypsy hats. Gallant beaux, such as are
+associated with Reynolds's portraits, appear, and hand them into
+sedan-chairs or lead them through stately minuets to the notes of
+Rameau, Couperin, and Arne.
+
+Just as the scent of rose-leaves, lavender, and musk rises from
+antique Chinese jars, so Dobson's delicate verse reconstructs a life
+
+  "Of fashion gone, and half-forgotten ways."
+
+He is equally at home in France. Nothing could be more sympathetic and
+exquisite than 'A Revolutionary Relic,' 'The Curé's Progress,' 'Une
+Marquise,' and the 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' one of which is cited
+below.
+
+In the 'Vers de Société,' as well as his other poetry, Dobson fulfills
+all the requirements of light verse--charm, mockery, pathos, banter,
+and, while apparently skimming the surface, often shows us the
+strange depths of the human heart. He blends so many qualities that he
+deserves the praise of T.B. Aldrich, who says, "Austin Dobson has the
+grace of Suckling and the finish of Herrick, and is easily master of
+both in metrical art."
+
+Henry Austin Dobson, the son of Mr. George Clarisse Dobson, a civil
+engineer, was born in Plymouth, England, January 18th 1840. His early
+years were spent in Anglesea, and after receiving his education in
+Beaumaris, Coventry, and Strasburg, he returned to England to become a
+civil engineer. In 1856 he entered the civil service of Great Britain,
+and ever since that date he has held offices in the Board of Trade.
+His leisure was devoted to literature, and when Anthony Trollope first
+issued his magazine St. Paul's in 1868, he introduced to the public
+the verse of Austin Dobson. In 1873 his fugitive poems were published
+in a small volume entitled 'Vignettes in Rhyme' and 'Vers de Société.'
+This was followed in 1877 by 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' and both books,
+with additional poems, were printed again in two volumes: 'Old World
+Idylls' (1883), and 'At the Sign of the Lyre' (1885). Mr. Dobson's
+original essays are contained in three volumes: 'Four Frenchwomen,'
+studies of Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, the Princess de Lamballe,
+and Madame de Genlis (1890), and 'Eighteenth-Century Vignettes' (first
+series 1892, second series 1894), which touch upon a host of
+picturesque and fascinating themes. He has written also several
+biographies: of Hogarth, of Fielding, of Steele (1886), of Goldsmith
+(1888), and a 'Memoir of Horace Walpole' (1890). He has also written
+felicitous critical introductions to many new editions of the
+eighteenth-century classics.
+
+Austin Dobson has been most happy in breathing English life into the
+old poems of French verse, such as ballades, villanelles, roundels,
+and rondeaux; and he has also written clever and satirical fables,
+cast in the form and temper of Gay and Prior, with quaint obsolete
+affectations, redolent of the classic age of Anne.
+
+So serious is his attitude towards art, and so large his audience,
+that the hope expressed in the following rondeau will certainly be
+realized:--
+
+  In after days, when grasses high
+  O'er-top the stone where I shall lie,
+    Though ill or well the world adjust
+    My slender claim to honored dust,
+  I shall not question nor reply.
+
+  I shall not see the morning sky,
+  I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;
+    I shall be mute, as all men must,
+            In after days.
+
+  But yet, now living, fain were I
+  That some one then should testify,
+    Saying--_He held his pen in trust_
+    _To Art, not serving shame or lust._
+  Will none?--Then let my memory die
+            In after days!
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Esther Singleton)]
+
+
+
+ON A NANKIN PLATE
+
+VILLANELLE
+
+
+  "Ah me, but it might have been!
+  Was there ever so dismal a fate?"
+  Quoth the little blue mandarin.
+
+  "Such a maid as was never seen:
+  She passed, tho' I cried to her, 'Wait,'--
+  Ah me, but it might have been!
+
+  "I cried, 'O my Flower, my Queen,
+  Be mine!'--'Twas precipitate,"
+  Quoth the little blue mandarin.
+
+  "But then ... she was just sixteen,--
+  Long-eyed, as a lily straight,--
+  Ah me, but it might have been!
+
+  "As it was, from her palankeen
+  She laughed--'You're a week too late!'"
+  (Quoth the little blue mandarin.)
+
+  "That is why, in a mist of spleen
+  I mourn on this Nankin Plate.
+  Ah me, but it might have been!"
+  Quoth the little blue mandarin.
+
+
+
+THE OLD SEDAN-CHAIR
+
+    "What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?
+    Where's Troy,--and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"
+                                  --BRAMSTON'S 'ART OF POLITICKS.'
+
+
+  It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,
+  Propped up by a broomstick and covered with leaves;
+  It once was the pride of the gay and the fair,
+  But now 'tis a ruin,--that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  It is battered and tattered,--it little avails
+  That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails;
+  For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square
+  Like a canvas by Wilkie,--that old Sedan-chair.
+
+  See, here come the bearing-straps; here were the holes
+  For the poles of the bearers--when once there were poles;
+  It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair,
+  As the birds have discovered,--that old Sedan-chair.
+
+  "Where's Troy?" says the poet! Look; under the seat
+  Is a nest with four eggs; 'tis a favored retreat
+  Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear,
+  Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan-chair.
+
+  And yet--Can't you fancy a face in the frame
+  Of the window,--some high-headed damsel or dame,
+  Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair,
+  While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan-chair?
+
+  Can't you fancy Sir Plume, as beside her he stands,
+  With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands,
+  With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire,
+  As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan-chair?
+
+  Then it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league
+  It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague;
+  Stout fellows!--but prone, on a question of fare,
+  To brandish the poles of that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  It has waited by portals where Garrick has played;
+  It has waited by Heidegger's "Grand Masquerade";
+  For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair,
+  It has waited--and waited, that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  Oh, the scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell
+  Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,--
+  Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!)
+  Of Fête-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  "_Heu! quantum mutata_," I say as I go.
+  It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though!
+  We must furbish it up, and dispatch it,--"With Care,"--
+  To a Fine-Art Museum--that old Sedan-chair.
+
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND RHYME
+
+
+  When the ways are heavy with mire and rut,
+    In November fogs, in December snows,
+  When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,--
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+    But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,
+  And the jasmine-stars at the casement climb,
+    And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows,
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+  When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,
+    When the reason stands on its squarest toes,
+  When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"--
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+    But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows,
+  And the young year draws to the "golden prime,"
+    And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,--
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+  In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut,
+    In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"
+  In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"--
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+    But whenever a soft glance softer grows
+  And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,
+    And the secret is told "that no one knows,"--
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+ENVOY
+
+  In the work-a-day world,--for its needs and woes,
+  There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+  But whenever the May-bells clash and chime,
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+
+
+THE CURÉ'S PROGRESS
+
+
+  Monsieur The Curé down the street
+    Comes with his kind old face,--
+  With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
+    And his green umbrella-case.
+
+  You may see him pass by the little "_Grande Place_,"
+    And the tiny "_Hôtel-de-Ville_";
+  He smiles as he goes, to the _fleuriste_ Rose,
+    And the _pompier_ Théophile.
+
+  He turns as a rule through the "_Marché_" cool,
+    Where the noisy fishwives call;
+  And his compliment pays to the "_belle Thérèse_,"
+    As she knits in her dusky stall.
+
+  There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop,
+    And Toto, the locksmith's niece,
+  Has jubilant hopes, for the Curé gropes
+    In his tails for a _pain d'épice_.
+
+  There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit
+    Who is said to be heterodox,
+  That will ended be with a "_Ma foi, oui!_"
+    And a pinch from the Curé's box.
+
+  There is also a word that no one heard
+    To the furrier's daughter Lou;
+  And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,
+    And a "_Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!_"
+
+  But a grander way for the _Sous-Préfet_,
+    And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;
+  And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat,
+    And a nod to the Sacristan:--
+
+  For ever through life the Curé goes
+    With a smile on his kind old face--
+  With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair.
+    And his green umbrella-case.
+
+
+
+"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE"
+
+"Si vieillesse pouvait!"
+
+
+    SCENE.--_A small neat room. In a high Voltaire chair sits a
+    white-haired old gentleman._
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_turning querulously_]
+
+  Day of my life! Where _can_ she get?
+  BABETTE! I Say! BABETTE!--BABETTE!
+
+BABETTE [_entering hurriedly_]
+
+  Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks
+  So loud, he won't be well for weeks!
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+  Where have you been?
+
+BABETTE
+
+                                Why, M'sieu' knows:--
+  April!... Ville-d' Avray!... Ma'm'selle ROSE!
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+  Ah! I am old,--and I forget.
+  Was the place growing green, BABETTE?
+
+BABETTE
+
+  But of a greenness!--Yes, M'sieu'!
+  And then the sky so blue!--so blue!
+  And when I dropped my _immortelle_,
+  How the birds sang!
+    [_Lifting her apron to her eyes._]
+                          This poor Ma'm'selle!
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+  You're a good girl, BABETTE, but she,--
+  She was an angel, verily.
+  Sometimes I think I see her yet
+  Stand smiling by the cabinet;
+  And once, I know, she peeped and laughed
+  Betwixt the curtains....
+                            Where's the draught?
+          [_She gives him a cup._]
+  Now I shall sleep, I think, BABETTE;--
+  Sing me your Norman _chansonnette_.
+
+BABETTE [_sings_]
+
+      "_Once at the Angelus
+          (Ere I was dead),
+      Angels all glorious
+          Came to my bed;--
+      Angels in blue and white,
+          Crowned on the head._"
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_drowsily_]
+
+  "She was an Angel" ... "Once she laughed" ...
+            What! was I dreaming?
+                                   Where's the draught?
+
+BABETTE [_showing the empty cup_]
+
+  The draught, M'sieu'?
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+                        How I forget!
+  I am so old! But sing, BABETTE!
+
+BABETTE [_sings_]
+
+      "_One was the Friend I left
+          Stark in the Snow;
+      One was the Wife that died
+          Long,--long ago;
+      One was the Love I lost--
+          How could she know?_"
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_murmuring_]
+
+  Ah PAUL! ... old PAUL! ... EULALIE, too!
+  And ROSE ... And O! "the sky so blue!"
+
+BABETTE [_sings_]
+
+      "_One had my Mother's eyes,
+          Wistful and mild;
+      One had my Father's face;
+          One was a Child:
+      All of them bent to me,--
+          Bent down and smiled!_"
+  [He is asleep!]
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_almost inaudibly_]
+
+                   How I forget!
+  I am so old! ... Good-night, BABETTE!
+
+
+
+THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S
+
+A PROPER NEW BALLAD OF THE COUNTRY AND THE TOWN
+
+    "Phyllida amo ante alias."--VIRGIL.
+
+
+  The ladies of St. James's
+    Go swinging to the play;
+  Their footmen run before them
+    With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    She takes her buckled shoon,
+  When we go out a-courting
+    Beneath the harvest moon.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's
+    Wear satin on their backs;
+  They sit all night at _Ombre_,
+    With candles all of wax:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    She dons her russet gown,
+  And runs to gather May-dew
+    Before the world is down.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    They are so fine and fair,
+  You'd think a box of essences
+    Was broken in the air:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    The breath of heath and furze,
+  When breezes blow at morning,
+    Is not so fresh as hers.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    They're painted to the eyes;
+  Their white it stays forever,
+    Their red it never dies:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    Her color comes and goes;
+  It trembles to a lily,--
+    It wavers like a rose,
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    You scarce can understand
+  The half of all their speeches,
+    Their phrases are so grand:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    Her shy and simple words
+  Are clear as after rain-drops
+    The music of the birds.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    They have their fits and freaks;
+  They smile on you--for seconds;
+    They frown on you--for weeks:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    Come either storm or shine,
+  From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,
+    Is always true--and mine.
+
+  My Phyllida! my Phyllida!
+    I care not though they heap
+  The hearts of all St. James's,
+    And give me all to keep;
+  I care not whose the beauties
+    Of all the world may be,--
+  For Phyllida, my Phyllida,
+    Is all the world to me.
+
+
+
+DORA _VERSUS_ ROSE
+
+"The Case is Proceeding"
+
+
+  From the tragic-est novels at Mudie's--
+    At least on a practical plan--
+  To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys,
+    One love is enough for a man.
+  But no case that I ever yet met is
+    Like mine: I am equally fond
+  Of Rose, who a charming brunette is,
+                  And Dora, a blonde.
+
+  Each rivals the other in powers--
+    Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints--
+  Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers;
+    Miss Do., perpendicular saints.
+  In short, to distinguish is folly;
+    'Twixt the pair I am come to the pass
+  Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly,--
+                  Or Buridan's ass.
+
+  If it happens that Rosa I've singled
+    For a soft celebration in rhyme,
+  Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled
+    Somehow with the tune and the time;
+  Or I painfully pen me a sonnet
+    To an eyebrow intended for Do.'s,
+  And behold I am writing upon it
+                  The legend, "To Rose."
+
+  Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter
+    Is all over scrawled with her head),
+  If I fancy at last that I've got her,
+    It turns to her rival instead;
+  Or I find myself placidly adding
+    To the rapturous tresses of Rose
+  Miss Dora's bud-mouth, and her madding,
+                  Ineffable nose.
+
+  Was there ever so sad a dilemma?
+    For Rose I would perish (_pro tem._);
+  For Dora I'd willingly stem a--
+    (Whatever might offer to stem);
+  But to make the invidious election,--
+    To declare that on either one's side
+  I've a scruple,--a grain,--more affection,
+                  I _cannot_ decide.
+
+  And as either so hopelessly nice is,
+    My sole and my final resource
+  Is to wait some indefinite crisis,--
+    Some feat of molecular force,
+  To solve me this riddle conducive
+    By no means to peace or repose,
+  Since the issue can scarce be inclusive
+                  Of Dora _and_ Rose.
+
+(AFTER-THOUGHT)
+
+  But perhaps if a third (say, a Norah),
+    Not quite so delightful as Rose,
+  Nor wholly so charming as Dora,
+    Should appear, is it wrong to suppose,--
+  As the claims of the others are equal,--
+    And flight--in the main--is the best,--
+  That I might ... But no matter,--the sequel
+                  Is easily guessed.
+
+
+
+UNE MARQUISE
+
+A RHYMED MONOLOGUE IN THE LOUVRE
+
+    "Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour."
+                                                        --MOLIÈRE.
+
+
+I
+
+  As you sit there at your ease,
+                      O Marquise!
+  And the men flock round your knees
+                      Thick as bees,
+  Mute at every word you utter,
+  Servants to your least frill-flutter,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  As you sit there, growing prouder,
+    And your ringed hands glance and go,
+  And your fan's _frou-frou_ sounds louder,
+    And your "_beaux yeux_" flash and glow;--
+  Ah, you used them on the Painter,
+                      As you know,
+  For the Sieur Larose spoke fainter,
+                      Bowing low,
+  Thanked Madame and Heaven for Mercy
+  That each sitter was not Circe,--
+    Or at least he told you so;
+  Growing proud, I say, and prouder
+    To the crowd that come and go,
+  Dainty Deity of Powder,
+    Fickle Queen of Fop and Beau,
+  As you sit where lustres strike you,
+                      Sure to please,
+  Do we love you most, or like you,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+II
+
+  You are fair; oh yes, we know it
+                      Well, Marquise;
+  For he swore it, your last poet,
+                      On his knees;
+  And he called all heaven to witness
+  Of his ballad and its fitness,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  You were everything in _ère_
+  (With exception of _sévère_),--
+  You were _cruelle_ and _rebelle_,
+  With the rest of rhymes as well;
+  You were "_Reine_" and "_Mère d' Amour_";
+    You were "_Vénus à Cythère_";
+  "_Sappho mise en Pompadour_,"
+    And "_Minerve en Paravère_";
+  You had every grace of heaven
+    In your most angelic face,
+  With the nameless finer leaven
+    Lent of blood and courtly race;
+  And he added, too, in duty,
+  Ninon's wit and Boufflers's beauty;
+  And La Valliere's _yeux veloutés_
+                      Followed these;
+  And you liked it, when he said it
+                      (On his knees),
+  And you kept it, and you read it,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+III
+
+  Yet with us your toilet graces
+                      Fail to please,
+  And the last of your last faces,
+                      And your _mise_;
+  For we hold you just as real,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  As your _Bergers_ and _Bergères_,
+    _Tes d' Amour_ and _Batelières_;
+  As your _pares_, and your Versailles,
+  Gardens, grottoes, and _socailles_;
+  As your Naiads and your trees;--
+  Just as near the old ideal
+                      Calm and ease,
+  As the Venus there by Coustou,
+    That a fan would make quite flighty,
+  Is to her the gods were used to,--
+    Is to grand Greek Aphroditè,
+                      Sprung from seas.
+  You are just a porcelain trifle,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Just a thing of puffs and patches
+  Made for madrigals and catches,
+  Not for heart wounds, but for scratches,
+                      O Marquise!
+  Just a pinky porcelain trifle,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Wrought in rarest _rose-Dubarry,_
+  Quick at verbal point and parry,
+  Clever, doubtless;--but to marry,
+                      No, Marquise!
+
+
+IV
+
+  For your Cupid, you have clipped him,
+  Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him,
+  And with _chapeau-bras_ equipped him,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Just to arm you through your wife-time,
+  And the languors of your lifetime,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Say, to trim your toilet tapers
+  Or--to twist your hair in papers,
+  Or--to wean you from the vapors;--
+                      As for these,
+  You are worth the love they give you,
+  Till a fairer face outlive you,
+    Or a younger grace shall please;
+  Till the coming of the crows'-feet,
+  And the backward turn of beaux' feet,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Till your frothed-out life's commotion
+  Settles down to Ennui's ocean,
+  Or a dainty sham devotion,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+V
+
+  No: we neither like nor love you,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Lesser lights we place above you,--
+    Milder merits better please.
+  We have passed from _Philosophe_-dom
+    Into plainer modern days,--
+  Grown contented in our oafdom,
+    Giving grace not all the praise;
+  And, _en partant, Arsinoé_,--
+  Without malice whatsoever,--
+  We shall counsel to our Chloë
+    To be rather good than clever;
+  For we find it hard to smother
+    Just one little thought, Marquise!
+  Wittier perhaps than any other,--
+  You were neither Wife nor Mother.
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+
+A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH
+
+OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
+
+
+  King Philip had vaunted his claims;
+    He had sworn for a year he would sack us;
+  With an army of heathenish names
+    He was coming to fagot and stack us;
+    Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,
+  And shatter our ships on the main;
+    But we had bold Neptune to back us,--
+  And where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+  His carackes were christened of dames
+    To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
+  With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
+    He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
+    Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,
+  And Drake to his Devon again,
+    And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,--
+  For where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+  Let his Majesty hang to St. James
+    The axe that he whetted to hack us:
+  He must play at some lustier games.
+    Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;
+    To his mines of Peru he would pack us
+  To tug at his bullet and chain;
+    Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!--
+  But where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+ENVOY
+
+    GLORIANA!--the Don may attack us
+  Whenever his stomach be fain;
+    He must reach us before he can rack us,...
+  And where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS DE LAMBALLE
+
+From 'Four Frenchwomen'
+
+
+A tender wife, a loving daughter, and a loyal friend,--shall we not
+here lay down upon the grave of Marie de Lamballe our reverential
+tribute, our little chaplet of _immortelles_, in the name of all good
+women, wives, and daughters?
+
+"_Elle était mieux femme que les autres._"[A] To us that apparently
+indefinite, exquisitely definite sentence most fitly marks the
+distinction between the subjects of the two preceding papers and the
+subject of the present. It is a transition from the stately figure of
+a marble Agrippina to the breathing, feeling woman at your side; it is
+the transition from the statuesque Rachelesque heroines of a David to
+the "small sweet idyl" of a Greuze. And, we confess it, we were not
+wholly at ease with those tragic, majestic figures. We shuddered at
+the dagger and the bowl which suited them so well. We marveled at
+their bloodless serenity, their superhuman self-sufficiency; inly we
+questioned if they breathed and felt. Or was their circulation a
+matter of machinery--a mere dead-beat escapement? We longed for the
+_sexe prononcé_ of Rivarol--we longed for the showman's "female
+woman!" We respected and we studied, but we did not love them. With
+Madame de Lamballe the case is otherwise. Not grand like this one, not
+heroic like that one, "_elle est mieux femme que les autres_."
+
+She at least is woman--after a fairer fashion--after a truer type. Not
+intellectually strong like Manon Philipon, not Spartan-souled like
+Marie de Corday, she has still a rare intelligence, a courage of
+affection. She has that _clairvoyance_ of the heart which supersedes
+all the stimulants of mottoes from Reynel or maxims from Rousseau; she
+has that "angel instinct" which is a juster lawgiver than Justinian.
+It was thought praise to say of the Girondist lady that she was a
+greater man than her husband; it is praise to say of this queen's
+friend that she was more woman than Madame Roland. Not so grand, not
+so great, we like the princess best. _Elle est mieux femme que les
+autres._
+
+    [A] She was more woman than the others.
+
+
+
+
+MARY MAPES DODGE
+
+(1840?-)
+
+[Illustration: MARY MAPES DODGE]
+
+
+To write a story which in thirty years should pass through more than a
+hundred editions, which should attain the apotheosis of an _edition de
+luxe_, which should be translated into at least four foreign
+languages, be allotted the Montyon prize of 1500 francs for moral as
+well as literary excellence, and be crowned by the French
+Academy--this is a piece of good fortune which falls to the lot of few
+story-tellers. The book which has deserved so well is 'Hans Brinker,
+or The Silver Skates,' a story of life in Holland. Its author, born in
+New York, is a daughter of Professor James Jay Mapes, an eminent
+chemist and inventor, an accomplished writer and brilliant talker.
+
+In a household where music, art, and literature were cultivated, and
+where the most agreeable society came, talents were not likely to be
+overlooked. Mrs. Dodge, very early widowed, began writing before she
+was twenty, publishing short stories, sketches, and poems in various
+periodicals. 'Hans Brinker' appeared in 1864,--her delight in Motley's
+histories and their appeal to her own Dutch blood inspiring her to
+write it. Of this book Mr. Frank R. Stockton says:--
+
+    "There are strong reasons why the fairest orange groves, the
+    loftiest mountain peaks, or the inspiriting waves of the
+    rolling sea, could not tempt average boys and girls from the
+    level stretches of the Dutch canals, until they had skated
+    through the sparkling story, warmed with a healthy glow.
+
+    "This is not only a tale of vivid description, interesting
+    and instructive; it is a romance. There are adventures,
+    startling and surprising, there are mysteries of buried gold,
+    there are the machinations of the wicked, there is the
+    heroism of the good, and the gay humor of happy souls. More
+    than these, there is love--that sentiment which glides into
+    a good story as naturally as into a human life; and whether
+    the story be for old or young, this element gives it an
+    ever-welcome charm. Strange fortune and good fortune come to
+    Hans and to Gretel, and to many other deserving characters in
+    the tale, but there is nothing selfish about these heroes and
+    heroines. As soon as a new generation of young people grows
+    up to be old enough to enjoy this perennial story, all these
+    characters return to the days of their youth, and are ready
+    to act their parts again to the very end, and to feel in
+    their own souls, as everybody else feels, that their story is
+    just as new and interesting as when it was first told."
+
+Besides this book, Mrs. Dodge has published several volumes of
+juvenile verse, such as 'Rhymes and Jingles,' and 'When Life was
+Young'; a volume of serious verse, 'Along the Way'; a volume of
+satirical and humorous sketches, 'Theophilus and Others'; a second
+successful story for young people, 'Donald and Dorothy,' and a
+number of other works. Her stories evince an unusual faculty of
+construction and marked inventiveness,--inherited perhaps from her
+father,--truthful characterization, literary feeling, a strong sense
+of humor, and a high ethical standard. Her whimsical character sketch,
+'Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question,' which has been reprinted
+thousands of times and repeated by every elocutionist in the land, is
+in its way as searching a satire as Bret Harte's 'Heathen Chinee.'
+
+Since its beginning in 1873, Mrs. Dodge has edited the St. Nicholas
+Magazine, whose pages bear witness to her enormous industry.
+
+
+
+THE RACE
+
+From 'Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates,' Copyright 1896, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons
+
+
+The 20th of December came at last, bringing with it the perfection of
+winter weather. All over the level landscape lay the warm sunlight. It
+tried its power on lake, canal, and river; but the ice flashed
+defiance, and showed no sign of melting. The very weathercocks stood
+still to enjoy the sight. This gave the windmills a holiday. Nearly
+all the past week they had been whirling briskly; now, being rather
+out of breath, they rocked lazily in the clear still air. Catch a
+windmill working when the weathercocks have nothing to do!
+
+There was an end to grinding, crushing, and sawing for that day. It
+was a good thing for the millers near Broek. Long before noon, they
+concluded to take in their sails and go to the race. Everybody would
+be there. Already the north side of the frozen Y was bordered with
+eager spectators; the news of the great skating-match had traveled far
+and wide. Men, women, and children, in holiday attire, were flocking
+toward the spot. Some wore furs and wintry cloaks or shawls; but
+many, consulting their feelings rather than the almanac, were dressed
+as for an October day.
+
+    [Illustration: _THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE._
+    Photogravure from a Painting by G. H. Boughton, A. R. A.]
+
+The site selected for the race was a faultless plain of ice near
+Amsterdam, on that great _arm_ of the Zuyder Zee, which Dutchmen of
+course must call the Eye. The townspeople turned out in large numbers.
+Strangers in the city deemed it a fine chance to see what was to be
+seen. Many a peasant from the northward had wisely chosen the 20th as
+the day for the next city-trading. It seemed that everybody, young and
+old, who had wheels, skates, or feet at command, had hastened to the
+scene.
+
+There were the gentry in their coaches, dressed like Parisians fresh
+from the Boulevards; Amsterdam children in charity uniforms; girls
+from the Roman Catholic Orphan House, in sable gowns and white
+head-bands; boys from the Burgher Asylum, with their black tights and
+short-skirted harlequin coats. There were old-fashioned gentlemen in
+cocked hats and velvet knee-breeches; old-fashioned ladies too, in
+stiff quilted skirts and bodices of dazzling brocade. These were
+accompanied by servants bearing foot-stoves and cloaks. There were the
+peasant folk, arrayed in every possible Dutch costume,--shy young
+rustics in brazen buckles; simple village maidens concealing their
+flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women whose long narrow aprons were
+stiff with embroidery; women with short corkscrew curls hanging over
+their foreheads; women with shaved heads and close-fitting caps, and
+women in striped skirts and windmill bonnets; men in leather, in
+homespun, in velvet and broadcloth; burghers in modern European
+attire, and burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and
+steeple-crowned hats.
+
+There were beautiful Friesland girls in wooden shoes and coarse
+petticoats, with solid gold crescents encircling their heads, finished
+at each temple with a golden rosette, and hung with lace a century
+old. Some wore necklaces, pendants, and earrings of the purest gold.
+Many were content with gilt, or even with brass; but it is not an
+uncommon thing for a Friesland woman to have all the family treasure
+in her headgear. More than one rustic lass displayed the value of two
+thousand guilders upon her head that day.
+
+Scattered throughout the crowd were peasants from the Island of
+Marken, with sabots, black stockings, and the widest of breeches; also
+women from Marken, with short blue petticoats, and black jackets gayly
+figured in front. They wore red sleeves, white aprons, and a cap like
+a bishop's mitre over their golden hair.
+
+The children often were as quaint and odd-looking as their elders. In
+short, one-third of the crowd seemed to have stepped bodily from a
+collection of Dutch paintings.
+
+Everywhere could be seen tall women and stumpy men, lively-faced
+girls, and youths whose expressions never changed from sunrise to
+sunset.
+
+There seemed to be at least one specimen from every known town in
+Holland. There were Utrecht water-bearers, Gouda cheese-makers, Delft
+pottery-men, Schiedam distillers, Amsterdam diamond-cutters, Rotterdam
+merchants, dried-up herring-packers, and two sleepy-eyed shepherds
+from Texel. Every man of them had his pipe and tobacco pouch. Some
+carried what might be called the smoker's complete outfit,--a pipe,
+tobacco, a pricker with which to clean the tube, a silver net for
+protecting the bowl, and a box of the strongest of brimstone matches.
+
+A true Dutchman, you must remember, is rarely without his pipe on any
+possible occasion. He may for a moment neglect to breathe; but when
+the pipe is forgotten, he must be dying indeed. There were no such sad
+cases here. Wreaths of smoke were rising from every possible quarter.
+The more fantastic the smoke-wreath, the more placid and solemn the
+smoker.
+
+Look at those boys and girls on stilts! That is a good idea. They can
+look over the heads of the tallest. It is strange to see those little
+bodies high in the air, carried about on mysterious legs. They have
+such a resolute look on their round faces, what wonder that nervous
+old gentlemen with tender feet wince and tremble while the long-legged
+little monsters stride past them!
+
+You will read in certain books that the Dutch are a quiet people. So
+they are, generally. But listen! did you ever hear such a din? All
+made up of human voices--no, the horses are helping somewhat, and the
+fiddles are squeaking pitifully; (how it must pain fiddles to be
+tuned!) but the mass of the sound comes from the great _vox humana_
+that belongs to a crowd.
+
+That queer little dwarf, going about with a heavy basket, winding in
+and out among the people, helps not a little. You can hear his shrill
+cry above all other sounds, "Pypen en tabac! Pypen en tabac!"
+
+Another, his big brother, though evidently some years younger, is
+selling doughnuts and bonbons. He is calling on all pretty children,
+far and near, to come quickly or the cakes will be gone.
+
+You know quite a number among the spectators. High up in yonder
+pavilion, erected upon the border of the ice, are some persons whom
+you have seen very lately. In the centre is Madame Van Gleck. It is
+her birthday, you remember; she has the post of honor. There is
+Mynheer Van Gleck, whose meerschaum has not really grown fast to his
+lips; it only appears so. There are Grandfather and Grandmother, whom
+you met at the St. Nicholas fête. All the children are with them. It
+is so mild, they have brought even the baby. The poor little creature
+is swaddled very much after the manner of an Egyptian mummy; but it
+can crow with delight, and when the band is playing, open and shut its
+animated mittens in perfect time to the music.
+
+Grandfather, with his pipe and spectacles and fur cap, makes quite a
+picture as he holds Baby upon his knee. Perched high upon their
+canopied platforms, the party can see all that is going on. No wonder
+the ladies look complacently at the glassy ice; with a stove for a
+footstool, one might sit cosily beside the North Pole.
+
+There is a gentleman with them, who somewhat resembles St. Nicholas as
+he appeared to the young Van Glecks on the fifth of December. But the
+Saint had a flowing white beard, and this face is as smooth as a
+pippin. His Saintship was larger round the body too, and (between
+ourselves) he had a pair of thimbles in his mouth, which this
+gentleman certainly has not. It cannot be St. Nicholas, after all.
+
+Near by in the next pavilion sit the Van Holps, with their son and
+daughter (the Van Gends) from The Hague. Peter's sister is not one to
+forget her promises. She has brought bouquets of exquisite hot-house
+flowers for the winners.
+
+These pavilions,--and there are others beside,--have all been erected
+since daylight. That semicircular one, containing Mynheer Korbes's
+family, is very pretty, and proves that the Hollanders are quite
+skilled at tentmaking; but I like the Van Glecks' best,--the centre
+one, striped red and white, and hung with evergreens.
+
+The one with the blue flags contains the musicians. Those pagoda-like
+affairs, decked with sea-shells and streamers of every possible hue,
+are the judges' stands; and those columns and flagstaffs upon the ice
+mark the limit of the race-course. The two white columns twined with
+green, connected at the top by that long floating strip of drapery,
+form the starting point. Those flagstaffs, half a mile off, stand at
+each end of the boundary line, cut sufficiently deep to be distinct to
+the skaters, though not deep enough to trip them when they turn to
+come back to the starting-point.
+
+The air is so clear, it seems scarcely possible that the columns and
+flagstaffs are so far apart. Of course the judges' stands are but
+little nearer together. Half a mile on the ice, when the atmosphere is
+like this, is but a short distance after all, especially when fenced
+with a living chain of spectators.
+
+The music has commenced. How melody seems to enjoy itself in the open
+air! The fiddles have forgotten their agony, and everything is
+harmonious. Until you look at the blue tent, it seems that the music
+springs from the sunshine, it is so boundless, so joyous. Only the
+musicians are solemn.
+
+Where are the racers? All assembled together near the white columns.
+It is a beautiful sight,--forty boys and girls in picturesque attire,
+darting with electric swiftness in and out among each other, or
+sailing in pairs and triplets, beckoning, chatting, whispering, in the
+fullness of youthful glee.
+
+A few careful ones are soberly tightening their straps; others,
+halting on one leg, with flushed eager faces, suddenly cross the
+suspected skate over their knee, give it an examining shake, and dart
+off again. One and all are possessed with the spirit of motion. They
+cannot stand still. Their skates are a part of them, and every runner
+seems bewitched.
+
+Holland is the place for skaters, after all. Where else can nearly
+every boy and girl perform feats on the ice that would attract a crowd
+if seen on Central Park? Look at Ben! I did not see him before. He is
+really astonishing the natives; no easy thing to do in the
+Netherlands. Save your strength, Ben; you will need it soon. Now other
+boys are trying! Ben is surpassed already. Such jumping, such poising,
+such spinning, such india-rubber exploits generally! That boy with a
+red cap is the lion now; his back is a watch-spring, his body is
+cork--no, it is iron, or it would snap at that. He is a bird, a top, a
+rabbit, a corkscrew, a sprite, a flesh-ball, all in an instant. When
+you think he is erect, he is down; and when you think he is down, he
+is up. He drops his glove on the ice, and turns a somerset as he picks
+it up. Without stopping, he snatches the cap from Jacob Poot's
+astonished head, and claps it back again "hind side before."
+Lookers-on hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is arctic weather under
+your feet, but more than temperate overhead. Big drops already are
+rolling down your forehead. Superb skater as you are, you may lose the
+race.
+
+A French traveler, standing with a notebook in his hand, sees our
+English friend Ben buy a doughnut of the dwarf's brother, and eat it.
+Thereupon he writes in his note-book that the Dutch take enormous
+mouthfuls, and universally are fond of potatoes boiled in molasses.
+
+There are some familiar faces near the white columns. Lambert, Ludwig,
+Peter, and Carl are all there, cool, and in good skating order. Hans
+is not far off. Evidently he is going to join in the race, for his
+skates are on,--the very pair that he sold for seven guilders. He had
+soon suspected that his fairy godmother was the mysterious "friend"
+who bought them. This settled, he had boldly charged her with the
+deed; and she, knowing well that all her little savings had been spent
+in the purchase, had not had the face to deny it. Through the fairy
+god-mother, too, he had been rendered amply able to buy them back
+again. Therefore Hans is to be in the race. Carl is more indignant
+than ever about it; but as three other peasant boys have entered, Hans
+is not alone.
+
+Twenty boys and twenty girls. The latter by this time are standing in
+front, braced for the start; for they are to have the first "run."
+Hilda, Rychie, and Katrinka are among them. Two or three bend hastily
+to give a last pull at their skate-straps. It is pretty to see them
+stamp, to be sure that all is firm. Hilda is speaking pleasantly to a
+graceful little creature in a red jacket and a new brown petticoat.
+Why, it is Gretel! What a difference those pretty shoes make; and the
+skirt and the new cap! Annie Bouman is there too. Even Janzoon Kolp's
+sister has been admitted; but Janzoon himself has been voted out by
+the directors because he killed the stork, and only last summer was
+caught in the act of robbing a bird's nest,--a legal offense in
+Holland.
+
+This Janzoon Kolp, you see, was--There, I cannot tell the story just
+now. The race is about to commence.
+
+Twenty girls are formed in a line. The music has ceased.
+
+A man whom we shall call the crier stands between the columns and the
+first judges' stand. He reads the rules in a loud voice:--
+
+     "_The girls and boys are to race in turn, until one girl and
+     one boy have beaten twice. They are to start in a line from
+     the united columns, skate to the flagstaff line, turn, and
+     then come back to the starting-point; thus making a mile at
+     each run._"
+
+A flag is waved from the judges' stand. Madame Van Gleck rises in her
+pavilion. She leans forward with a white handkerchief in her hand.
+When she drops it, a bugler is to give the signal for them to start.
+
+The handkerchief is fluttering to the ground. Hark!
+
+They are off!
+
+No. Back again. Their line was not true in passing the judges' stand.
+
+The signal is repeated.
+
+Off again. No mistake this time. Whew! how fast they go!
+
+The multitude is quiet for an instant, absorbed in eager, breathless
+watching.
+
+Cheers spring up along the line of spectators. Huzza! five girls are
+ahead. Who comes flying back from the boundary mark? We cannot tell.
+Something red, that is all. There is a blue spot flitting near it, and
+a dash of yellow nearer still. Spectators at this end of the line
+strain their eyes, and wish they had taken their post nearer the
+flagstaff.
+
+The wave of cheers is coming back again. Now we can see. Katrinka is
+ahead!
+
+She passes the Van Holp pavilion. The next is Madame Van Gleck's. That
+leaning figure gazing from it is a magnet. Hilda shoots past Katrinka,
+waving her hand to her mother as she passes. Two others are close now,
+whizzing on like arrows. What is that flash of red and gray? Hurrah,
+it is Gretel! She too waves her hand, but toward no gay pavilion. The
+crowd is cheering; but she hears only her father's voice, "Well done,
+little Gretel!" Soon Katrinka, with a quick merry laugh, shoots past
+Hilda. The girl in yellow is gaining now. She passes them all,--all
+except Gretel. The judges lean forward without seeming to lift their
+eyes from their watches. Cheer after cheer fills the air; the very
+columns seem rocking. Gretel has passed them. She has won.
+
+"GRETEL BRINKER, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.
+
+The judges nod. They write something upon a tablet which each holds in
+his hand.
+
+While the girls are resting,--some crowding eagerly around our
+frightened little Gretel, some standing aside in high disdain,--the
+boys form in a line.
+
+Mynheer Van Gleck drops the handkerchief this time. The buglers give a
+vigorous blast. Off start the boys!
+
+Half-way already. Did ever you see the like!
+
+Three hundred legs flashing by in an instant. But there are only
+twenty boys. No matter; there were hundreds of legs, I am sure. Where
+are they now? There is such a noise one gets bewildered. What are the
+people laughing at? Oh! at that fat boy in the rear. See him go! See
+him! He'll be down in an instant; no, he won't. I wonder if he knows
+he is all alone: the other boys are nearly at the boundary line. Yes,
+he knows it. He stops. He wipes his hot face. He takes off his cap,
+and looks about him. Better to give up with a good grace. He has made
+a hundred friends by that hearty, astonished laugh. Good Jacob Poot!
+
+The fine fellow is already among the spectators, gazing as eagerly as
+the rest.
+
+A cloud of feathery ice flies from the heels of the skaters as they
+"bring to," and turn at the flagstaffs.
+
+Something black is coming now,--one of the boys: it is all we know. He
+has touched the _vox humana_ stop of the crowd; it fairly roars. Now
+they come nearer; we can see the red cap. There's Ben, there's Peter,
+there's Hans!
+
+Hans is ahead. Young Madame Van Gend almost crushes the flowers in her
+hand: she had been quite sure that Peter would be first. Carl Schummel
+is next, then Ben, and the youth with the red cap. The others are
+pressing close. A tall figure darts from among them. He passes the red
+cap, he passes Ben, then Carl. Now it is an even race between him and
+Hans. Madame Van Gend catches her breath.
+
+It is Peter! He is ahead! Hans shoots past him. Hilda's eyes fill with
+tears: Peter _must_ beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly. Gretel gazes
+with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her brother to the
+columns.
+
+He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second before. At
+the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had whizzed between
+them, and passed the goal.
+
+"CARL SCHUMMEL, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.
+
+Soon Madame Van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief starts the
+bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring, shoots off
+twenty girls like so many arrows.
+
+It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before we can
+fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance. This time they
+are close upon one another. It is hard to say, as they come speeding
+back from the flagstaff, which will reach the columns first. There are
+new faces among the foremost,--eager glowing faces, unnoticed before.
+Katrinka is there, and Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear.
+Gretel is wavering, but when Rychie passes her she starts forward
+afresh. Now they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in
+advance: she is almost "home." She has not faltered since that bugle
+note sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding toward the
+goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent, but his
+eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza!"
+
+The crier's voice is heard again.
+
+"HILDA VAN GLECK, ONE MILE!"
+
+A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching the music
+in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad rhythmic
+throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves all is still.
+
+Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the boys like
+chaff before the wind,--dark chaff, I admit, and in big pieces.
+
+It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the cheers
+and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming. There are
+three boys in advance this time, and all abreast,--Hans, Peter, and
+Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff.
+Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl beat again!--Carl the bitter,
+Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging, but you are as strong as
+ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans; which is foremost? We love them
+both. We scarcely care which is the fleeter.
+
+Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench, can
+remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so different! and
+yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats herself: none shall know
+how interested she is; none shall know how anxious, how filled with
+one hope. Shut your eyes then, Hilda, hide your face rippling with
+joy. Peter has beaten.
+
+"PETER VAN HOLP, ONE MILE!" calls the crier.
+
+The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take notes,
+the same throbbing of music through the din; but something is
+different. A little crowd presses close about some object near the
+column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though somewhat stunned. If
+he were less sullen, he would find more sympathy in these warm young
+hearts. As it is, they forget him as soon as he is fairly on his feet
+again.
+
+The girls are to skate their third mile.
+
+How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line! Some
+are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a smile, half
+bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination pervades them
+all.
+
+This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel nor
+Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the silver skates.
+
+Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the distance
+in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their runners! How
+nervously they examine each strap! How erect they stand at last, every
+eye upon Madame Van Gleck!
+
+The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eagerness they
+spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each flashing stroke
+seems longer than the last.
+
+Now they are skimming off in the distance.
+
+Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and cheering;
+again the thrill of excitement, as after a few moments, four or five
+in advance of the rest come speeding back, nearer, nearer to the white
+columns.
+
+Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor the girl in
+yellow, but Gretel,--Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a girl that ever
+skated. She was but playing in the earlier race: _now_ she is in
+earnest, or rather, something within her has determined to win. That
+blithe little form makes no effort; but it cannot stop,--not until the
+goal is passed!
+
+In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has no news
+to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,--_Gretel has won the
+silver skates!_
+
+Like a bird she has flown over the ice; like a bird she looks about
+her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the sheltered nook
+where her father and mother stand. But Hans is beside her; the girls
+are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous voice breathes in her ear.
+From that hour none will despise her. Goose-girl or not, Gretel stands
+acknowledged Queen of the Skaters.
+
+With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter Van Holp is witnessing
+his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward them at all. He is
+kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and working hastily at his
+skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.
+
+"Are you in trouble, mynheer?"
+
+"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes; my fun is over. I tried to tighten my strap
+to make a new hole, and this botheration of a knife has cut it nearly
+in two."
+
+"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate, "you must
+use my strap!"
+
+"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker!" cried Peter, looking up; "though I
+thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the bugle will sound in
+a minute."
+
+"Mynheer," pleaded Hans in a husky voice, "you have called me your
+friend. Take this strap--quick! There is not an instant to lose. I
+shall not skate this time: indeed, I am out of practice. Mynheer, you
+_must_ take it;" and Hans, blind and deaf to any remonstrance, slipped
+his strap into Peter's skate, and implored him to put it on.
+
+"Come, Peter!" cried Lambert from the line: "we are waiting for you."
+
+"For Madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is motioning to you
+to join the racers. There, the skate is almost on: quick, mynheer,
+fasten it. I could not possibly win. The race lies between Master
+Schummel and yourself."
+
+"You are a noble fellow, Hans!" cried Peter, yielding at last. He
+sprang to his post just as the handkerchief fell to the ground. The
+bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and ringing.
+
+Off go the boys!
+
+"Mein Gott!" cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They beat
+everything, these Amsterdam youngsters. See them!"
+
+See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of them. What
+mad errand are they on? Ah, I know; they are hunting Peter Van Holp.
+He is some fleet-footed runaway from Olympus. Mercury and his troop of
+winged cousins are in full chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the
+runaway. The pursuit grows furious. Ben is foremost!
+
+The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way. Who is
+hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter Van Holp! Fly, Peter!
+Hans is watching you. He is sending all his fleetness, all his
+strength, into your feet. Your mother and sister are pale with
+eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not look up, Fly, Peter! The
+crowd has not gone deranged; it is only cheering. The pursuers are
+close upon you. Touch the white column! It beckons; it is reeling
+before you--it--
+
+"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!"
+
+"PETER VAN HOLP!" shouted the crier. But who heard him? "Peter Van
+Holp!" shouted a hundred voices; for he was the favorite boy of the
+place. "Huzza! Huzza!"
+
+Now the music was resolved to be heard. It struck up a lively air,
+then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking something new was
+about to happen, deigned to listen and to look.
+
+The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood first.
+Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end. Hans, who had
+borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near the head.
+
+Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the river,
+facing the Van Gleck pavilion.
+
+Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys and girls
+moved forward, led on by Peter, It was beautiful to see the bright
+procession glide along like a living creature. It curved and doubled,
+and drew its graceful length in and out among the arches; whichever
+way Peter, the head, went, the body was sure to follow. Sometimes it
+steered direct for the centre arch; then, as if seized with a new
+impulse, turned away and curled itself about the first one; then
+unwound slowly, and bending low, with quick snake-like curvings,
+crossed the river, passing at length through the farthest arch.
+
+When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl like a thing
+afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted forward with a
+spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and out, curling,
+twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the shrill call of the
+bugle rising above the music it suddenly resolved itself into boys and
+girls, standing in double semicircle before Madame Van Gleck's
+pavilion.
+
+Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others. Madame
+Van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels that she
+must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what is said, there
+is such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking that she ought to
+try and make a courtesy, such as her mother makes to the _meester_,
+when suddenly something so dazzling is placed in her hand that she
+gives a cry of joy.
+
+Then she ventures to look about her. Peter too has something in his
+hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid!" she cries; and "Oh! how splendid!" is
+echoed as far as people can see.
+
+Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing dashes of
+light upon those two happy faces.
+
+"Mevrouw Van Gend sends a little messenger with her bouquets,--one for
+Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and Gretel."
+
+At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes
+uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers skates
+and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and darts off to
+search for her father and mother in the scattering crowd.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN DONNE
+
+(1573-1631)
+
+[Illustration: JOHN DONNE]
+
+
+"The memory of Dr. Donne must not, cannot die, as long as men speak
+English," wrote Izaak Walton, "whilst his conversation made him and
+others happy. His life ought to be the example of more than that age
+in which he died."
+
+Born in 1573, all the influences of the age in which Donne lived
+nourished his large nature and genius. Shakespeare and Marlowe were
+nine years older than he; Chapman fourteen; Spenser, Lyly, and Richard
+Hooker each twenty; while Sir Philip Sidney counted one year less.
+Lodge and Puttenham were grown men, and Greene and Nash riotous boys.
+In the following year Ben Jonson "came forth to warm our ears," and
+soon after we have his future co-worker Inigo Jones. It was the time
+of a multitude of poets,--Drayton, the Fletchers, Beaumont, Wither,
+Herrick, Carew, Suckling, and others. Imagination was foremost, and
+was stimulated by vast discoveries. Debates upon ecclesiastical
+reform, led by Wyclif, Tyndal, Knox, Foxe, Sternhold, Hopkins, and
+others, had prepared the way; and the luminous literatures of Greece
+and Italy, but recently brought into England, had made men's spirits
+receptive and creative. It was a period of vast conceptions, when men
+discovered themselves and the world afresh.
+
+Under such outward conditions Donne was born, in London, "of good and
+virtuous parents," says Walton, being descended on his mother's side
+from no less distinguished a personage than Sir Thomas More. In 1584,
+when he was eleven years old, with a good command both of French and
+Latin, he passed from the hands of tutors at home to Hare Hall, a much
+frequented college at Oxford. Here he formed a friendship with Henry
+Wotton, who, after the poet's death, collected the material from which
+Walton wrote his tender and sincere 'Life of Donne.'
+
+After leaving Oxford he traveled for three years on the Continent, and
+on his return in 1592 became a member of Lincoln's Inn, with intent to
+study law; but his law never, says Walton, "served him for other use
+than an ornament and self-satisfaction." While a member of Lincoln's
+Inn he became one of the coterie of the poets of his youth. To this
+time are to be referred those of his 'Divine Poems' which show him a
+sincere Catholic. Stirred by the increasing differences between the
+Romanist and the Anglican denominations, Donne turned toward
+theological questions, and finally cast his lot with the new
+doctrines. His large nature, impetuously reacting from the asceticism
+to which he had been bred, turned to excess and overboldness in
+action, and an occasional coarseness of phrasing in his poems.
+
+The first of his famous 'Satires' are dated 1593, and all were
+probably written before 1601. During this time also he squandered his
+father's legacy of £3000. In 1596, when the Earl of Essex defeated the
+Spanish navy and pillaged Cadiz, Donne, now one of the first poets of
+the time, was among his followers. "Not long after his return into
+England ... the Lord Ellesmere, the Keeper of the Great Seal,...
+taking notice of his learning, languages, and other abilities, and
+much affecting his person and behavior, took him to be his chief
+secretary, supposing and intending it to be an introduction to some
+weighty employment in the State;... and did always use him with much
+courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table." Here he met the
+niece of Lady Ellesmere,--the daughter of Sir George More, Lord
+Lieutenant of the Tower,--whom at Christmas, 1600, he married, despite
+the opposition of her father. Sir George, transported with wrath,
+obtained Donne's imprisonment; but the poet finally regained his
+liberty and his wife, Sir George in the end forgiving the young
+couple. "Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part spent in many
+chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience, he [being] out
+of all employment that might yield a support for himself and wife."
+The depth and intensity of Donne's feeling for this beautiful and
+accomplished woman are manifested, says Mr. Norton, in all the poems
+known to be addressed to her, such as 'The Anniversary' and 'The
+Token.'
+
+Of 'The Valediction Forbidding Mourning' Walton declares:--"I beg
+leave to tell that I have heard some critics, learned both in
+languages and poetry, say that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
+ever equal them;" while from Lowell's unpublished 'Lecture on Poetic
+Diction' Professor Norton quotes the opinion that "This poem is a
+truly sacred one, and fuller of the soul of poetry than a whole
+Alexandrian Library of common love verses."
+
+During this period of writing for court favors, Donne wrote many of
+his sonnets and studied the civil and canon law. After the death of
+his patron Sir Francis in 1606, Donne divided his time between
+Mitcham, whither he had removed his family, and London, where he
+frequented distinguished and fashionable drawing-rooms. At this time
+he wrote his admirable epistles in verse, 'The Litany,' and funeral
+elegies on Lady Markham and Mistress Bulstrode; but those poems are
+merely "occasional," as he was not a poet by profession. At the
+request of King James he wrote the 'Pseudo-Martyr,' published in 1610.
+In 1611 appeared his funeral elegy 'An Anatomy of the World,' and one
+year later another of like texture, 'On the Progress of the Soul,'
+both poems being exalted and elaborate in thought and fancy.
+
+The King, desiring Donne to enter into the ministry, denied all
+requests for secular preferment, and the unwilling poet deferred his
+decision for almost three years. All that time he studied textual
+divinity, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained about the beginning of
+1615. The King made him his chaplain in ordinary, and promised other
+preferments. "Now," says Walton, "the English Church had gained a
+second St. Austin, for I think none was so like him before his
+conversion, none so like St. Ambrose after it; and if his youth had
+the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellences of the other,
+the learning and holiness of both."
+
+In 1621 the King made him Dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St. Dunstan
+in the West. By these and other ecclesiastical emoluments "he was
+enabled to become charitable to the poor and kind to his friends, and
+to make such provision for his children that they were not left
+scandalous, as relating to their or his profession or quality."
+
+His first printed sermons appeared in 1622. The epigrammatic terseness
+and unexpected turns of imagination which characterize the poems, are
+found also in his discourses. Three years later, during a dangerous
+illness, he composed his 'Devotion.' He died on the 31st of March,
+1631.
+
+"Donne is full of salient verses," says Lowell in his 'Shakespeare
+Once More,' "that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with
+their beauty; of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and then
+delight us with the felicity of their solution." There are few in
+which an occasional loftiness is sustained throughout, but this
+occasional excellence is original, condensed, witty, showing a firm
+and strong mind, clear to a degree almost un-English. His poetry has
+somewhat of the stability of the Greeks, though it may lack their
+sweetness and art. His grossness was the heritage of his time. He is
+classed among the "metaphysical poets," of whom Dr. Johnson
+wrote:--"They were of very little care to clothe their notions with
+elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which
+are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to
+adorn their thoughts." It was in obedience to such a dictum, and to
+Dryden's suggestion, doubtless, that Pope and Parnell recast and
+re-versified the 'Satires.'
+
+The first edition of Donne's poems appeared two years after his death.
+Several editions succeeded during the seventeenth century. In the more
+artificial eighteenth century his harsh and abrupt versification and
+remote theorems made him difficult to understand. The best editions
+are 'The Complete Poems of John Donne,' edited by Dr. Alexander
+Grosart (1872); and 'The Poems of John Donne,' from the text of the
+edition of 1633, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895), from whose
+work the citations in this volume are taken.
+
+
+
+THE UNDERTAKING
+
+
+  I have done one braver thing
+    Than all the Worthies did,
+  And yet a braver thence doth spring,
+    Which is, to keep that hid.
+
+  It were but madness now t' impart
+    The skill of specular stone,
+  When he which can have learned the art
+    To cut it, can find none.
+
+  So, if I now should utter this,
+    Others (because no more
+  Such stuff to work upon there is)
+    Would love but as before:
+
+  But he who loveliness within
+    Hath found, all outward loathes;
+  For he who color loves, and skin,
+    Loves but their oldest clothes.
+
+  If, as I have, you also do
+    Virtue attired in women see,
+  And dare love that and say so too,
+    And forget the He and She;
+
+  And if this love, though placed so,
+    From profane men you hide,
+  Which will no faith on this bestow,
+    Or, if they do, deride;
+
+  Then you have done a braver thing
+    Than all the Worthies did,
+  And a braver thence will spring,
+    Which is, to keep that hid.
+
+
+
+A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
+
+
+  As virtuous men pass mildly away,
+    And whisper to their souls to go,
+  Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
+    "The breath goes now," and some say "No";
+
+  So let us melt and make no noise,
+    No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
+  'Twere profanation of our joys
+    To tell the laity our love.
+
+  Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
+    Men reckon what it did and meant;
+  But trepidation of the spheres,
+    Though greater far, is innocent.
+
+  Dull sublunary lovers' love
+    (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
+  Absence, because it doth remove
+    Those things which elemented it.
+
+  But we by a love so much refined
+    That ourselves know not what it is,
+  Inter-assurèd of the mind,
+    Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.
+
+  Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
+    Though I must go, endure not yet
+  A breach, but an expansiòn,
+    Like gold to airy thinness beat.
+
+  If they be two, they are two so
+    As stiff twin compasses are two;
+  Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
+    To move, but doth if the other do,
+
+  And though it in the centre sit,
+    Yet when the other far doth roam,
+  It leans and hearkens after it,
+    And grows erect as that comes home.
+
+  Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
+    Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
+  Thy firmness makes my circle just,
+    And makes me end where I begun.
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+  Go and catch a falling star,
+    Get with child a mandrake root,
+  Tell me where all past years are,
+    Or who cleft the devil's foot,
+  Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
+  Or to keep off envy's stinging,
+              And find
+              What wind
+  Serves to advance an honest mind.
+
+  If thou be'st born to strange sights,
+    Things invisible to see,
+  Ride ten thousand days and nights,
+    Till age snow white hairs on thee,
+  Then, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
+  All strange wonders that befell thee,
+              And swear,
+              Nowhere
+  Lives a woman true and fair.
+
+  If thou find'st one, let me know;
+    Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
+  Yet do not: I would not go,
+    Though at next door we might meet;
+  Though she were true when you met her,
+  And last till you write your letter,
+              Yet she
+              Will be
+  False, ere I come, to two or three.
+
+
+
+LOVE'S GROWTH
+
+
+  I scarce believe my love to be so pure
+            As I had thought it was,
+            Because it doth endure
+  Vicissitude and season as the grass;
+  Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
+  My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
+  But if this medicine love, which cures all sorrow
+    With more, not only be no quintessence
+    But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
+  And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
+  Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
+  To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
+  But as all else, being elemented too,
+  Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
+
+  And yet no greater, but more eminent,
+            Love by the spring is grown;
+            As in the firmament
+  Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
+  Gentle love-deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
+  From love's awakened root do bud out now.
+  If, as in water stirred, more circles be
+    Produced by one, love such additions take,
+    Thou, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
+  For they are all concentric unto thee;
+  And though each spring do add to love new heat,
+  As princes do in times of action get
+  New taxes and remit them not in peace,
+  No winter shall abate the spring's increase.
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+  Sweetest Love, I do not go
+    For weariness of thee,
+  Nor in hope the world can show
+    A fitter Love for me:
+      But since that I
+  Must die at last, 'tis best
+  To use myself in jest
+    Thus by feigned deaths to die.
+
+  Yesternight the sun went hence,
+    And yet is here to-day;
+  He hath no desire nor sense,
+    Nor half so short a way.
+      Then fear not me,
+  But believe that I shall make
+  Speedier journeys, since I take
+    More wings and spurs than he.
+
+  Oh, how feeble is man's power,
+    That, if good fortune fall,
+  Cannot add another hour,
+    Nor a lost hour recall!
+      But come bad chance,
+  And we join to it our strength,
+  And we teach it art and length,
+    Itself o'er us to advance.
+
+  When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
+    But sigh'st my soul away;
+  When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
+    My life's blood doth decay.
+        It cannot be
+  That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,
+  If in thine my life thou waste;
+    Thou art the best of me.
+
+  Let not thy divining heart
+    Forethink me any ill;
+  Destiny may take thy part,
+    And may thy fears fulfill:
+      But think that we
+  Are but turned aside to sleep:
+  They who one another keep
+    Alive, ne'er parted be.
+
+
+
+
+FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY
+
+(1821-1881)
+
+BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
+
+[Illustration: FEODOR DOSTOÉVSKY]
+
+
+In certain respects Dostoévsky is the most characteristically national
+of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his work does not
+appeal to so wide a circle outside of his own country as does the work
+of Turgénieff and Count L.N. Tolstoy. This result flows not only from
+the natural bent of his mind and temperament, but also from the
+peculiar vicissitudes of his life as compared with the comparatively
+even tenor of their existence, and the circumstances of the time in
+which he lived. These circumstances, it is true, were felt by the
+writers mentioned; but practically they affected him far more deeply
+than they did the others, with their rather one-sided training; and
+his fellow-countrymen--especially the young of both sexes--were not
+slow to express their appreciation of the fact. His special domain was
+the one which Turgénieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and have
+touched not at all, or only incidentally,--the great middle class of
+society, or what corresponds thereto in Russia.
+
+Through his father, Mikhail Andréevitch Dostoévsky, Feodor
+Mikhailovitch belonged to the class of "nobles,"--that is to say, to
+the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable, well-to-do
+merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and was even
+more so during the first half of the present century; and in personal
+appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. The father
+was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in Moscow,
+having entered the civil service at the end of the war of 1812, during
+which he had served as a physician in the army. In the very contracted
+apartment which he occupied in the hospital, Feodor was born--one of a
+family of seven children, all of whom, with the exception of the
+eldest and the youngest, were born there--on October 30th (November
+11th), 1821. The parents were very upright, well-educated, devoutly
+religious people; and as Feodor expressed it many years later to his
+elder brother, after their father died, "Do you know, our parents
+were very superior people, and they would have been superior even in
+these days." The children were brought up at home as long as possible,
+and received their instruction from tutors and their father. Even
+after the necessity of preparing the two elder boys for a government
+institution forced the parents to send them to a boarding-school
+during the week, they continued their strict supervision over their
+associates, discouraged nearly all friendships with their comrades,
+and never allowed them to go into the street unaccompanied, after the
+national custom in good families, even at the age of seventeen or
+more.
+
+Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives, was
+always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother Mikhail
+spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott and James
+Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors; though Russian
+writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. During many of these
+years the mother and children passed the summers on a little estate in
+the country which the father bought, and it was there that Feodor
+Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with the beauties of nature, to
+which he eloquently refers in after life, and especially with the
+peasants, their feelings and temper, which greatly helped him in his
+psychological studies and in his ability to endure certain trials
+which came upon him. There can be no doubt that his whole training
+contributed not only to the literary tastes which the famous author
+and his brother cherished throughout their lives, but to the formation
+of that friendship between them which was stronger than all others,
+and to the sincere belief in religion and the profound piety which
+permeated the spirit and the books of Feodor Mikhailovitch.
+
+In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest sons to
+St. Petersburg to enter them in the government School of Engineers.
+But the healthy Mikhail was pronounced consumptive by the doctor,
+while the sickly Feodor was given a certificate of perfect health.
+Consequently Mikhail was rejected, and went to the Engineers' School
+in Revel, while Feodor, always quiet and reserved, was left lonely in
+the St. Petersburg school. Here he remained for three years, studying
+well, but devoting a great deal of time to his passionately beloved
+literary subjects, and developing a precocious and penetrating
+critical judgment on such matters. It is even affirmed that he began
+or wrote the first draft of his famous book 'Poor People,' by night,
+during this period; though in another account he places its
+composition later. After graduating well as ensign in 1841, he studied
+for another year, and became an officer with the rank of
+sub-lieutenant, and entered on active service, attached to the
+draughting department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.
+
+A little more than a year later he resigned from the service, in order
+that he might devote himself wholly to literature. His father had died
+in the mean time, and had he possessed any practical talent he might
+have lived in comfort on the sums which his guardian sent him. But
+throughout his life people seemed to fleece him at will; he lost large
+sums at billiards with strangers, and otherwise; he was generous and
+careless; in short, he was to the end nearly always in debt, anxiety,
+and difficulties. Then came the first important crisis in his life. He
+wrote (or re-wrote) 'Poor People'; and said of his state of mind, as
+he reckoned up the possible pecuniary results, that he could not sleep
+for nights together, and "If my undertaking does not succeed, perhaps
+I shall hang myself." The history of that success is famous and
+stirring. His only acquaintance in literary circles was his old
+comrade D.V. Grigorovitch (also well known as a writer), and to him he
+committed the manuscript. His friend took it to the poet and editor
+Nekrásoff, in the hope that it might appear in the 'Collection' which
+the latter was intending to publish. Dostoévsky was especially afraid
+of the noted critic Byelinsky's judgment on it: "He will laugh at my
+'Poor People,'" said he; "but I wrote it with passion, almost with
+tears."
+
+He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the
+fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four
+o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early
+summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell rang,
+and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekrásoff, who flung themselves upon
+his neck. They had begun to read his story in the evening, remarking
+that "ten pages would suffice to show its quality." But they had gone
+on reading, relieving each other as their voices failed them with
+fatigue and emotion, until the whole was finished. At the point where
+Pokrovsky's old father runs after his coffin, Nekrásoff pounded the
+table with the manuscript, deeply affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take
+him!" Then they decide to hasten to Dostoévsky: "No matter if he is
+asleep--we will wake him up. _This_ is above sleep."
+
+This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed sort
+which Dostoévsky had longed for. When Nekrásoff went to Byelinsky with
+the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A new Gogol has made
+his appearance!" the critic retorted with severity, "Gogols spring up
+like mushrooms among us." But when he had read the story he said,
+"Bring him hither, bring him quickly;" and welcomed Dostoévsky when he
+came, with extreme dignity and reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do
+you understand yourself what sort of a thing this is that you have
+written?" From that moment the young author's fame was assured, and he
+became known and popular even in advance of publication in a wide
+circle of literary and other people, as was the fashion of those days
+in Russia. When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the
+judgment of the critics.
+
+The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dostoévsky
+was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence upon
+Dostoévsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Byelinsky
+was an atheist and a socialist, and Dostoévsky was brought into
+relations with persons who shared those views, although he himself
+never wavered, apparently, in his religious faith, and was never in
+harmony with any other aspirations of his associates except that of
+freeing the serfs. Notwithstanding this, he became involved in the
+catastrophe which overtook many visitors, occasional or constant, of
+the "circles" at whose head stood Petrashevsky. The whole affair is
+known as the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky. During the '40's the students
+at the St. Petersburg University formed small gatherings where
+sociological subjects were the objects of study, and read the works of
+Stein, Haxthausen, Louis Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon, and other similar
+writers. Gradually assemblies of this sort were formed outside of the
+University. Petrashevsky, an employee of the Department of Foreign
+Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and the University, and who
+was ambitious of winning power and a reputation for eccentricity,
+learned of these little clubs and encouraged their growth. He did not
+however encourage their close association among themselves, but
+rather, entire dependence on himself, as the centre of authority, the
+guide; and urged them to inaugurate a sort of propaganda. Dostoévsky
+himself declared, about thirty years later, that "the socialists
+sprang from the followers of Petrashevsky; they sowed much seed." He
+has dealt with them and their methods in his novel 'Demons'; though
+perhaps not with exact accuracy. But they helped him to an elucidation
+of the contemporary situation, which Turgénieff had treated in 'Virgin
+Soil.' The chief subject of their political discussions was the
+emancipation of the serfs, and many of Petrashevsky's followers
+reckoned upon a rising of the serfs themselves, though it was proved
+that Dostoévsky maintained the propriety and necessity of the reform
+proceeding from the government. This was no new topic; the Emperor
+Nicholas I. had already begun to plan the Emancipation, and it is
+probable that it would have taken place long before it did, had it not
+been for this very conspiracy. From the point of view of the
+government, the movement was naturally dangerous, especially in view
+of what was taking place in Europe at that epoch. Dostoévsky bore
+himself critically toward the socialistic writings and doctrines,
+maintaining that in their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds
+with reciprocal bonds there existed surer and more normal foundations
+than in all the dreams of Saint-Simon and all his school. He did not
+even visit very frequently the circle to which he particularly
+belonged, and was rarely at the house of Petrashevsky, whom many
+personally disliked.
+
+But on one occasion, as he was a good reader, he was asked to read
+aloud Byelinsky's famous letter to Gogol, which was regarded as a
+victorious manifest of "Western" (_i. e._, of socialistic) views.
+This, technically, was propagating revolution, and was the chief
+charge against him when the catastrophe happened, and he, together
+with over thirty other "Petrashevtzi," was arrested on April 23d (May
+5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was kept for
+eight months pending trial, Dostoévsky wrote 'The Little Hero,' two or
+three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor People.' At last
+he, with several others, was condemned to death and led out for
+execution. The history of that day, and the analysis of his sensations
+and emotions, are to be found in several of his books: 'Crime and
+Punishment,' 'The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Brothers.' At the last
+moment it was announced to them that the Emperor had commuted their
+sentence to exile in varying degrees, and they were taken to Siberia.
+Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three years of age, the man who sent
+Byelinsky's letter to Dostoévsky, was banished for a short term of
+years to the disciplinary brigade in Orenburg; and when I saw him in
+St. Petersburg forty years later, I was able to form a faint idea of
+what Dostoévsky's popularity must have been, by the way in which
+he,--a man of much less talent, originality, and personal power,--was
+surrounded, even in church, by adoring throngs of young people.
+Dostoévsky's sentence was "four years at forced labor in prison; after
+that, to serve as a common soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility
+and his civil rights, being the first noble to retain them under such
+circumstances.
+
+The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is to be
+found in his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' where, under the
+disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the murder of his
+wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some respects a
+consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own judgment as to
+his exile was, "The government only defended itself;" and when people
+said to him, "How unjust your exile was!" he replied, even with
+irritation, "No, it was just. The people themselves would have
+condemned us." Moreover, he did not like to give benefit readings in
+later years from his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' lest he might
+be thought to complain. Besides, this catastrophe was the making of
+him, by his own confession; he had become a confirmed hypochondriac,
+with a host of imaginary afflictions and ills, and had this affair not
+saved him from himself he said that he "should have gone mad." It
+seems certain, from the testimony of his friend and physician, that he
+was already subject to the epileptic fits which he himself was wont to
+attribute to his imprisonment; and which certainly increased in
+severity as the years went on, until they occurred once a month or
+oftener, in consequence of overwork and excessive nervous strain. In
+his novel 'The Idiot,' whose hero is an epileptic, he has made a
+psychological study of his sensations before and after such fits, and
+elsewhere he makes allusions to them.
+
+After serving in the ranks and being promoted officer when he had
+finished his term of imprisonment, he returned to Russia in 1859, and
+lived first at Tver; afterward, when permitted, in St. Petersburg. The
+history of his first marriage--which took place in Siberia, to the
+widow of a friend--is told with tolerable accuracy in his 'Humbled and
+Insulted,' which also contains a description of his early struggles
+and the composition of 'Poor People,' the hero who narrates the tale
+of his love and sacrifice being himself. Like that hero, he tried to
+facilitate his future wife's marriage to another man. He was married
+to his second wife, by whom he had four children, in 1867, and to her
+he owed much happiness and material comfort. It will be seen that much
+is to be learned concerning our author from his own novels, though it
+would hardly be safe to write a biography from them alone. Even in
+'Crime and Punishment,' his greatest work in a general way, he
+reproduces events of his own life, meditations, wonderfully accurate
+descriptions of the third-rate quarter of the town in which he lived
+after his return from Siberia, while engaged on some of his numerous
+newspaper and magazine enterprises.
+
+This journalistic turn of mind, combined in nearly equal measures with
+the literary talent, produced several singular effects. It rendered
+his periodical 'Diary of a Writer' the most enormously popular
+publication of the day, and a success when previous ventures had
+failed, though it consisted entirely of his own views on current
+topics of interest, literary questions, and whatever came into his
+head. On his novels it had a rather disintegrating effect. Most of
+them are of great length, are full of digressions from the point, and
+there is often a lack of finish about them which extends not only to
+the minor characters but to the style in general. In fact, his style
+is neither jewel-like in its brilliancy, as is Turgénieff's, nor has
+it the elegance, broken by carelessness, of Tolstoy's. But it was
+popular, remarkably well adapted to the class of society which it was
+his province to depict, and though diffuse, it is not possible to omit
+any of the long psychological analyses, or dreams, or series of
+ratiocinations, without injuring the web of the story and the moral,
+as chain armor is spoiled by the rupture of a link. This indeed is one
+of the great difficulties which the foreigner encounters in an
+attempt to study Dostoévsky: the translators have been daunted by his
+prolixity, and have often cut his works down to a mere skeleton of the
+original. Moreover, he deals with a sort of Russian society which it
+is hard for non-Russians to grasp, and he has no skill whatever in
+presenting aristocratic people or society, to which foreigners have
+become accustomed in the works of his great contemporaries Turgénieff
+and Tolstoy; while he never, despite all his genuine admiration for
+the peasants and keen sympathy with them, attempts any purely peasant
+tales like Turgénieff's 'Notes of a Sportsman' or Tolstoy's 'Tales for
+the People.' Naturally, this is but one reason the more why he should
+be studied. His types of hero, and of feminine character, are peculiar
+to himself. Perhaps the best way to arrive at his ideal--and at his
+own character, _plus_ a certain irritability and tendency to suspicion
+of which his friends speak--is to scrutinize the pictures of Prince
+Myshkin ('The Idiot'), Ivan ('Humbled and Insulted'), and Alyosha
+('The Karamazoff Brothers'). Pure, delicate both physically and
+morally, as Dostoévsky himself is described by those who knew him
+best; devout, gentle, intensely sympathetic, strongly masculine yet
+with a large admixture of the feminine element--such are these three;
+such is also, in his way, Raskolnikoff ('Crime and Punishment').
+His feminine characters are the precise counterparts of these in
+many respects, but are often also quixotic even to boldness and
+wrong-headedness, like Aglaya ('The Idiot'), or to shame, like Sonia
+('Crime and Punishment'), and the heroine of 'Humbled and Insulted.'
+But Dostoévsky could not sympathize with and consequently could not
+draw an aristocrat; his frequently recurring type of the dissolute
+petty noble or rich merchant is frequently brutal; and his unclassed
+women, though possibly quite as true to life as these men, are painful
+in their callousness and recklessness. His earliest work, 'Poor
+People,' written in the form of letters, is worthy of all the praises
+which have been bestowed upon it, simple as is the story of the
+poverty-stricken clerk who is almost too humble to draw his breath,
+who pleads that one must wear a coat and boots which do not show the
+bare feet, during the severe Russian winter, merely because public
+opinion forces one thereto; and who shares his rare pence with a
+distant but equally needy relative who is in a difficult position.
+As a compact, subtle psychological study, his 'Crime and Punishment'
+cannot be overrated, repulsive as it is in parts. The poor student who
+kills the aged usurer with intent to rob, after prolonged argument
+with himself that great geniuses, like Napoleon I. and the like, are
+justified in committing any crime, and that he has a right to relieve
+his poverty; and who eventually surrenders himself to the authorities
+and accepts his exile as moral salvation,--is one of the strongest in
+Russian literature, though wrong-headed and easily swayed, like all
+the author's characters.
+
+In June 1880 Dostoévsky made a speech at the unveiling of Pushkin's
+monument in Moscow, which completely overshadowed the speeches of
+Turgénieff and Aksakoff, and gave rise to what was probably the most
+extraordinary literary ovation ever seen in Russia. By that time he
+had become the object of pilgrimages, on the part of the young
+especially, to a degree which no other Russian author has ever
+experienced, and the recipient of confidences, both personal and
+written, which pressed heavily on his time and strength. That ovation
+has never been surpassed, save by the astonishing concourse at his
+funeral. He died of a lesion of the brain on January 28th (February
+8th), 1881. Thousands followed his coffin for miles, but there was no
+"demonstration," as that word is understood in Russia. Nevertheless it
+was a demonstration in an unexpected way, since all classes of
+society, even those which had not seemed closely interested or
+sympathetic, now joined in the tribute of respect, which amounted to
+loving enthusiasm.
+
+The works which I have mentioned are the most important, though he
+wrote also 'The Stripling' and numerous shorter stories. His own
+characterization of his work, when reproached with its occasional lack
+of continuity and finish, was that his aim was to make his point, and
+the exigencies of money and time under which he labored were to blame
+for the defects which, with his keen literary judgment, he perceived
+quite as clearly as did his critics. If that point be borne in mind,
+it will help the reader to appreciate his literary-journalistic style,
+and to pardon shortcomings for the sake of the pearls of principle and
+psychology which can be fished up from the profound depths of his
+voluminous tomes, and of his analysis. The gospel which Dostoévsky
+consistently preached, from the beginning of his career to the end,
+was love, self-sacrifice even to self-effacement. That was and is the
+secret of his power, even over those who did not follow his precepts.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Isabel F. Hapgood)]
+
+
+
+FROM 'POOR PEOPLE'
+
+LETTER FROM VARVARA DOBROSYELOFF TO MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN
+
+
+Pokrovsky was a poor, very poor young man; his health did not permit
+of his attending regularly to his studies, and so it was only by way
+of custom that we called him a student. He lived modestly, peaceably,
+quietly, so that we could not even hear him from our room. He was very
+queer in appearance; he walked so awkwardly, bowed so uncouthly, spoke
+in such a peculiar manner, that at first I could not look at him
+without laughing. Moreover, he was of an irritable character, was
+constantly getting angry, flew into a rage at the slightest trifle,
+shouted at us, complained of us, and often went off to his own room in
+a fit of wrath without finishing our lesson. He had a great many
+books, all of them expensive, rare books. He gave lessons somewhere
+else also, received some remuneration, and just as soon as he had a
+little money, he went off and bought more books.
+
+In time I learned to understand him better. He was the kindest, the
+most worthy man, the best man I ever met. My mother respected him
+highly. Later on, he became my best friend--after my mother, of
+course....
+
+From time to time a little old man made his appearance at our house--a
+dirty, badly dressed, small, gray-haired, sluggish, awkward old
+fellow; in short, he was peculiar to the last degree. At first sight
+one would have thought that he felt ashamed of something, that his
+conscience smote him for something. He writhed and twisted constantly;
+he had such tricks of manner and ways of shrugging his shoulders, that
+one would not have been far wrong in assuming that he was a little
+crazy. He would come and stand close to the glazed door in the
+vestibule, and not dare to enter. As soon as one of us, Sasha or I or
+one of the servants whom he knew to be kindly disposed toward him,
+passed that way, he would begin to wave his hands, and beckon us to
+him, and make signs; and only when we nodded to him or called to
+him,--the signal agreed upon, that there was no stranger in the house
+and that he might enter when he pleased,--only then would the old man
+softly open the door, with a joyous smile, rubbing his hands together
+with delight, and betake himself to Pokrovsky's room. He was his
+father.
+
+Afterward I learned in detail the story of this poor old man. Once
+upon a time he had been in the government service somewhere or other,
+but he had not the slightest capacity, and his place in the service
+was the lowest and most insignificant of all. When his first wife died
+(the mother of the student Pokrovsky), he took it into his head to
+marry again, and wedded a woman from the petty-merchant class. Under
+the rule of this new wife, everything was at sixes and sevens in his
+house; there was no living with her; she drew a tight rein over
+everybody. Student Pokrovsky was a boy at that time, ten years of age.
+His stepmother hated him. But fate was kind to little Pokrovsky.
+Bykoff, a landed proprietor, who was acquainted with Pokrovsky the
+father and had formerly been his benefactor, took the child under his
+protection and placed him in a school. He took an interest in him
+because he had known his dead mother, whom Anna Feodorovna had
+befriended while she was still a girl, and who had married her off to
+Pokrovsky. From school young Pokrovsky entered a gymnasium, and then
+the University, but his impaired health prevented his continuing his
+studies there. Mr. Bykoff introduced him to Anna Feodorovna,
+recommended him to her, and in this way young Pokrovsky had been taken
+into the house as a boarder, on condition that he should teach Sasha
+all that was necessary.
+
+But old Pokrovsky fell into the lowest dissipation through grief at
+his wife's harshness, and was almost always in a state of drunkenness.
+His wife beat him, drove him into the kitchen to live, and brought
+matters to such a point that at last he got used to being beaten and
+ill-treated, and made no complaint. He was still far from being an old
+man, but his evil habits had nearly destroyed his mind. The only sign
+in him of noble human sentiments was his boundless love for his son.
+It was said that young Pokrovsky was as like his dead mother as two
+drops of water to each other. The old man could talk of nothing but
+his son, and came to see him regularly twice a week. He dared not come
+more frequently, because young Pokrovsky could not endure his father's
+visits. Of all his failings, the first and greatest, without a doubt,
+was his lack of respect for his father. However, the old man certainly
+was at times the most intolerable creature in the world. In the first
+place he was dreadfully inquisitive; in the second, by his chatter and
+questions he interfered with his son's occupations; and lastly, he
+sometimes presented himself in a state of intoxication. The son broke
+the father, in a degree, of his faults,--of his inquisitiveness and
+his chattering; and ultimately brought about such a condition of
+affairs that the latter listened to all he said as to an oracle, and
+dared not open his mouth without his permission.
+
+There were no bounds to the old man's admiration of and delight in his
+Petinka, as he called his son. When he came to visit him he almost
+always wore a rather anxious, timid expression, probably on account of
+his uncertainty as to how his son would receive him, and generally
+could not make up his mind for a long time to go in; and if I happened
+to be present, he would question me for twenty minutes: How was
+Petinka? Was he well? In what mood was he, and was not he occupied in
+something important? What, precisely, was he doing? Was he writing, or
+engaged in meditation? When I had sufficiently encouraged and soothed
+him, the old man would at last make up his mind to enter, and would
+open the door very, very softly, very, very cautiously, and stick his
+head in first; and if he saw that his son was not angry, and nodded to
+him, he would step gently into the room, take off his little coat, and
+his hat, which was always crumpled, full of holes and with broken
+rims, and hang them on a hook, doing everything very softly, and
+inaudibly. Then he would seat himself cautiously on a chair and never
+take his eyes from his son, but would watch his every movement in his
+desire to divine the state of his Petinka's temper. If the son was not
+exactly in the right mood, and the old man detected it, he instantly
+rose from his seat and explained, "I only ran in for a minute,
+Petinka. I have been walking a good ways, and happened to be passing
+by, so I came in to rest myself." And then silently he took his poor
+little coat and his wretched little hat, opened the door again very
+softly, and went away, forcing a smile in order to suppress the grief
+which was seething up in his soul, and not betray it to his son.
+
+But when the son received his father well, the old man was beside
+himself with joy. His satisfaction shone forth in his face, in his
+gestures, in his movements. If his son addressed a remark to him, the
+old man always rose a little from his chair, and replied softly,
+cringingly, almost reverently, and always made an effort to employ the
+most select, that is to say, the most ridiculous expressions. But
+he had not the gift of language; he always became confused and
+frightened, so that he did not know what to do with his hands, or
+what to do with his person, and went on, for a long time afterward,
+whispering his answer to himself, as though desirous of recovering his
+composure. But if he succeeded in making a good answer, the old man
+gained courage, set his waistcoat to rights, and his cravat and his
+coat, and assumed an air of personal dignity. Sometimes his courage
+rose to such a point, his daring reached such a height, that he rose
+gently from his chair, went up to the shelf of books, took down a
+book. He did all this with an air of artificial indifference and
+coolness, as though he could always handle his son's books in this
+proprietary manner, as though his son's caresses were no rarity to
+him. But I once happened to witness the old man's fright when
+Pokrovsky asked him not to touch his books. He became confused,
+hurriedly replaced the book upside down, then tried to put it right,
+turned it round and set it wrong side to, leaves out, smiled,
+reddened, and did not know how to expiate his crime.
+
+One day old Pokrovsky came in to see us. He chatted with us for a long
+time, was unusually cheerful, alert, talkative; he laughed and joked
+after his fashion, and at last revealed the secret of his raptures,
+and announced to us that his Petinka's birthday fell precisely a week
+later, and that it was his intention to call upon his son, without
+fail, on that day; that he would don a new waistcoat, and that his
+wife had promised to buy him some new boots. In short, the old man was
+perfectly happy, and chattered about everything that came into his
+head.
+
+His birthday! That birthday gave me no peace, either day or night. I
+made up my mind faithfully to remind Pokrovsky of my friendship, and
+to make him a present. But what? At last I hit upon the idea of giving
+him some books. I knew that he wished to own the complete works of
+Pushkin, in the latest edition. I had thirty rubles of my own, earned
+by my handiwork. I had put this money aside for a new gown. I
+immediately sent old Matryona, our cook, to inquire the price of a
+complete set. Alas! The price of the eleven volumes, together with the
+expenses of binding, would be sixty rubles at the very least. I
+thought and thought, but could not tell what to do. I did not wish to
+ask my mother. Of course she would have helped me; but, in that case
+every one in the house would have known about our gift; moreover, the
+gift would have been converted into an expression of gratitude, a
+payment for Pokrovsky's labors for the whole year. My desire was to
+make the present privately, unknown to any one. And for his toilsome
+lessons to me I wished to remain forever indebted to him, without any
+payment whatever. At last I devised an escape from my predicament. I
+knew that one could often buy at half price from the old booksellers
+in the Gostinny Dvor, if one bargained well, little used and almost
+entirely new books. I made up my mind to go to the Gostinny Dvor
+myself. So it came about; the very next morning both Anna Feodorovna
+and we needed something. Mamma was not feeling well, and Anna
+Feodorovna, quite opportunely, had a fit of laziness, so all the
+errands were turned over to me, and I set out with Matryona.
+
+To my delight I soon found a Pushkin, and in a very handsome binding.
+I began to bargain for it. How I enjoyed it! But alas! My entire
+capital consisted of thirty rubles in paper, and the merchant would
+not consent to accept less than ten rubles in silver. At last I began
+to entreat him, and I begged and begged, until eventually he yielded.
+But he only took off two rubles and a half, and swore that he had done
+so only for my sake, because I was such a nice young lady, and that he
+would not have come down in his price for any one else. Two rubles and
+a half were still lacking! I was ready to cry with vexation. But the
+most unexpected circumstance came to my rescue in my grief. Not far
+from me, at another stall, I caught sight of old Pokrovsky. Four or
+five old booksellers were clustered about him; he had completely lost
+his wits, and they had thoroughly bewildered him. Each one was
+offering him his wares, and what stuff they were offering, and what
+all was he not ready to buy! I stepped up to him and asked him what he
+was doing there? The old man was very glad to see me; he loved me
+unboundedly,--no less than his Petinka, perhaps. "Why, I am buying a
+few little books, Varvara Alexievna," he replied; "I am buying some
+books for Petinka." I asked him if he had much money? "See here,"--and
+the poor old man took out all his money, which was wrapped up in a
+dirty scrap of newspaper; "here's a half-ruble, and a twenty-kopek
+piece, and twenty kopeks in copper coins." I immediately dragged him
+off to my bookseller. "Here are eleven books, which cost altogether
+thirty-two rubles and a half; I have thirty; put your two rubles and a
+half with mine, and we will buy all these books and give them to him
+in partnership." The old man was quite beside himself with joy, and
+the bookseller loaded him down with our common library.
+
+The next day the old man came to see his son, sat with him a little
+while, then came to us and sat down beside me with a very comical air
+of mystery. Every moment he grew more sad and uneasy; at last he could
+hold out no longer.
+
+"Listen, Varvara Alexievna," he began timidly, in a low voice: "do you
+know what, Varvara Alexievna?" The old man was dreadfully embarrassed.
+"You see, when his birthday comes, do you take ten of those little
+books and give them to him yourself, that is to say, from yourself, on
+your own behalf; then I will take the eleventh and give it from
+myself, for my share. So you see, you will have something to give, and
+I shall have something to give; we shall both have something to give."
+
+I was awfully sorry for the old man. I did not take long to think it
+over. The old man watched me anxiously. "Listen to me, Zakhar
+Petrovitch," I said: "do you give him all."--"How all? Do you mean all
+the books?"--"Yes, certainly, all the books."--"And from
+myself?"--"From yourself."--"From myself alone--that is, in my own
+name?"--"Yes, in your own name." I thought I was expressing myself
+with sufficient clearness, but the old man could not understand me for
+a long time.
+
+"You see," he explained to me at last, "I sometimes indulge myself,
+Varvara Alexievna,--that is to say, I wish to state to you that I
+nearly always indulge myself,--I do that which is not right,--that is,
+you know, when it is cold out of doors, and when various unpleasant
+things happen at times, or when I feel sad for any reason, or
+something bad happens,--then sometimes, I do not restrain myself, and
+I drink too much. This is very disagreeable to Petrushka, you see,
+Varvara Alexievna; he gets angry, and he scolds me and reads me moral
+lectures. So now I should like to show him by my gift that I have
+reformed, and am beginning to conduct myself well; that I have been
+saving up my money to buy a book, saving for a long time, because I
+hardly ever have any money, except when it happens that Petrushka
+gives me some now and then. He knows that. Consequently, he will see
+what use I have made of my money, and he will know that I have done
+this for his sake alone."...
+
+"Well, yes," he said, after thinking it over, "yes! That will be very
+fine, that would be very fine indeed,--only, what are you going to
+do, Varvara Alexievna?"--"Why, I shall not give anything."--"What!"
+cried the old man almost in terror; "so you will not give Petinka
+anything, so you do not wish to give him anything?" He was alarmed. At
+that moment it seemed as though he were ready to relinquish his own
+suggestions, so that I might have something to give his son. He was a
+kind-hearted old man! I explained that I would be glad to give
+something, only I did not wish to deprive him of the pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the festive day he made his appearance at precisely eleven o'clock,
+straight from the mass, in his dress coat, decently patched, and
+actually in a new waistcoat and new boots. We were all sitting in the
+hall with Anna Feodorovna, and drinking coffee (it was Sunday). The
+old man began, I believe, by saying that Pushkin was a good poet; then
+he lost the thread of his discourse and got confused, and suddenly
+jumped to the assertion that a man must behave well, and that if he
+does not behave himself well, then it simply means that he indulges
+himself; he even cited several terrible examples of intemperance, and
+wound up by stating that for some time past he had been entirely a
+reformed character, and that he now behaved with perfect propriety.
+That even earlier he had recognized the justice of his son's
+exhortations, and had treasured them all in his heart, and had
+actually begun to be sober. In proof of which he now presented these
+books, which had been purchased with money which he had been hoarding
+up for a long time.
+
+I could not refrain from tears and laughter, as I listened to the poor
+old fellow; he knew well how to lie when the occasion demanded! The
+books were taken to Pokrovsky's room and placed on the shelf.
+Pokrovsky immediately divined the truth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pokrovsky fell ill, two months after the events which I have described
+above. During those two months he had striven incessantly for the
+means of existence, for up to that time he had never had a settled
+position. Like all consumptives, he bade farewell only with his last
+breath to the hope of a very long life.... Anna Feodorovna herself
+made all the arrangements about the funeral. She bought the very
+plainest sort of a coffin, and hired a truckman. In order to repay
+herself for her expenditure, Anna Feodorovna took possession of all
+the dead man's books and effects. The old man wrangled with her,
+raised an uproar, snatched from her as many books as possible, stuffed
+all his pockets with them, thrust them into his hat and wherever he
+could, carried them about with him all the three days which preceded
+the funeral, and did not even part with them when the time came to go
+to the church. During all those days he was like a man stunned, who
+has lost his memory, and he kept fussing about near the coffin with a
+certain strange anxiety; now he adjusted the paper band upon the dead
+man's brow, now he lighted and snuffed the candles. It was evident
+that he could not fix his thoughts in orderly manner on anything.
+Neither my mother nor Anna Feodorovna went to the funeral services in
+the church. My mother was ill, but Anna Feodorovna quarreled with old
+Pokrovsky just as she was all ready to start, and so stayed away. The
+old man and I were the only persons present. A sort of fear came over
+me during the services--like the presentiment of something which was
+about to happen. I could hardly stand out the ceremony in church. At
+last they put the lid on the coffin and nailed it down, placed it on
+the cart and drove away. I accompanied it only to the end of the
+street. The truckman drove at a trot. The old man ran after the cart,
+weeping aloud; the sound of his crying was broken and shaken by his
+running. The poor man lost his hat and did not stop to pick it up. His
+head was wet with the rain; the sleet lashed and cut his face. The old
+man did not appear to feel the bad weather, but ran weeping from one
+side of the cart to the other. The skirts of his shabby old coat waved
+in the wind like wings. Books protruded from every one of his pockets;
+in his hands was a huge book, which he held tightly clutched. The
+passers-by removed their hats and made the sign of the cross. Some
+halted and stared in amazement at the poor old man. Every moment the
+books kept falling out of his pockets into the mud, People stopped
+him, and pointed out his losses to him; he picked them up, and set out
+again in pursuit of the coffin. At the corner of the street an old
+beggar woman joined herself to him to escort the coffin. At last the
+cart turned the corner, and disappeared from my eyes. I went home, I
+flung myself, in dreadful grief, on my mother's bosom.
+
+
+
+LETTER FROM MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN TO VARVARA ALEXIEVNA DOBROSYELOFF
+
+
+                                                    SEPTEMBER 9TH.
+
+_My dear Varvara Alexievna!_
+
+I am quite beside myself as I write this. I am utterly upset by a most
+terrible occurrence. My head is whirling. I feel as though everything
+were turning in dizzy circles round about me. Ah, my dearest, what a
+thing I have to tell you now! We had not even a presentiment of such a
+thing. No, I don't believe that I did not have a presentiment--I
+foresaw it all. My heart forewarned me of this whole thing! I even
+dreamed of something like it not long ago.
+
+This is what has happened! I will relate it to you without attempting
+fine style, and as the Lord shall put it into my soul. I went to the
+office to-day. When I arrived, I sat down and began to write. But you
+must know, my dear, that I wrote yesterday also. Well, yesterday
+Timofei Ivan'itch came to me, and was pleased to give me a personal
+order. "Here's a document that is much needed," says he, "and we're in
+a hurry for it. Copy it, Makar Alexievitch," says he, "as quickly and
+as neatly and carefully as possible: it must be handed in for
+signature to-day." I must explain to you, my angel, that I was not
+quite myself yesterday, and didn't wish to look at anything; such
+sadness and depression had fallen upon me! My heart was cold, my mind
+was dark; you filled all my memory, and incessantly, my poor darling.
+Well, so I set to work on the copy; I wrote clearly and well, only,--I
+don't know exactly how to describe it to you, whether the Evil One
+himself tangled me up, or whether it was decreed by some mysterious
+fate, or simply whether it was bound to happen so, but I omitted a
+whole line, and the sense was utterly ruined. The Lord only knows what
+sense there was--simply none whatever. They were late with the papers
+yesterday, so they only gave this document to his Excellency for
+signature this morning. To-day I presented myself at the usual hour,
+as though nothing at all were the matter, and set myself down
+alongside Emelyan Ivanovitch.
+
+I must tell you, my dear, that lately I have become twice as
+shamefaced as before, and more mortified. Of late I have ceased to
+look at any one. As soon as any one's chair squeaks, I am more dead
+than alive. So to-day I crept in, slipped humbly into my seat, and
+sat there all doubled up, so that Efim Akimovitch (he's the greatest
+tease in the world) remarked in such a way that all could hear him,
+"Why do you sit so like a y-y-y, Makar Alexievitch?" Then he made such
+a grimace that everybody round him and me split with laughter, and of
+course at my expense. They kept it up interminably! I drooped my ears
+and screwed up my eyes, and sat there motionless. That's my way; they
+stop the quicker. All at once I heard a noise, a running and a tumult;
+I heard--did my ears deceive me? They were calling for me, demanding
+me, summoning Dyevushkin. My heart quivered in my breast, and I didn't
+know myself what I feared, for nothing of the sort had ever happened
+to me in the whole course of my life. I was rooted to my chair,--as
+though nothing had occurred, as though it were not I. But then they
+began again, nearer at hand, and nearer still. And here they were,
+right in my very ear: "Dyevushkin! Dyevushkin!" they called; "where's
+Dyevushkin?" I raise my eyes, and there before me stands Evstafiy
+Ivanovitch; he says:--"Makar Alexievitch, hasten to his Excellency as
+quickly as possible! You've made a nice mess with that document!"
+
+That was all he said, but it was enough, wasn't it, my dear,--quite
+enough to say? I turned livid, and grew as cold as ice, and lost my
+senses; I started, and I simply didn't know whether I was alive or
+dead as I went. They led me through one room, and through another
+room, and through a third room, to the private office, and I presented
+myself! Positively, I cannot give you any account of what I was
+thinking about. I saw his Excellency standing there, with all of them
+around him. It appears that I did not make my salute; I forgot it
+completely. I was so scared that my lips trembled and my legs shook.
+And there was sufficient cause, my dear. In the first place, I was
+ashamed of myself; I glanced to the right, at a mirror, and what I
+beheld therein was enough to drive any man out of his senses. And in
+the second place, I have always behaved as though there were no place
+for me in the world. So that it is not likely that his Excellency was
+even aware of my existence. It is possible that he may have heard it
+cursorily mentioned that there was a person named Dyevushkin in the
+department, but he had never come into any closer relations.
+
+He began angrily, "What's the meaning of this, sir? What are you
+staring at? Here's an important paper, needed in haste, and you go
+and spoil it. And how did you come to permit such a thing?" Here his
+Excellency turned on Evstafiy Ivanovitch. I only listen, and the
+sounds of the words reach me: "It's gross carelessness. Heedlessness!
+You'll get yourself into trouble!" I tried to open my mouth for some
+purpose or other. I seemed to want to ask forgiveness, but I couldn't;
+to run away, but I didn't dare to make the attempt: and then--then, my
+dearest, something so dreadful happened that I can hardly hold my pen
+even now for the shame of it. My button--deuce take it--my button,
+which was hanging by a thread, suddenly broke loose, jumped off,
+skipped along (evidently I had struck it by accident), clattered and
+rolled away, the cursed thing, straight to his Excellency's feet, and
+that in the midst of universal silence. And that was the whole of my
+justification, all my excuse, all my answer, everything which I was
+preparing to say to his Excellency!
+
+The results were terrible! His Excellency immediately directed his
+attention to my figure and my costume. I remembered what I had seen in
+the mirror; I flew to catch the button! A fit of madness descended
+upon me! I bent down and tried to grasp the button, but it rolled and
+twisted, and I couldn't get hold of it, in short, and I also
+distinguished myself in the matter of dexterity. Then I felt my last
+strength fail me, and knew that all, all was lost! My whole reputation
+was lost, the whole man ruined! And then, without rhyme or reason,
+Teresa and Faldoni began to ring in both my ears. At last I succeeded
+in seizing the button, rose upright, drew myself up in proper salute,
+but like a fool, and stood calmly there with my hands lined down on
+the seams of my trousers! No, I didn't, though. I began to try to fit
+the button on the broken thread, just as though it would stick fast by
+that means; and moreover, I began to smile and went on smiling.
+
+At first his Excellency turned away; then he scrutinized me again, and
+I heard him say to Evstafiy Ivanovitch:--"How's this? See what a
+condition he is in! What a looking man! What's the matter with him?"
+Ah, my own dearest, think of that--"What a looking man!" and "What's
+the matter with him!"--"He has distinguished himself!" I heard
+Evstafiy say; "he has no bad marks, no bad marks on any score, and his
+conduct is exemplary; his salary is adequate, in accordance with the
+rates." "Well then, give him some sort of assistance," says his
+Excellency; "make him an advance on his salary."--"But he has had it,
+he has taken it already, for ever so long in advance. Probably
+circumstances have compelled him to do so; but his conduct is good,
+and he has received no reprimands, he has never been rebuked." My dear
+little angel, I turned hot and burned as though in the fires of the
+bad place! I was on the point of fainting. "Well," says his Excellency
+in a loud voice, "the document must be copied again as quickly as
+possible; come here, Dyevushkin, make a fresh copy without errors; and
+listen to me;" here his Excellency turned to the others and gave them
+divers orders, and sent them all away. As soon as they were all gone,
+his Excellency hastily took out his pocket-book, and from it drew a
+hundred-ruble bank-note. "Here," said he, "this is all I can afford,
+and I am happy to help to that extent; reckon it as you please, take
+it,"--and he thrust it into my hand. I trembled, my angel, my whole
+soul was in a flutter; I didn't know what was the matter with me; I
+tried to catch his hand and kiss it. But he turned very red in the
+face, my darling, and--I am not deviating from the truth by so much as
+a hair's-breadth--he took my unworthy hand, and shook it, indeed he
+did; he took it and shook it as though it were of equal rank with his
+own, as though it belonged to a General like himself. "Go," says he;
+"I am glad to do what I can. Make no mistakes, but now do it as well
+as you can."
+
+Now, my dear, this is what I have decided: I beg you and Feodor--and
+if I had children I would lay my commands upon them--to pray to God
+for him; though they should not pray for their own father, that they
+should pray daily and forever, for his Excellency! One thing more I
+will say, my dearest, and I say it solemnly,--heed me well, my
+dear,--I swear that, no matter in what degree I may be reduced to
+spiritual anguish in the cruel days of our adversity, as I look on you
+and your poverty, on myself, on my humiliation and incapacity,--in
+spite of all this, I swear to you that the hundred rubles are not so
+precious to me as the fact that his Excellency himself deigned to
+press my unworthy hand, the hand of a straw, a drunkard! Thereby he
+restored my self-respect. By that deed he brought to life again my
+spirit, he made my existence sweeter forevermore, and I am firmly
+convinced that, however sinful I may be in the sight of the Almighty,
+yet my prayer for the happiness and prosperity of his Excellency will
+reach his throne!
+
+My dearest, I am at present in the most terrible state of spiritual
+prostration, in a horribly overwrought condition. My heart beats as
+though it would burst out of my breast, and I seem to be weak all
+over. I send you forty-five rubles, paper money. I shall give twenty
+rubles to my landlady, and keep thirty-five for myself; with twenty I
+will get proper clothes, and the other fifteen will go for my living
+expenses. But just now all the impressions of this morning have shaken
+my whole being to the foundations. I am going to lie down for a bit.
+Nevertheless, I am calm, perfectly calm. Only, my soul aches, and down
+there, in the depths, my soul is trembling and throbbing and
+quivering. I shall go to see you; but just now I am simply intoxicated
+with all these emotions. God sees all, my dearest, my own darling, my
+precious one.
+
+                               Your worthy friend,
+                                                   MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN.
+
+                                     Translation of Isabel F. Hapgood.
+
+
+
+THE BIBLE READING
+
+From 'Crime and Punishment'
+
+
+Raskolnikoff went straight to the water-side, where Sonia was living.
+The three-storied house was an old building, painted green. The young
+man had some difficulty in finding the dvornik, and got from him vague
+information about the quarters of the tailor Kapernasumoff. After
+having discovered in a corner of the yard the foot of a steep and
+gloomy staircase, he ascended to the second floor, and followed the
+gallery facing the court-yard. Whilst groping in the dark, and asking
+himself how Kapernasumoff's lodgings could be reached, a door opened
+close to him; he seized it mechanically.
+
+"Who is there?" asked a timid female voice.
+
+"It is I. I am coming to see you," replied Raskolnikoff, on entering a
+small ante-room. There on a wretched table stood a candle, fixed in a
+candlestick of twisted metal.
+
+"Is that you? Good heavens!" feebly replied Sonia, who seemed not to
+have strength enough to move from the spot.
+
+"Where do you live? Is it here?" And Raskolnikoff passed quickly into
+the room, trying not to look the girl in the face.
+
+A moment afterwards Sonia rejoined him with the candle, and remained
+stock still before him, a prey to an indescribable agitation. This
+unexpected visit had upset her--nay, even frightened her. All of a
+sudden her pale face colored up, and tears came into her eyes. She
+experienced extreme confusion, united with a certain gentle feeling.
+Raskolnikoff turned aside with a rapid movement and sat down on a
+chair, close to the table. In the twinkling of an eye he took stock of
+everything in the room.
+
+This room was large, with a very low ceiling, and was the only one let
+out by the Kapernasumoffs; in the wall, on the left-hand side, was a
+door giving access to theirs. On the opposite side, in the wall on the
+right, there was another door, which was always locked. That was
+another lodging, having another number. Sonia's room was more like an
+out-house, of irregular rectangular shape, which gave it an uncommon
+character. The wall, with its three windows facing the canal, cut it
+obliquely, forming thus an extremely acute angle, in the back portion
+of which nothing could be seen, considering the feeble light of the
+candle. On the other hand, the other angle was an extremely obtuse
+one. This large room contained scarcely any furniture. In the
+right-hand corner was the bed; between the bed and the door, a chair;
+on the same side, facing the door of the next set, stood a deal table,
+covered with a blue cloth; close to the table were two rush chairs.
+Against the opposite wall, near the acute angle, was placed a small
+chest of drawers of unvarnished wood, which seemed out of place in
+this vacant spot. This was the whole of the furniture. The yellowish
+and worn paper had everywhere assumed a darkish color, probably the
+effect of the damp and coal smoke. Everything in the place denoted
+poverty. Even the bed had no curtains. Sonia silently considered the
+visitor, who examined her room so attentively and so unceremoniously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Her lot is fixed," thought he,--"a watery grave, the mad-house, or a
+brutish existence!" This latter contingency was especially repellent
+to him, but skeptic as he was, he could not help believing it a
+possibility. "Is it possible that such is really the case?" he asked
+himself. "Is it possible that this creature, who still retains a pure
+mind, should end by becoming deliberately mire-like? Has she not
+already become familiar with it, and if up to the present she has been
+able to bear with such a life, has it not been so because vice has
+already lost its hideousness in her eyes? Impossible again!" cried he,
+on his part, in the same way as Sonia had cried a moment ago. "No,
+that which up to the present has prevented her from throwing herself
+into the canal has been the fear of sin and its punishment. May she
+not be mad after all? Who says she is not so? Is she in full
+possession of all her faculties? Is it possible to speak as she does?
+Do people of sound judgment reason as she reasons? Can people
+anticipate future destruction with such tranquillity, turning a deaf
+ear to warnings and forebodings? Does she expect a miracle? It must be
+so. And does not all this seem like signs of mental derangement?"
+
+To this idea he clung obstinately. Sonia mad! Such a prospect
+displeased him less than the other ones. Once more he examined the
+girl attentively. "And you--you often pray to God, Sonia?" he asked
+her.
+
+No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply. "What could I
+be, what should I be without God?" cried she in a low-toned but
+energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolnikoff a rapid glance of
+her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand.
+
+"Come, I was not mistaken!" he muttered to himself.--"And what does
+God do for you?" asked he, anxious to clear his doubts yet more.
+
+For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of reply.
+Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay! Do not question me! You have no
+such right!" exclaimed she, all of a sudden, with looks of anger.
+
+"I expected as much!" was the man's thought.
+
+"God does everything for me!" murmured the girl rapidly, and her eyes
+sank.
+
+"At last I have the explanation!" he finished mentally, whilst eagerly
+looking at her.
+
+He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on watching
+this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft eyes which
+could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such passion; in a
+word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indignation and anger,
+struck him as weird,--nay, almost fantastic. "Mad! she must be mad!"
+he muttered once more. A book was lying on the chest of drawers.
+Raskolnikoff had noticed it more than once whilst moving about the
+room. He took it and examined it. It was a Russian translation of the
+Gospels, a well-thumbed leather-bound book.
+
+"Where does that come from?" asked he of Sonia, from the other end of
+the room.
+
+The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the table.
+"It was lent me," replied Sonia, somewhat loth, without looking at
+Raskolnikoff.
+
+"Who lent it you?"
+
+"Elizabeth--I asked her to!"
+
+"Elizabeth. How strange!" he thought. Everything with Sonia assumed to
+his mind an increasingly extraordinary aspect. He took the book to the
+light, and turned it over. "Where is mention made of Lazarus?" asked
+he abruptly.
+
+Sonia, looking hard on the ground, preserved silence, whilst moving
+somewhat from the table.
+
+"Where is mention made of the resurrection of Lazarus? Find me the
+passage, Sonia."
+
+The latter looked askance at her interlocutor. "That is not the
+place--it is the Fourth Gospel," said she dryly, without moving from
+the spot.
+
+"Find me the passage and read it out!" he repeated, and sitting down
+again rested his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, and
+glancing sideways with gloomy look, prepared to listen.
+
+Sonia at first hesitated to draw nearer to the table. The singular
+wish uttered by Raskolnikoff scarcely seemed sincere. Nevertheless she
+took the book. "Have you ever read the passage?" she asked him,
+looking at him from out the corners of her eyes. Her voice was getting
+harder and harder.
+
+"Once upon a time. In my childhood. Read!"
+
+"Have you never heard it in church?"
+
+"I--I never go there. Do you go often yourself?"
+
+"No," stammered Sonia.
+
+Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go tomorrow to
+your father's funeral service?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a requiem mass."
+
+"Whose was that?"
+
+"Elizabeth's. She was assassinated by means of an axe."
+
+Raskolnikoff's nervous system became more and more irritated. He was
+getting giddy. "Were you friends with her?"
+
+"Yes. She was straightforward. She used to come and see me--but not
+often. She was not able. We used to read and chat. She sees God."
+
+Raskolnikoff became thoughtful. "What," asked he himself, "could be
+the meaning of the mysterious interviews of two such idiots as Sonia
+and Elizabeth? Why, I should go mad here myself!" thought he. "Madness
+seems to be in the atmosphere of the place!--Read!" he cried all of a
+sudden, irritably.
+
+Sonia kept hesitating. Her heart beat loud. She seemed afraid to read.
+He considered "this poor demented creature" with an almost sad
+expression. "How can that interest you, since you do not believe?" she
+muttered in a choking voice.
+
+"Read! I insist upon it! Used you not to read to Elizabeth?"
+
+Sonia opened the book and looked for the passage. Her hands trembled.
+The words stuck in her throat. Twice did she try to read without being
+able to utter the first syllable.
+
+"Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany," she read, at
+last, with an effort; but suddenly, at the third word, her voice grew
+wheezy, and gave way like an overstretched chord. Breath was deficient
+in her oppressed bosom. Raskolnikoff partly explained to himself
+Sonia's hesitation to obey him; and in proportion as he understood her
+better, he insisted still more imperiously on her reading. He felt
+what it must cost the girl to lay bare to him, to some extent, her
+heart of hearts. She evidently could not, without difficulty, make up
+her mind to confide to a stranger the sentiments which probably since
+her teens had been her support, her _viaticum_--when, what with a
+sottish father and a stepmother demented by misfortune, to say nothing
+of starving children, she heard nothing but reproach and offensive
+clamor. He saw all this, but he likewise saw that notwithstanding this
+repugnance, she was most anxious to read,--to read to him, and that
+now,--let the consequences be what they may! The girl's look, the
+agitation to which she was a prey, told him as much, and by a violent
+effort over herself Sonia conquered the spasm which parched her
+throat, and continued to read the eleventh chapter of the Gospel
+according to St. John. She thus reached the nineteenth verse:--
+
+     "And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort
+     them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she
+     heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat
+     still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if
+     thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know
+     that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will
+     give it thee."
+
+Here she paused, to overcome the emotion which once more caused her
+voice to tremble.
+
+     "Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha
+     saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the
+     resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the
+     Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in me, though
+     he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and
+     believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She
+     saith unto  him,"--
+
+and although she had difficulty in breathing, Sonia raised her voice,
+as if in reading the words of Martha she was making her own confession
+of faith:--
+
+     "Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of
+     God, which should come into the world."
+
+She stopped, raised her eyes rapidly on him, but cast them down on her
+book, and continued to read. Raskolnikoff listened without stirring,
+without turning toward her, his elbows resting on the table, looking
+aside. Thus the reading continued till the thirty-second verse.
+
+     "Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she
+     fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst
+     been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw
+     her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her,
+     he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, Where
+     have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
+     Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him. And
+     some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes
+     of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have
+     died?"
+
+Raskolnikoff turned towards her and looked at her with agitation. His
+suspicion was a correct one. She was trembling in all her limbs, a
+prey to fever. He had expected this. She was getting to the miraculous
+story, and a feeling of triumph was taking possession of her. Her
+voice, strengthened by joy, had a metallic ring. The lines became
+misty to her troubled eyes, but fortunately she knew the passage by
+heart. At the last line, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of
+the blind--" she lowered her voice, emphasizing passionately the
+doubt, the blame, the reproach of these unbelieving and blind Jews,
+who a moment after fell as if struck by lightning on their knees, to
+sob and to believe. "Yes," thought she, deeply affected by this
+joyful hope, "yes, he--he who is blind, who dares not believe--he also
+will hear--will believe in an instant, immediately, now, this very
+moment!"
+
+     "Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the
+     grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said,
+     Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was
+     dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he
+     hath been dead four days."
+
+She strongly emphasized the word _four_.
+
+     "Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that if thou
+     wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? Then
+     they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
+     laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I
+     thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou
+     hearest me always; but because of the people which stand by
+     I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And
+     when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice,
+     Lazarus, come forth. _And he that was dead came  forth,_"--
+
+(on reading these words Sonia shuddered, as if she herself had been
+witness to the miracle)
+
+     "bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was
+     bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him,
+     and let him go. _Then many of the Jews which came to Mary,
+     and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him._"
+
+She read no more,--such a thing would have been impossible to
+her,--closed the book, and briskly rising, said in a low-toned and
+choking voice, without turning toward the man she was talking to, "So
+much for the resurrection of Lazarus." She seemed afraid to raise her
+eyes on Raskolnikoff, whilst her feverish trembling continued. The
+dying piece of candle dimly lit up this low-ceiled room, in which an
+assassin and a harlot had just read the Book of books.
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD DOWDEN
+
+(1843-)
+
+
+"We are all hunters, skillful or skilless, in literature--hunters for
+our spiritual good or for our pleasure," says Edward Dowden; and to
+his earnest research and careful exposition many readers owe a more
+thorough appreciation of literature. He was educated at Queen's
+College, Cork (his birthplace), and then at Trinity College, Dublin,
+where he received the Vice-Chancellor's prize in both English verse
+and English prose, and also the first English Moderatorship in logic
+and ethics. For two years he studied divinity. Then he obtained by
+examination a professorship of oratory at the University of Dublin,
+where he was afterwards elected professor of English literature. The
+scholarship of his literary work has won him many honors. In 1888 he
+was chosen president of the English Goethe Society, to succeed
+Professor Müller. The following year he was appointed first Taylorian
+lecturer in the Taylor Institute, Oxford. The Royal Irish Academy has
+bestowed the Cunningham gold medal upon him, and he has also received
+the honorary degree LL. D. of the University of Edinburgh, and from
+Princeton University.
+
+Very early in life Professor Dowden began to express his feeling for
+literature, and the instinct which leads him to account for a work by
+study of its author's personality. For more than twenty years English
+readers have known him as a frequent contributor of critical essays to
+the leading reviews. These have been collected into the delightful
+volumes 'Studies in Literature' and 'Transcripts and Studies.' His has
+been called "an honest method, wholesome as sweet." He would offer
+more than a mere résumé of what his author expresses. He would be one
+of the interpreters and transmitters of new forms of thought to the
+masses of readers who lack time or ability to discover values for
+themselves. Very widely read himself, he is fitted for just
+comparisons and comprehensive views. As has been pointed out, he is
+fond of working from a general consideration of a period with its
+formative influences, to the particular care of the author with whom
+he is dealing. Saintsbury tells us that Mr. Dowden's procedure is to
+ask his author a series of questions which seem to him of vital
+importance, and find out how he would answer them.
+
+Dowden's style is careful, clear, and thorough, showing his
+scholarship and incisive thought. His form of expression is strongly
+picturesque. It is nowhere more so than in 'Shakespeare: a Study of
+His Mind and Art.' This, his most noteworthy work, has been very
+widely read and admired. His intimate acquaintance with German
+criticism upon the great Elizabethan especially fitted him to present
+fresh considerations to the public.
+
+He has also written a brilliant 'Life of Shelley' (bitterly criticized
+by Mark Twain in the North American Review, 'A Defense of Harriet
+Shelley'), and a 'Life of Southey' in the English Men of Letters
+Series; and edited most capably 'Southey's Correspondence with
+Caroline Bowles,' 'The Correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor,'
+'Shakespeare's Sonnets,' 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' and a collection
+of 'Lyrical Ballads.'
+
+
+
+THE HUMOR OF SHAKESPEARE
+
+From 'Shakespeare: a Critical Study of His Mind and Art'
+
+
+A study of Shakespeare which fails to take account of Shakespeare's
+humor must remain essentially incomplete. The character and spiritual
+history of a man who is endowed with a capacity for humorous
+appreciation of the world must differ throughout, and in every
+particular, from that of the man whose moral nature has never rippled
+over with genial laughter. At whatever final issue Shakespeare arrived
+after long spiritual travail as to the attainment of his life, that
+precise issue, rather than another, was arrived at in part by virtue
+of the fact of Shakespeare's humor. In the composition of forces which
+determined the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, this must be
+allowed for as a force among others, in importance not the least, and
+efficient at all times even when little apparent. A man whose visage
+"holds one stern intent" from day to day, and whose joy becomes at
+times almost a supernatural rapture, may descend through circles of
+hell to the narrowest and the lowest; he may mount from sphere to
+sphere of Paradise until he stands within the light of the Divine
+Majesty; but he will hardly succeed in presenting us with an adequate
+image of life as it is on this earth of ours, in its oceanic amplitude
+and variety. A few men of genius there have been, who with vision
+penetrative as lightning have gazed as it were _through_ life, at some
+eternal significances of which life is the symbol. Intent upon its
+sacred meaning, they have had no eye to note the forms of the
+grotesque hieroglyph of human existence. Such men are not framed for
+laughter. To this little group the creator of Falstaff, of Bottom, and
+of Touchstone does not belong.
+
+Shakespeare, who saw life more widely and wisely than any other of the
+seers, could laugh. That is a comfortable fact to bear in mind; a fact
+which serves to rescue us from the domination of intense and narrow
+natures, who claim authority by virtue of their grasp of one-half of
+the realities of our existence and their denial of the rest.
+Shakespeare could laugh. But we must go on to ask, "What did he laugh
+at? and what was the manner of his laughter?" There are as many modes
+of laughter as there are facets of the common soul of humanity, to
+reflect the humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, in one of his
+pieces of coarse yet subtile engraving, has presented a group of
+occupants of the pit of a theatre, sketched during the performance of
+some broad comedy or farce. What proceeds upon the stage is invisible
+and undiscoverable, save as we catch its reflection on the faces of
+the spectators, in the same way that we infer a sunset from the
+evening flame upon windows that front the west. Each laughing face in
+Hogarth's print exhibits a different mode or a different stage of the
+risible paroxysm. There is the habitual enjoyer of the broad comic,
+abandoned to his mirth, which is open and unashamed; mirth which he is
+evidently a match for, and able to sustain. By his side is a companion
+female portrait--a woman with head thrown back to ease the violence of
+the guffaw; all her loose redundant flesh is tickled into an orgasm of
+merriment; she is fairly overcome. On the other side sits the
+spectator who has passed the climax of his laughter; he wipes the
+tears from his eyes, and is on the way to regain an insecure and
+temporary composure. Below appears a girl of eighteen or twenty, whose
+vacancy of intellect is captured and occupied by the innocuous folly
+still in progress; she gazes on expectantly, assured that a new
+blossom of the wonder of absurdity is about to display itself. Her
+father, a man who does not often surrender himself to an indecent
+convulsion, leans his face upon his hand, and with the other steadies
+himself by grasping one of the iron spikes that inclose the orchestra.
+In the right corner sits the humorist, whose eyes, around which the
+wrinkles gather, are half closed, while he already goes over the jest
+a second time in his imagination. At the opposite side an elderly
+woman is seen, past the period when animal violences are possible,
+laughing because she knows there is something to laugh at, though she
+is too dull-witted to know precisely what. One spectator, as we guess
+from his introverted air, is laughing to think what somebody else
+would think of this. Finally, the thin-lipped, perk-nosed person of
+refinement looks aside, and by his critical indifference condemns the
+broad, injudicious mirth of the company.
+
+All these laughers of Hogarth are very commonplace, and some are very
+vulgar persons; one trivial, ludicrous spectacle is the occasion of
+their mirth. When from such laughter as this we turn to the laughter
+of men of genius, who gaze at the total play of the world's life; and
+when we listen to this, as with the ages it goes on gathering and
+swelling, our sense of hearing is enveloped and almost annihilated by
+the chorus of mock and jest, of antic and buffoonery, of tender mirth
+and indignant satire, of monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of
+desperate misanthropic derision and genial affectionate caressing of
+human imperfection and human folly. We hear from behind the mask the
+enormous laughter of Aristophanes, ascending peal above peal until it
+passes into jubilant ecstasy, or from the uproar springs some
+exquisite lyric strain. We hear laughter of passionate indignation
+from Juvenal, the indignation of "the ancient and free soul of the
+dead republics." And there is Rabelais, with his huge buffoonery, and
+the earnest eyes intent on freedom, which look out at us in the midst
+of the zany's tumblings and indecencies. And Cervantes, with his
+refined Castilian air and deep melancholy mirth, at odds with the
+enthusiasm which is dearest to his soul. And Molière, with his
+laughter of unerring good sense, undeluded by fashion or vanity or
+folly or hypocrisy, and brightly mocking these into modesty. And
+Milton, with his fierce objurgatory laughter,--Elijah-like insult
+against the enemies of freedom and of England. And Voltaire, with his
+quick intellectual scorn and eager malice of the brain. And there is
+the urbane and amiable play of Addison's invention, not capable of
+large achievement, but stirring the corners of the mouth with a humane
+smile,--gracious gayety for the breakfast-tables of England. And
+Fielding's careless mastery of the whole broad common field of mirth.
+And Sterne's exquisite curiosity of oddness, his subtile extravagances
+and humors prepense. And there is the tragic laughter of Swift, which
+announces the extinction of reason, and loss beyond recovery of human
+faith and charity and hope. How in this chorus of laughters, joyous
+and terrible, is the laughter of Shakespeare distinguishable?
+
+In the first place, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total genius,
+is many-sided. He does not pledge himself as dramatist to any one view
+of human life. If we open a novel by Charles Dickens, we feel assured
+beforehand that we are condemned to an exuberance of philanthropy; we
+know how the writer will insist that we must all be good friends, all
+be men and brothers, intoxicated with the delight of one another's
+presence; we expect him to hold out the right hand of fellowship to
+man, woman, and child; we are prepared for the bacchanalia of
+benevolence. The lesson we have to learn from this teacher is, that
+with the exception of a few inevitable and incredible monsters of
+cruelty, every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam is of
+his own nature inclined to every amiable virtue, Shakespeare abounds
+in kindly mirth: he receives an exquisite pleasure from the alert wit
+and bright good sense of a Rosalind; he can dandle a fool as tenderly
+as any nurse qualified to take a baby from the birth can deal with her
+charge. But Shakespeare is not pledged to deep-dyed ultra-amiability.
+With Jacques, he can rail at the world while remaining curiously aloof
+from all deep concern about its interests, this way or that. With
+Timon he can turn upon the world with a rage no less than that of
+Swift, and discover in man and woman a creature as abominable as the
+Yahoo. In other words, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total
+genius, is dramatic.
+
+Then again, although Shakespeare laughs incomparably, mere laughter
+wearies him. The only play of Shakespeare's, out of nearly forty,
+which is farcical,--'The Comedy of Errors,'--was written in the poet's
+earliest period of authorship, and was formed upon the suggestion of a
+preceding piece. It has been observed with truth by Gervinus that the
+farcical incidents of this play have been connected by Shakespeare
+with a tragic background, which is probably his own invention. With
+beauty, or with pathos, or with thought, Shakespeare can mingle his
+mirth; and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with play of wit or
+humorous characterization; but an entirely comic subject somewhat
+disconcerts the poet. On this ground, if no other were forthcoming, it
+might be suspected that 'The Taming of the Shrew' was not altogether
+the work of Shakespeare's hand. The secondary intrigues and minor
+incidents were of little interest to the poet. But in the buoyant
+force of Petruchio's character, in his subduing tempest of high
+spirits, and in the person of the foiled revoltress against the law of
+sex, who carries into her wifely loyalty the same energy which she had
+shown in her virgin _sauvagerie_, there were elements of human
+character in which the imagination of the poet took delight.
+
+Unless it be its own excess, however, Shakespeare's laughter seems to
+fear nothing. It does not, when it has once arrived at its full
+development, fear enthusiasm, or passion, or tragic intensity; nor do
+these fear it. The traditions of the English drama had favored the
+juxtaposition of the serious and comic: but it was reserved for
+Shakespeare to make each a part of the other; to interpenetrate
+tragedy with comedy, and comedy with tragic earnestness.
+
+
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAITURE OF WOMEN
+
+From 'Transcripts and Studies'
+
+
+Of all the daughters of his imagination, which did Shakespeare love
+the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we say one of the latest born of
+them all,--our English Imogen. And what most clearly shows us how
+Shakespeare loved Imogen is this--he has given her faults, and has
+made them exquisite, so that we love her better for their sake. No one
+has so quick and keen a sensibility to whatever pains and to whatever
+gladdens as she. To her a word is a blow; and as she is quick in her
+sensibility, so she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at once
+through the Queen's false show of friendship; quick in her contempt
+for what is unworthy, as for all professions of love from the
+clown-prince, Cloten; quick in her resentment, as when she discovers
+the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. Wronged she is indeed by her
+husband, but in her haste she too grows unjust; yet she is dearer to
+us for the sake of this injustice, proceeding as it does from the
+sensitiveness of her love. It is she, to whom a word is a blow, who
+actually receives a buffet from her husband's hand; but for Imogen it
+is a blessed stroke, since it is the evidence of his loyalty and zeal
+on her behalf. In a moment he is forgiven, and her arms are round his
+neck.
+
+Shakespeare made so many perfect women unhappy that he owed us some
+_amende_. And he has made that _amende_ by letting us see one perfect
+woman supremely happy. Shall our last glance at Shakespeare's plays
+show us Florizel at the rustic merry-making, receiving blossoms from
+the hands of Perdita? or Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess in
+Prospero's cave, and winning one a king and one a queen, while the
+happy fathers gaze in from the entrance of the cave? We can see a more
+delightful sight than these--Imogen with her arms around the neck of
+Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joy by the playful
+challenge and mock reproach--
+
+  "Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
+  Think that you are upon a rock, and now
+  Throw me again;"
+
+and he responds--
+
+                "Hang there like a fruit, my soul,
+  Till the tree die."
+
+We shall find in all Shakespeare no more blissful creatures than these
+two.
+
+
+
+THE INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE
+
+From 'Transcripts and Studies'
+
+
+The happiest moment in a critic's hours of study is when, seemingly by
+some divination, but really as the result of patient observation and
+thought, he lights upon the central motive of a great work. Then, of a
+sudden, order begins to form itself from the crowd and chaos of his
+impressions and ideas. There is a moving hither and thither, a
+grouping or coordinating of all his recent experiences, which goes on
+of its own accord; and every instant his vision becomes clearer, and
+new meanings disclose themselves in what had been lifeless and
+unilluminated. It seems as if he could even stand by the artist's side
+and co-operate with him in the process of creating. With such a sense
+of joy upon him, the critic will think it no hard task to follow the
+artist to the sources from whence he drew his material,--it may be
+some dull chapter in an ancient chronicle, or some gross tale of
+passion by an Italian novelist,--and he will stand by and watch with
+exquisite pleasure the artist handling that crude material, and
+refashioning and refining it, and breathing into it the breath of a
+higher life. Even the minutest difference of text between an author's
+earlier and later draft, or a first and second edition, has now become
+a point not for dull commentatorship, but a point of life, at which he
+may touch with his finger the pulse of the creator in his fervor of
+creation.
+
+From each single work of a great author we advance to his total work,
+and thence to the man himself,--to the heart and brain from which all
+this manifold world of wisdom and wit and passion and beauty has
+proceeded. Here again, before we address ourselves to the
+interpretation of the author's mind, we patiently submit ourselves to
+a vast series of impressions. And in accordance with Bacon's maxim
+that a prudent interrogation is the half of knowledge, it is right to
+provide ourselves with a number of well-considered questions which we
+may address to our author. Let us cross-examine him as students of
+mental and moral science, and find replies in his written words. Are
+his senses vigorous and fine? Does he see color as well as form? Does
+he delight in all that appeals to the sense of hearing--the voices of
+nature, and the melody and harmonies of the art of man? Thus
+Wordsworth, exquisitely organized for enjoying and interpreting all
+natural, and if we may so say, homeless and primitive sounds, had but
+little feeling for the delights of music. Can he enrich his poetry by
+gifts from the sense of smell, as did Keats; or is his nose like
+Wordsworth's, an idle promontory projecting into a desert air? Has he
+like Browning a vigorous pleasure in all strenuous muscular movements;
+or does he like Shelley live rapturously in the finest nervous
+thrills? How does he experience and interpret the feeling of sex, and
+in what parts of his entire nature does that feeling find its
+elevating connections and associations? What are his special
+intellectual powers? Is his intellect combative or contemplative? What
+are the laws which chiefly preside over the associations of his ideas?
+What are the emotions which he feels most strongly? and how do his
+emotions coalesce with one another? Wonder, terror, awe, love, grief,
+hope, despondency, the benevolent affections, admiration, the
+religious sentiment, the moral sentiment, the emotion of power,
+irascible emotion, ideal emotion--how do these make themselves felt in
+and through his writings? What is his feeling for the beautiful, the
+sublime, the ludicrous? Is he of weak or vigorous will? In the
+conflict of motives, which class of motives with him is likely to
+predominate? Is he framed to believe or framed to doubt? Is he
+prudent, just, temperate, or the reverse of these? These and
+such-like questions are not to be crudely and formally proposed, but
+are to be used with tact; nor should the critic press for hard and
+definite answers, but know how skillfully to glean its meaning from an
+evasion. He is a dull cross-examiner who will invariably follow the
+scheme which he has thought out and prepared beforehand, and who
+cannot vary his questions to surprise or beguile the truth from an
+unwilling witness. But the tact which comes from natural gift and from
+experience may be well supported by something of method,--method well
+hidden away from the surface and from sight.
+
+This may be termed the psychological method of study. But we may also
+follow a more objective method. Taking the chief themes with which
+literature and art are conversant--God, external nature, humanity--we
+may inquire how our author has dealt with each of these. What is his
+theology, or his philosophy of the universe? By which we mean no
+abstract creed or doctrine, but the tides and currents of feeling and
+of faith, as well as the tendencies and conclusions of the intellect.
+Under what aspect has this goodly frame of things, in whose midst we
+are, revealed itself to him? How has he regarded and interpreted the
+life of man? Under each of these great themes a multitude of
+subordinate topics are included. And alike in this and in what we have
+termed the psychological method of study, we shall gain double results
+if we examine a writer's works in the order of their chronology, and
+thus become acquainted with the growth and development of his powers,
+and the widening and deepening of his relations with man, with
+external nature, and with that Supreme Power, unknown yet well known,
+of which nature and man are the manifestation. As to the study of an
+artist's technical qualities, this, by virtue of the fact that he is
+an artist, is of capital importance; and it may often be associated
+with the study of that which his technique is employed to express and
+render--the characteristics of his mind, and of the vision which he
+has attained of the external universe, of humanity, and of God. Of all
+our study, the last end and aim should be to ascertain how a great
+writer or artist has served the life of man; to ascertain this, to
+bring home to ourselves as large a portion as may be of the gain
+wherewith he has enriched human life, and to render access to that
+store of wisdom, passion, and power, easier and surer for others.
+
+
+
+
+A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+(1859-)
+
+[Illustration: A. CONAN DOYLE]
+
+
+The author of 'The White Company,' 'The Great Shadow,' and 'Micah
+Clarke' has been heard to lament the fact that his introduction to
+American readers came chiefly through the good offices of his
+accomplished friend "Sherlock Holmes." Dr. Doyle would prefer to be
+judged by his more serious and laborious work, as it appears in his
+historic romances. But he has found it useless to protest. 'The
+Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' delighted a public which enjoys
+incident, mystery, and above all that matching of the wits of a clever
+man against the dumb resistance of the secrecy of inanimate things,
+which results in the triumph of the human intelligence. Moreover, in
+Sherlock Holmes himself the reader perceived a new character in
+fiction. The inventors of the French detective story,--that ingenious
+Chinese puzzle of literature,--have no such wizard as he to show. Even
+Poe, past master of mystery-making, is more or less empirical in his
+methods of mystery-solving.
+
+But Sherlock Holmes is a true product of his time. He is an embodiment
+of the scientific spirit seeing microscopically and applying itself to
+construct, from material vestiges and psychologic remainders, an
+unknown body of proof. From the smallest fragments he deduces the
+whole structure, precisely as the great naturalists do; and so
+flawless are his reasonings that a course of 'The Adventures of
+Sherlock Holmes' would not be bad training in a high-school class in
+logic.
+
+The creator of this eminent personage was born in Edinburgh in 1859,
+of a line of artists; his grandfather, John Doyle, having been a
+famous political caricaturist, whose works, under the signature "H.
+B.," were purchased at a high price by the British Museum. The quaint
+signature of his father--a capital D, with a little bird perched on
+top, gained him the affectionate sobriquet of "Dicky Doyle"; and Dicky
+Doyle's house was the gathering-place of artists and authors, whose
+talk served to decide the destiny of the lad Conan. For though he was
+intended for the medical profession, and after studying in Germany had
+kept his terms at the Medical College of Edinburgh University, the
+love of letters drove him forth in his early twenties to try his
+fortunes in the literary world of London.
+
+Inheriting from his artist ancestry a sense of form and color, a
+faculty of constructiveness, and a vivid imagination, his studiousness
+and his industry have turned his capacities into abilities. For his
+romance of 'The White Company' he read more than two hundred books,
+and spent on it more than two years of labor. 'Micah Clarke' and 'The
+Great Shadow' involved equal wit and conscience. In his historic
+fiction he has described the England of Edward III., of James II., and
+of to-day, the Scotland of George III., the France of Edward III., of
+Louis XIV., and of Napoleon, and the America of Frontenac; while, in
+securing this correctness of historic detail, he has not neglected the
+first duty of a story-teller, which is to be interesting.
+
+
+
+THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
+
+From 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.' Copyright 1892, by Harper &
+Brothers
+
+
+I had called upon my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes one day in the autumn
+of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout,
+florid-faced elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology
+for my intrusion I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me
+abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.
+
+"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,"
+he said, cordially.
+
+"I was afraid that you were engaged."
+
+"So I am. Very much so."
+
+"Then I can wait in the next room."
+
+"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and
+helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that
+he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also."
+
+The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of
+greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small,
+fat-encircled eyes.
+
+"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair and
+putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial
+moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is
+bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of every-day
+life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has
+prompted you to chronicle, and if you will excuse my saying so,
+somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures."
+
+"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me," I
+observed.
+
+"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went
+into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that
+for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life
+itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the
+imagination."
+
+"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."
+
+"You did, doctor; but none the less you must come round to my view,
+for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until your
+reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now,
+Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this
+morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most
+singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard me
+remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often
+connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes; and
+occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any
+positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard, it is
+impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of
+crime or not; but the course of events is certainly among the most
+singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would
+have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you, not
+merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part,
+but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to
+have every possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have
+heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to
+guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my
+memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts
+are, to the best of my belief, unique."
+
+The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some
+little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the
+inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down the advertisement
+column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon
+his knee, I took a good look at the man, and endeavored, after the
+fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be
+presented by his dress or appearance. I did not gain very much,
+however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an
+average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He
+wore rather baggy gray shepherd's-check trousers, a not over clean
+black frock-coat unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat, with a
+heavy brassy Albert chain and a square pierced bit of metal dangling
+down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with
+a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look
+as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his
+blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent
+upon his features.
+
+Sherlock Holmes's quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his
+head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "Beyond the
+obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he
+takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and
+that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce
+nothing else."
+
+Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the
+paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
+
+"How in the name of good fortune did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?"
+he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labor?
+It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter."
+
+"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than
+your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more
+developed."
+
+"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"
+
+"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that;
+especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use
+an arc-and-compass breastpin."
+
+"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"
+
+"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five
+inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where
+you rest it upon the desk?"
+
+"Well, but China?"
+
+"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist
+could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of
+tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the
+subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink
+is quite peculiar to China. When in addition I see a Chinese coin
+hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple."
+
+Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought
+at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was
+nothing in it, after all."
+
+"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in
+explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor little
+reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid.
+Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, I have got it now," he answered, with his thick red finger
+planted half-way down the column. "Here it is. This is what began it
+all. You just read it for yourself, sir."
+
+I took the paper from him, and read as follows:--
+
+    "TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE:--On account of the bequest of the
+    late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A., there is now
+    another vacancy open, which entitles a member of the League
+    to a salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services. All
+    red-headed men who are sound in body and mind, and above the
+    age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on
+    Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of
+    the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street."
+
+"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated, after I had twice read
+over the extraordinary announcement.
+
+Holmes chuckled, and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in
+high spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?" said
+he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all about
+yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had
+upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, doctor, of the paper
+and the date."
+
+"It is the Morning Chronicle of April 27th, 1890. Just two months
+ago."
+
+"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,"
+said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead: "I have a small pawnbroker's
+business at Coburg Square, near the city. It's not a very large
+affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a
+living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep
+one; and I would have a job to pay him, but that he is willing to
+come for half wages, so as to learn the business."
+
+"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth, either.
+It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr.
+Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself, and earn
+twice what I am able to give him. But after all, if he is satisfied,
+why should I put ideas in his head?"
+
+"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an _employé_ who comes
+under the full market price. It is not a common experience among
+employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is not as
+remarkable as your advertisement."
+
+"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a
+fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to
+be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a
+rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault;
+but on the whole, he's a good worker. There's no vice in him."
+
+"He is still with you, I presume?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple
+cooking, and keeps the place clean--that's all I have in the house,
+for I am a widower, and never had any family. We live very quietly,
+sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads, and pay our
+debts, if we do nothing more.
+
+"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding, he
+came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very
+paper in his hand, and he says:--
+
+"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'
+
+"'Why that?' I asks.
+
+"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the
+Red-Headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets
+it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men,
+so that the trustees are at their wits' end what to do with the money.
+If my hair would only change color, here's a nice little crib all
+ready for me to step into.'
+
+"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very
+stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having
+to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the
+door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what was going on
+outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.
+
+"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-Headed Men?' he asked,
+with his eyes open.
+
+"'Never.'
+
+"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the
+vacancies.'
+
+"'And what are they worth?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year; but the work is slight, and
+it need not interfere very much with one's other occupations.'
+
+"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for
+the business has not been over good for some years, and an extra
+couple of hundred would have been very handy.
+
+"'Tell me all about it,' said I.
+
+"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for
+yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where
+you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the League
+was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very
+peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had a great
+sympathy for all red-headed men; so when he died it was found that he
+had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with
+instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to
+men whose hair is of that color. From all I hear, it is splendid pay
+and very little to do.'
+
+"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who would
+apply.'
+
+"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is really
+confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had started
+from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good
+turn. Then again, I have heard it is no use your applying if your hair
+is light red, or dark red, or anything but real bright, blazing, fiery
+red. Now if you care to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in; but
+perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the
+way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.'
+
+"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my
+hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that if
+there was to be any competition in the matter, I stood as good a
+chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to
+know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just
+ordered him to put up the shutters for the day, and to come right away
+with me. He was very willing to have a holiday; so we shut the
+business up, and started off for the address that was given us in the
+advertisement.
+
+"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From
+north, south, east, and west, every man who had a shade of red in his
+hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet
+Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a
+coster's orange-barrow. I should not have thought there were so many
+in the whole country as were brought together by that single
+advertisement. Every shade of color they were--straw, lemon, orange,
+brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but as Spaulding said, there were
+not many who had the real vivid flame-colored tint. When I saw how
+many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding
+would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed
+and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up
+to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon
+the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but
+we wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the
+office."
+
+"Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked Holmes,
+as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of
+snuff. "Pray continue your very interesting statement."
+
+"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a
+deal table, behind which sat a small man, with a head that was even
+redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came up,
+and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would
+disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy
+matter, after all. However, when our turn came, the little man was
+much more favorable to me than to any of the others, and he closed the
+door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us.
+
+"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is willing to
+fill a vacancy in the League.'
+
+"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has
+every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.'
+He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my
+hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward,
+wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success.
+
+"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, however, I
+am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' With that he
+seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the
+pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he, as he released me. 'I
+perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for
+we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell
+you tales of cobbler's wax which would disgust you with human nature.'
+He stepped over to the window, and shouted through it at the top of
+his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came
+up from below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions,
+until there was not a red head to be seen except my own and that of
+the manager.
+
+"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the
+pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a
+married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?'
+
+"I answered that I had not.
+
+"His face fell immediately.
+
+"'Dear me,' he said, gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am sorry
+to hear you say that. The fund was of course for the propagation and
+spread of the red-heads, as well as for their maintenance. It is
+exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.'
+
+"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was not
+to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for a few
+minutes, he said that it would be all right.
+
+"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be fatal, but
+we must stretch a point in favor of a man with such a head of hair as
+yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?'
+
+"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' said
+I.
+
+"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. 'I
+shall be able to look after that for you.'
+
+"'What would be the hours?' I asked.
+
+"'Ten to two.'
+
+"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. Holmes,
+especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before pay-day;
+so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings.
+Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that he would
+see to anything that turned up.
+
+"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?'
+
+"'Is £4 a week.'
+
+"'And the work?'
+
+"'Is purely nominal.'
+
+"'What do you call purely nominal?'
+
+"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the
+whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position forever. The
+will is very clear upon that point. You don't comply with the
+conditions if you budge from the office during that time.'
+
+"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' said
+I.
+
+"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross, 'neither sickness nor
+business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your
+billet.'
+
+"'And the work?'
+
+"'Is to copy out the Encyclopædia Britannica. There is the first
+volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and
+blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready
+to-morrow?'
+
+"'Certainly,' I answered.
+
+"'Then good-by, Mr. Jabez Wilson; and let me congratulate you once
+more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to
+gain.' He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant,
+hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good
+fortune.
+
+"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low
+spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair
+must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I
+could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that any one could
+make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything
+so simple as copying out the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' Vincent
+Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had
+reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I
+determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of
+ink, and with a quill pen and seven sheets of foolscap paper I started
+off for Pope's Court.
+
+"Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as
+possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was
+there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off upon the
+letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time
+to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he bade me good-by,
+complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and locked the
+door of the office after me.
+
+"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager
+came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. It
+was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I
+was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr.
+Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then after a
+time he did not come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to
+leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come,
+and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I
+would not risk the loss of it.
+
+"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and
+Archery and Armor and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with
+diligence that I might get on to the B's before very long. It cost me
+something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my
+writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end."
+
+"To an end?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual
+at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked with a little square
+of card-board hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here
+it is, and you can read for yourself."
+
+He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of
+note-paper. It read in this fashion:--
+
+                        THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
+                                  IS
+                              DISSOLVED.
+
+                                   _October 9th, 1890._
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful
+face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely
+overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a
+roar of laughter.
+
+"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our client,
+flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. "If you can do nothing
+better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere."
+
+"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he
+had half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for the world. It is
+most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying
+so, something just a little funny about it. Pray, what steps did you
+take when you found the card upon the door?"
+
+"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the
+offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it.
+Finally I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the
+ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of
+the Red-Headed League. He said that he had never heard of any such
+body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the
+name was new to him.
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.'
+
+"'What, the red-headed man?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor, and
+was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises
+were ready. He moved out yesterday.'
+
+"'Where could I find him?'
+
+"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King
+Edward Street, near St. Paul's.'
+
+"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a
+manufactory of artificial knee caps, and no one in it had ever heard
+of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross."
+
+"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes.
+
+"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my
+assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that
+if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough,
+Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle; so
+as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk
+who were in need of it, I came right away to you."
+
+"And you did very wisely." said Holmes. "Your case is an exceedingly
+remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you
+have told me, I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from
+it than might at first sight appear."
+
+"Grave enough!" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. "Why, I have lost four pound a
+week."
+
+"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes, "I do not
+see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On
+the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some £30, to say
+nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject
+which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them."
+
+"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and
+what their object was in playing this prank--if it was a prank--upon
+me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them
+two-and-thirty pounds."
+
+"We shall endeavor to clear up these points for you. And first one or
+two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called
+your attention to the advertisement--how long had he been with you?"
+
+"About a month then."
+
+"How did he come?"
+
+"In answer to an advertisement."
+
+"Was he the only applicant?"
+
+"No; I had a dozen."
+
+"Why did you pick him?"
+
+"Because he was handy, and would come cheap."
+
+"At half wages, in fact."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?"
+
+"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,
+though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his
+forehead."
+
+Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I thought as
+much," said he. "Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for
+earrings?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a
+lad."
+
+"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is still with
+you?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir; I have only just left him."
+
+"And has your business been attended to in your absence?"
+
+"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a
+morning."
+
+"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion
+upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday,
+and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion."
+
+"Well, Watson," said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, "what do
+you make of it all?"
+
+"I make nothing of it," I answered, frankly. "It is a most mysterious
+business."
+
+"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is, the less
+mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes
+which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most
+difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter."
+
+"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.
+
+"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg
+that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled himself up in
+his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and
+there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting
+out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion
+that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he
+suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has
+made up his mind, and put his pipe down upon the mantel-piece.
+
+"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he remarked.
+"What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few
+hours?"
+
+"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing."
+
+"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the city first, and
+we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal
+of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste
+than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect.
+Come along!"
+
+We traveled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk
+took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which
+we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky little shabby-genteel
+place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out
+into a small railed-in inclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a
+few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a
+smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls, and a brown
+board with "JABEZ WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house,
+announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his
+business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it, with his head on
+one side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly
+between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then
+down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally
+he returned to the pawnbroker's, and having thumped vigorously upon
+the pavement with his stick two or three times he went up to the door
+and knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven
+young fellow, who asked him to step in.
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wish to ask you how you would go
+from here to the Strand."
+
+"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant, promptly, closing
+the door.
+
+"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes, as we walked away. "He is, in
+my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am
+not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something
+of him before."
+
+"Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal in
+this mystery of the Red-Headed League. I am sure that you inquired
+your way merely in order that you might see him."
+
+"Not him."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"The knees of his trousers."
+
+"And what did you see?"
+
+"What I expected to see."
+
+"Why did you beat the pavement?"
+
+"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are
+spies in an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg Square.
+Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it."
+
+The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner
+from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to
+it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main
+arteries which convey the traffic of the city to the north and west.
+The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce, flowing
+in a double tide inward and outward, while the foot-paths were black
+with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realize,
+as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises,
+that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant
+square which we had just quitted.
+
+"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along
+the line, "I should like just to remember the order of the houses
+here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London.
+There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the
+Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian
+Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot. That carries us
+right on to the other block. And now, doctor, we've done our work, so
+it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then
+off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony,
+and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums."
+
+My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very
+capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the
+afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness,
+gently waving his long thin fingers in time to the music, while his
+gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those
+of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted,
+ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his
+singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and
+his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often
+thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which
+occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him
+from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was
+never so truly formidable as when for days on end he had been lounging
+in his arm-chair, amid his improvisations and his black-letter
+editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come
+upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the
+level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods
+would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of
+other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music
+at St. James's Hall, I felt that an evil time might be coming upon
+those whom he had set himself to hunt down.
+
+"You want to go home, no doubt, doctor," he remarked as we emerged.
+
+"Yes, it would be as well."
+
+"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This
+business at Coburg Square is serious."
+
+"Why serious?"
+
+"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to
+believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being Saturday
+rather complicates matters. I shall want your help to-night."
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"Ten will be early enough."
+
+"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."
+
+"Very well. And I say, doctor, there may be some little danger, so
+kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." He waved his hand,
+turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
+
+I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I was always
+oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with
+Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what
+he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly
+not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me
+the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home
+to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the
+extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the 'Encyclopædia'
+down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with
+which he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and
+why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I
+had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant
+was a formidable man--a man who might play a deep game. I tried to
+puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside
+until night should bring an explanation.
+
+It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way
+across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two
+hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered the passage I
+heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room I found
+Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognized
+as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the other was a long
+thin sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable
+frock-coat.
+
+"Ha! our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket,
+and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. "Watson, I think you
+know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr.
+Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night's adventure."
+
+"We're hunting in couples again, doctor, you see," said Jones, in his
+consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a
+chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running
+down."
+
+"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,"
+observed Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.
+
+"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said the
+police agent, loftily. "He has his own little methods, which are, if
+he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and
+fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too
+much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto
+murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the
+official force."
+
+"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right," said the stranger,
+with deference, "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the
+first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my
+rubber."
+
+"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will play for
+a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play
+will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be
+some £30,000; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you
+wish to lay your hands."
+
+"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young
+man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I
+would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.
+He's a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a royal
+duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as
+cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn,
+we never know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in
+Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in
+Cornwall the next. I've been on his track for years, and have never
+set eyes on him yet."
+
+"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've
+had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with
+you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however,
+and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom,
+Watson and I will follow in the second."
+
+Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and
+lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the
+afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets
+until we emerged into Farringdon Street.
+
+"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow
+Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the
+matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a
+bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one
+positive virtue. He is as brave as a bull-dog, and as tenacious as a
+lobster if he gets his claws upon any one. Here we are, and they are
+waiting for us."
+
+We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
+ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and following the
+guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and
+through a side door, which he opened for us. Within, there was a small
+corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was
+opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated
+at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a
+lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage,
+and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which
+was piled all around with crates and massive boxes.
+
+"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked, as he held
+up the lantern and gazed about him.
+
+"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the
+flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!"
+he remarked, looking up in surprise.
+
+"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet," said Holmes,
+severely. "You have already imperiled the whole success of our
+expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down
+upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?"
+
+The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very
+injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees
+upon the floor, and with the lantern and a magnifying lens began to
+examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed
+to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in
+his pocket.
+
+"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked; "for they can
+hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then
+they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the
+longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present,
+doctor--as no doubt you have divined--in the cellar at the City branch
+of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman
+of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why
+the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable
+interest in this cellar at present."
+
+"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several
+warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."
+
+"Your French gold?"
+
+"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources, and
+borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France. It
+has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money,
+and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit
+contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our
+reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a
+single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the
+subject."
+
+"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And now it is time
+that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour
+matters will come to a head. In the mean time, Mr. Merryweather, we
+must put the screen over that dark lantern."
+
+"And sit in the dark?"
+
+"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I
+thought that, as we were a _partie carrée_, you might have your rubber
+after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far
+that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And first of all, we must
+choose our positions. These are daring men, and though we shall take
+them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are
+careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal
+yourselves behind those. Then when I flash a light upon them, close in
+swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them
+down."
+
+I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
+which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his
+lantern, and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute darkness as I
+had never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to
+assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a
+moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of
+expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden
+gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.
+
+"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back through
+the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I
+asked you, Jones?"
+
+"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."
+
+"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and
+wait."
+
+What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an
+hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have
+almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary
+and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were
+worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute
+that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but
+I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones
+from the thin, sighing note of the bank director. From my position I
+could look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my
+eyes caught the glint of a light.
+
+At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it
+lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any
+warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared; a white,
+almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little area
+of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers,
+protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it
+appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark which
+marked a chink between the stones.
+
+Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing
+sound, one of the broad white stones turned over upon its side, and
+left a square gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a
+lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which
+looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the
+aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one knee
+rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the
+hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like
+himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.
+
+"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the
+bags?--Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!"
+
+Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar.
+The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth
+as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of
+a revolver, but Holmes's hunting crop came down on the man's wrist and
+the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
+
+"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes, blandly, "You have no chance at
+all."
+
+"So I see," the other answered, with the utmost coolness. "I fancy
+that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails."
+
+"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes.
+
+"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must
+compliment you."
+
+"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was very new and
+effective."
+
+"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's quicker at
+climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out, while I fix the
+derbies."
+
+"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands," remarked
+our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. "You may not
+be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness, also,
+when you address me always to say 'sir' and 'please.'"
+
+"All right," said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. "Well, would you
+please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your
+Highness to the police station?"
+
+"That is better," said John Clay, serenely. He made a sweeping bow to
+the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the
+detective.
+
+"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
+the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.
+There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most
+complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery
+that have ever come within my experience."
+
+"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John
+Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over this
+matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund; but beyond that I am
+amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique,
+and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-Headed
+League."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see, Watson," he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as
+we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it was
+perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of
+this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and
+the copying of the 'Encyclopædia,' must be to get this not over bright
+pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a
+curious way of managing it, but really, it would be difficult to
+suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay's
+ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice's hair. The £4 a week
+was a lure which must draw him,--and what was it to them, who were
+playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has
+the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it,
+and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the
+week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half
+wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for
+securing the situation."
+
+"But how could you guess what the motive was?"
+
+"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere
+vulgar intrigue. That however was out of the question. The man's
+business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which
+could account for such elaborate preparations and such an expenditure
+as they were at. It must then be something out of the house. What
+could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography,
+and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the
+end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious
+assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and
+most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the
+cellar--something which took many hours a day for months on end. What
+could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was
+running a tunnel to some other building.
+
+"So, far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I
+surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was
+ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It
+was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and as I hoped, the assistant
+answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never set eyes
+upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His knees were
+what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how worn,
+wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of
+burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing for.
+I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank
+abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my
+problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland
+Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result
+that you have seen."
+
+"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?"
+I asked.
+
+"Well, when they closed their League offices, that was a sign that
+they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence--in other
+words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that
+they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion
+might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day,
+as it would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons
+I expected them to come to-night."
+
+"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed, in unfeigned
+admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true."
+
+"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already feel
+it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape
+from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to
+do so."
+
+"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps after all it is of some
+little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien--l'oeuvre c'est tout,'
+as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand."
+
+
+
+THE BOWMEN'S SONG
+
+From 'The White Company'
+
+
+        What of the bow?
+      The bow was made in England:
+  Of true wood, of yew wood,
+      The wood of English bows;
+        So men who are free
+        Love the old yew-tree
+  And the land where the yew-tree grows.
+
+        What of the cord?
+      The cord was made in England:
+  A rough cord, a tough cord,
+      A cord that bowmen love;
+        So we'll drain our jacks
+        To the English flax
+  And the land where the hemp was wove.
+
+        What of the shaft?
+      The shaft was cut in England:
+  A long shaft, a strong shaft,
+      Barbed and trim and true;
+        So we'll drink all together
+        To the gray goose feather,
+  And the land where the gray goose flew.
+
+        What of the men?
+      The men were bred in England:
+  The bowman--the yeoman--
+      The lads of dale and fell.
+        Here's to you--and to you!
+        To the hearts that are true
+  And the land where the true hearts dwell.
+
+    Reprinted by permission of the American Publishers'
+    Corporation, Publishers.
+
+
+
+
+HOLGER DRACHMANN
+
+(1846-)
+
+[Illustration: HOLGER DRACHMANN]
+
+
+Holger Drachmann, born in Copenhagen October 9th, 1846, belongs to the
+writers characterized by Georg Brandes as "the men of the new era."
+
+Danish literature had stood high during the first half of the
+nineteenth century. In 1850 Oehlenschläger died. In 1870 there was
+practically no Danish literature. The reason for this may have been
+that after the new political life of 1848-9 and the granting of the
+Danish Constitution, politics absorbed all young talent, and men of
+literary tastes put themselves at the service of the daily press.
+
+In 1872 Georg Brandes gave his lectures on 'Main Currents in the
+Literature of the Nineteenth Century' at the University of Copenhagen.
+That same year Drachmann published his first collection of 'Poems,'
+and so began his extraordinary productivity of poems, dramas, and
+novels. Of these, his lyric poems are undoubtedly of the greatest
+value. His is a distinctly lyric temperament. The new school had
+chosen for its guide Brandes's teaching that "Literature, to be of
+significance, should discuss problems." In view of this fact it is
+somewhat hard to understand why Drachmann should be called a man of
+the new era. He never discusses problems. He always gives himself up
+unreservedly to the subject which at that special moment claims his
+sympathy. Taken as a whole, therefore, his writings present a certain
+inconsistency. He has shown himself alternately as socialist and
+royalist, realist and romanticist, freethinker and believer,
+cosmopolitan and national, according to the lyric enthusiasm of the
+moment. Independent of these changes, the one thing to be admired and
+enjoyed is his lyric feeling and the often exquisite form in which he
+presents it. His larger compositions, novels, and dramas do not show
+the same power over his subject.
+
+If Drachmann discusses any problem, it is the problem Drachmann. He
+does this sometimes with what Brandes calls "a light and joking
+self-irony," in a most sympathetic way. Brandes quotes one of
+Drachmann's early stories, where it is said of the hero:--"His name
+was really Palnatoke Olsen; a continually repeated discord of two
+tones, as he used to say." Olsen is one of the most commonplace Danish
+names. Palnatoke is the name of one of the fiercest warriors of
+heathen antiquity, who, like a veritable Valhalla god, dared to oppose
+the terrible Danish king Harald Blaatand. When Olsen's parents gave
+him this name they unwittingly described their son, "forever drawn by
+two poles: one the plain Olsen, the other the hot-headed fiery
+Viking." With this in mind, and considering Drachmann's literary works
+as a whole, one is irresistibly reminded of his friend and
+contemporary in Norway, Björnsterne Björnson. There is this difference
+between them, however, that if the irony of Palnatoke Olsen may be
+applied to both, one might for Drachmann use the abbreviation P. Olsen
+and for Björnson undoubtedly Palnatoke O.
+
+It might be said of Drachmann, as Sauer said of the Italian poet
+Monti:--"Like a master in the art of appreciation, he knew how to give
+himself up to great time-stirring ideas; somewhat as a gifted actor
+throws himself into his part, with the full strength of his art, with
+an enthusiasm carrying all before it, and in the most expressive way;
+then when the part is played, lays it quietly aside and takes hold of
+something else."
+
+When a young man, Drachmann studied at the Academy of Arts in
+Copenhagen, and met with considerable success as a marine painter. His
+love for the Northern seas shows itself in his poetry and prose, and
+his descriptions of the sea and the life of the sailor and fisherman
+are of the truest and best yielded by his pen. He is the author of no
+less than forty-six volumes of poems, dramas, novels, short stories,
+and sketches, and of two unpublished dramas. His most important work
+is 'Forskrevet' (Condemned), which is largely autobiographical; his
+most attractive though not his strongest production is the opera 'Der
+Var Engang' (Once Upon a Time), founded on Andersen's 'The Swineherd,'
+with music by Sange Müller; his best poems and tales are those dealing
+with the sea.
+
+At present he lives in Hamburg, where on October 10th, 1896,
+he celebrated his fiftieth birthday and his twenty-fifth
+"Author-Jubilee," as the Danes call it. Among the features of the
+celebration were the sending of an enormous number of telegrams from
+Drachmann's admirers in Europe and America, and the performance of two
+of his plays,--one at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, the other at
+the Stadt Theatre in Altona.
+
+
+
+THE SKIPPER AND HIS SHIP
+
+From 'Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone': copyright 1895, by Way
+and Williams, Chicago
+
+
+The Anna Dorothea, in the North Sea, was pounding along under
+shortened sail. The weather was thick, the air dense; there was a
+falling barometer.
+
+It had been a short trip this time. Leroy and Sons, wine merchants of
+Havre, had made better offers than the old houses in Bordeaux. At each
+one of his later trips, Captain Spang had said it should be his last.
+He would "lay up" at home; he was growing too stout and clumsy for the
+sea, and now he must trust fully to Tönnes, his first mate. The
+captain's big broad face was flushed as usual; he always looked as if
+he were illuminated by a setting October sun; there was no change
+here--rather, the sunset tint was stronger. But Tönnes noted how the
+features, which he knew best in moments of simple good-nature and of
+sullen tumult, had gradually relaxed. He thought that it would indeed
+soon be time for his old skipper to "lay up"; yet perhaps a few trips
+might still be made.
+
+"Holloa, Tönnes! let her go about before the next squall strikes her.
+She lies too dead on this bow."
+
+The skipper had raised his head above the cabin stairs. As usual, he
+was in his shirt-sleeves, and his scanty hair fluttered in the wind.
+When he had warned his mate, he again disappeared in the cabin.
+
+Tönnes gave the order to the man at the helm, and hurried to help at
+the main-braces. The double-reefed main-topsail swung about, the Anna
+Dorothea caught the wind somewhat sluggishly, and not without getting
+considerable water over her; then followed the fore-topsail, the
+reefed foresail, and the trysail. When the tacking was finished and
+the sails had again caught the wind, the trysail was torn from the
+boltropes with a loud crack.
+
+The captain's head appeared again,
+
+"We must close-reef!" said he.
+
+The last reef was taken in; the storm came down and lashed the sea;
+the sky grew more and more threatening; the waves dashed over the deck
+at each plunge of the old bark in the sea. The old vessel, which had
+carried her captain for a generation, lay heavily on the water--Tönnes
+thought too heavily.
+
+The second mate--the same who had played the accordion at the
+inn--came over to Tönnes.
+
+"It was wrong to stow the china-clay at the bottom and the casks on
+top; she lies horribly dead, and I'm afraid we shall have to use the
+pumps."
+
+"Yes, I said so to the old man, but he would have it that way,"
+answered Tönnes. "We shall have a wet night."
+
+"We shall, surely," said the second mate.
+
+Tönnes crawled up to the helm and looked at the compass. Two men were
+at the helm--lashed fast. Tönnes looked up into the rigging and out to
+windward; then suddenly he cried, with the full force of his lungs:--
+
+"Look out for breakers!"
+
+Tönnes himself helped at the wheel; but the vessel only half answered
+the helm. The greater portion of the sea struck the bow, the quarter,
+and the bulwarks and stanchions amidship, so that they creaked and
+groaned. One of the men at the helm had grasped Tönnes, who would
+otherwise have been swept into the lee scupper. When the ship had
+righted from the terrible blow, the captain stood on the deck in his
+oilcloth suit.
+
+"Are any men missing?" cried he, through the howling of the wind and
+the roaring of the water streaming fore and aft, unable to escape
+quickly enough through the scuppers.
+
+The storm raged with undiminished fury. The crew--and amongst them
+Prussian, who had been promoted to be ship's-dog--by-and-by dived
+forward through the seething salt water and the fragments of wreck
+that covered the deck.
+
+Now it was that the second mate was missing.
+
+The captain looked at Tönnes, and then out on the wild sea. He
+scarcely glanced at the crushed long-boat; even if a boat could have
+been launched, it would have been too late. Tönnes and his skipper
+were fearless men, who took things as they were. If any help could
+have been given, they would have given it. But their eyes sought
+vainly for any dark speck amidst the foaming waves--and it was
+necessary to care for themselves, the vessel and the crew.
+
+"God save his soul!" murmured Captain Spang.
+
+Tönnes passed his hand across his brow, and went to his duty. Evening
+set in; the wind increased rather than decreased.
+
+"She is taking in water," said the captain, who had sounded the
+pumps.
+
+Tönnes assented.
+
+"We must change her course," said the captain. "She pitches too
+heavily in this sea."
+
+The bark was held up to the wind as closely as possible. The pumps
+were worked steadily, but often got out of order on account of the
+china-clay, which mixed with the water down in the hold.
+
+It was plain that the vessel grew heavier and heavier; her movements
+in climbing a wave were more and more dead.
+
+During the night a cry arose: again one of the crew was washed
+overboard.
+
+It was a long night and a wet one, as Tönnes had predicted. Several
+times the skipper dived clown into the cabin--Tonnes knew perfectly
+well what for, but he said nothing. Few words were spoken on board the
+Anna Dorothea that night.
+
+In the morning the captain, returning from one of his excursions down
+below, declared that the cabin was half full of water.
+
+"We must watch for a sail," he said, abruptly and somewhat huskily.
+
+Tönnes passed the word round amongst the crew. One might read on their
+faces that they were prepared for this, and that they had ceased to
+hope, although they had not stopped work at the pumps.
+
+The whole of the weather bulwark, the cook's cabin and the long-boat,
+were crushed or washed away; the water could be heard below the
+hatches. While keeping a sharp lookout for sails, many an eye glanced
+at the yawl as the last resort. But on board Captain Spang's vessel
+the words were not yet spoken which carried with them the doom of the
+ship: "We are sinking!"
+
+In the gray-white of the dawn a signal was to be hoisted; the bunting
+was tied together at the middle and raised half-mast high.
+
+Both the captain and Tönnes had lashed themselves aft; for now the
+bark was but little better than a wreck, over which the billows broke
+incessantly, as the vessel, reeling like a drunken man, exposed
+herself to the violent attacks of the sea instead of parrying them.
+
+"A sail to windward, captain!" cried Tönnes.
+
+Captain Spang only nodded.
+
+"She holds her course!" cried one of the crew excitedly. "No," said
+Tönnes, quietly. "She has seen us, and is bearing down upon us!"
+
+The captain again nodded.
+
+"Tis a brig!" cried one of the crew.
+
+"A schooner-brig!" Tönnes corrected. "She carries her sails finely. I
+am sure she is a fruit-trader."
+
+At last the strange vessel was so near that they could see her deck
+each time she was thrown upon her side in the violent seething sea.
+
+"Yes, 'tis the schooner-brig!" exclaimed Tönnes. "Do you remember,
+captain, the time when--"
+
+Again Captain Spang nodded. He acted strangely. Tönnes looked sharply
+at him, and shook his head.
+
+Now Tönnes hailed the vessel:--
+
+"Help us!--We are sinking!"
+
+At this moment two or three of the bark's crew rushed toward the yawl,
+although Tönnes warned them back.
+
+Captain Spang seemed changed. Evidently some opposing feelings
+contended within him. Seeing the insubordination of the men, he only
+shrugged his shoulders, and let Tönnes take full charge.
+
+The men were in the yawl, still hanging under the iron davits. Now
+they cut the ropes; the yawl touched the water. The crew of the other
+vessel gestured warningly; but it was too late. A sea seized the yawl
+with its small crew, and the next moment crushed it against the main
+chains of the bark. Their shipmates raised a cry, and rushed to help
+them; but help was impossible. Boat and crew had disappeared.
+
+"Didn't I say so?" cried Tönnes, with flaming eyes.
+
+Over there in the schooner-brig all was activity. From the Anna
+Dorothea they could plainly see how the captain gave his orders. He
+manoeuvred his vessel like a true sailor. To board the wreck in such a
+sea would be madness. Therefore they unreeved two long lines and
+attached them to the long-boat, one on each side. Then they laid
+breeching under the boat, and hauled it up amidships by means of
+tackle. Taking advantage of a moment when their vessel was athwart the
+seas, they unloosed the tackle, and the boat swung out over the side;
+then they cut the breeching, the boat fell on the water aft, and now
+both lines were eased off quickly; while the brig caught the wind, the
+boat drifted toward the stern-sheets of the bark.
+
+Tönnes was ready with a boat-hook, and connections were quickly made
+between the boat and the wreck.
+
+"Quick now!" cried Tönnes. "Every man in the boat. No one takes his
+clothes with him! We may be thankful if we save our lives."
+
+The men were quickly over the stern-sheets and down in the boat.
+Prussian whined, and kept close to Captain Spang, who had not moved
+one step on the deck.
+
+"Come, captain!" cried Tönnes, taking the skipper by the arm.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the old man angrily.
+
+Tönnes looked at him. Prussian barked.
+
+"We must get into the boat, captain. The vessel may sink at any
+moment. Come!"
+
+The captain pressed his sou'wester down over his forehead, and glanced
+around his deck.
+
+The men in the boat cried out to them to come.
+
+"Well!" said Captain Spang, but with an air so absent-minded and a
+bearing so irresolute that Tönnes at last took a firm hold on him.
+
+Prussian showed his teeth at his former master.
+
+"You go first!" exclaimed Tönnes, snatching the dog and throwing him
+down to the men, who were having hard work to keep the boat from
+wrecking.
+
+When the dog was no longer on the deck, it seemed as if Captain
+Spang's resistance was broken. Tönnes did not let go his hold on him;
+but the young mate had to use almost superhuman strength to get the
+heavy old man down over the vessel's side and placed on a seat in the
+boat.
+
+As soon as they had observed from the brig that this had been done,
+they hauled in both lines. The boat moved back again; but it was a
+dangerous voyage, and all were obliged to lash themselves fast to the
+thwarts with ropes placed there for that purpose.
+
+Captain Spang was like a child. Tönnes had to lash him to the seat.
+The old man sat with his face hidden in his hands, his back turned
+toward his ship, inactive, and seemingly unconscious of what took
+place around him.
+
+At last, when after a hard struggle all were on the deck of the
+schooner-brig, her captain came forward, placed his hand on his old
+friend's shoulder, and said:--
+
+"It is the second time, you see! Well, we all cling to life, and the
+vessel over there is pretty old."
+
+Captain Spang started. He scarcely returned his friend's hand-shaking.
+
+"My vessel, I say! My papers! All that I have is in the vessel. I must
+go aboard, do you hear? I must go aboard. How could I forget?"
+
+The other skipper and Tönnes looked at each other.
+
+Captain Spang wrung his hands and stamped on the deck, his eyes fixed
+on his sinking vessel. She was still afloat; what did he care for the
+gale and the heavy sea? He belonged to the old school of skippers; he
+was bound to his vessel by ties longer than any life-line, heavier
+than any hawser: he had left his ship in a bewildered state, and had
+taken nothing with him that might serve to prove what he possessed and
+how long he had possessed it. His good old vessel was still floating
+on the water. He must, he would go there; if nobody would go with him,
+he would go alone.
+
+All remonstrances were in vain.
+
+Tönnes pressed the other skipper's hand.
+
+"There is nothing else to be done. I know him," said he.
+
+"So do I," was the answer.
+
+Captain Spang and his mate were again in the boat. As they were on the
+point of starting, a loud whine and violent barking sounded from the
+deck, and Prussian showed his one eye over the railing.
+
+"Stay where you are!" cried Tönnes. "We shall be back soon."
+
+But the dog did not understand him. Perhaps he had his doubts; no one
+can say. He sprang overboard; Tönnes seized him by the ear, and hauled
+him into the boat.
+
+And then the two men and the dog ventured back to the abandoned
+vessel.
+
+This time the old man climbed on board without assistance.
+
+Prussian whined in the boat.
+
+"Throw that dog up to me!" cried the master.
+
+Tönnes did so.
+
+"Shall I come up and help you?" he called out.
+
+"No, I can find my own way."
+
+"But hurry, captain! do you understand?" said Tönnes, who anxiously
+noticed that the motions of the vessel were becoming more and more
+dangerous, while he needed all his strength to keep the boat clear of
+the wreck.
+
+An answer came from the bark, but he could not catch it. In this
+moment Tönnes recalled the day when he rowed the captain out on the
+bay to the brig. His next thought was of Nanna. Oh, if she knew where
+they were!
+
+And at this thought the mate's breast was filled with conflicting
+emotions. The dear blessed girl! Oh, if her father would only come!
+
+"Captain!" cried Tönnes; "Captain Spang! for God's sake, come! Leave
+those papers alone. The vessel is sinking. We may at any moment--"
+
+He paused.
+
+The captain stood at the stern-sheets. At his side was Prussian,
+squinting down into the boat. There was an entirely strange expression
+in Andreas Spang's face; a double expression--one moment hard and
+defiant, the next almost solemn.
+
+The sou'wester had fallen from his old head. His scanty hairs
+fluttered in the wind. He held in his hand a parcel of papers and a
+coil of rope. He pointed toward the brig.
+
+"There!" he cried, throwing the package and the rope down to Tonnes.
+"Give the skipper this new line for his trouble. He has used plenty of
+rope for us. You go back. I stay here. Give--my--love--to the girl at
+home.--You and she--You two--God bless you!"
+
+"Captain!" cried Tönnes in affright; "you are sick; come, let me--"
+
+He prepared to climb on board.
+
+Captain Spang lifted his hand threateningly, and Prussian barked
+furiously.
+
+"Stay down there, boy, I say! The vessel and I, we belong together.
+You shall take care of the girl. Good-by!"
+
+The Anna Dorothea rolled heavily over on one side, righted again, and
+then began to plunge her head downwards, like a whale that, tired of
+the surface, seeks rest at the bottom. The crew of the brig hauled in
+the lines of the boat. Tossed on the turbid sea, Tönnes saw his old
+skipper leaning against the helm, the dog at his side. His gray hairs
+fluttered in the wind as if they wafted a last farewell; and down with
+vessel and dog went the old skipper--down into the wild sea that so
+long had borne him on its waves.
+
+
+
+THE PRINCE'S SONG
+
+From 'Once Upon a Time'
+
+
+  Princess, I come from out a land that lieth--
+    I know not in what arctic latitude:
+  Though high in the bleak north, it never sigheth
+    For sunny smiles; they wait not to be wooed.
+  Our privilege we know: the bright half-year
+    Illumines sea and shore with sunlit glory;
+  In twilight then our fertile fields we ear,
+    And round our brows we twine a wreath of story.
+
+  When winter decks with frost the bearded oak,
+    In songs and sagas we our youth recover;
+  Around the hearthstone crowd the listening folk,
+    While on the wall mysterious shadows hover.
+  The summer night, suffused with loving glow,
+    The future, dawning in a golden chalice,
+  Enkindles hope in hearts of high and low,
+    From peasant's cottage to the royal palace.
+
+  The snow of winter spreads o'er hill and valley
+    Its soft and silken blue-white veil of sleep;
+  The springtime bids the green-clad earth to rally,
+    When through the budding leaves the sunbeams peep,
+  The autumn brings fresh breezes from the ocean
+    And paints the lad's fair cheeks a rosy red;
+  The maiden's heart is stirred with new emotion,
+    When summer's fragrance o'er the world is spread.
+
+  To roam in our fair land is like a dream,
+    Through these still woods, renowned in ancient story,
+  Along the shores, deep-mirrored in the gleam
+    Of fjords that shine beneath the sky's blue glory.
+  Upon the meadows where the flowers bloom
+    The elfin maidens hide themselves in slumbers,
+  But soon along the lakes where shadows gloom
+    In every bosky nook they'll dance their numbers.
+
+  There are no frowning crags on our green mountains,
+    No dark, forbidding cliffs where gorges yawn;
+  The streams flow gently seaward from their fountains,
+    As through the silent valley steals the dawn.
+  Here nature smoothes the rugged, tames the savage.
+    And men born here in victory are kind,
+  Forbearing still the foeman's land to ravage,
+    And in defeat they bear a steadfast mind.
+
+  I'm proud of land, of kindred, and of nation,
+    I'm proud my home is where the waters flow;
+  Afar I see in golden radiation
+    My native land like sun through amber glow.
+  Its warmth revives my heart, however lonely:
+    Forgive me, Princess, if my soul's aflame,--
+  But rather be at home, a beggar only,
+    Than, exiled thence, have universal fame.
+
+                               Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
+
+
+
+
+JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE
+
+(1795-1820)
+
+[Illustration: JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE]
+
+
+Conspicuous among the young poets, essayists, and journalists, who
+made up literary New York in the early part of the century, was Joseph
+Rodman Drake, the friend of Halleck, and the best beloved perhaps of
+all that brilliant group. Hardly known to this generation save by
+'The Culprit Fay' and 'The American Flag,' Drake was essentially
+a true poet and a man of letters. His work was characteristic of
+his day. He had a certain amount of classical knowledge, a certain
+eighteenth-century grace and style, yet withal, an instinctive
+Americanism which flowered out into our first true national
+literature. The group of writers among whom were found Irving,
+Halleck, Willis, Dana, Hoffman, Verplanck, Brockden Brown, and a
+score of others, reflected that age in which they sought their
+literary models. With the exception of Poe, who belonged to a somewhat
+later time and whose genius was purely subjective, much of the
+production of these Americans followed the lines of their English
+predecessors,--Johnson, Goldsmith, Addison, and Steele. It is only in
+their deeper moments of thought and feeling that there sounds that
+note of love of country, of genuine Americanism, which gives their
+work individuality, and which will keep their memory green.
+
+Drake was born in New York, in August 1795. He was descended from the
+same family as the great admiral of Elizabethan days, the American
+branch of which had served their country honorably both in colonial
+and Revolutionary times. The scenes of his boyhood were the same as
+those that formed the environment of Irving, memories of which are
+scattered thick through the literature of the day. New York was still
+a picturesque, hospitable, rural capital, the centre of the present
+town being miles distant in the country. The best families were all
+intimately associated in a social life that was cultivated and refined
+at the same time that it was gay and unconventional; and in this
+society Drake occupied a place which his lovable qualities and fine
+talents must have won, even had it been denied him by birth. He was a
+precocious boy, for whom a career was anticipated by his friends while
+he was yet a mere child; and when he met Halleck, in his eighteenth
+year, he had already won some reputation.
+
+The friendship of Drake and Halleck was destined to prove infinitely
+valuable to both. A discussion between Cooper, Halleck, and Drake,
+upon the poetic inspiration of American scenery, prompted Drake to
+write 'The Culprit Fay'--a poem without any human character. This he
+completed in three days, and offered it as the argument on his side.
+The scene of the poem is laid in the Highlands of the Hudson, but
+Drake added many pictures suggested by memories of Long Island Sound,
+whose waters he haunted with boat and rod. He apologized for this by
+saying that the purposes of poetry alone could explain the presence so
+far up the Hudson of so many salt-water emigrants. 'The Culprit Fay'
+is a creation of pure fancy, full of delicate imagery, and handled
+with an ethereal lightness of touch. Its exquisite grace, its delicate
+coloring, its prodigality of charm, explain its immediate popularity
+and its lasting fame. But the Rip Van Winkle legend is a far more
+genuine product of fancy.
+
+Drake's few shorter lyrics throb with genuine poetic feeling, and show
+the loss sustained by literature in the author's early death. Best
+known of these is 'The American Flag,' which appeared in the Evening
+Post as one of a series of _jeux d'esprit_, the joint productions of
+Halleck and Drake, who either alternated in the composition of the
+numbers or wrote them together. The last four lines only of 'The
+American Flag' are Halleck's. The entire series appeared between March
+and July, 1819, under the signature of "The Croakers." Literary New
+York was mystified as to the authorship of these skits, which hit off
+the popular fads, follies, and enthusiasms of the day with so easy and
+graceful a touch. Politics, music, the drama, and domestic life alike
+furnished inspiration for the numbers; some of whose titles, as 'A
+Sketch of a Debate in Tammany' and 'The Battery War,' suggest the
+local political issues of the present day. There is now in existence a
+handsome edition of these verses, with the names of the authors of the
+several pieces appended, and in the case of the joint ownership with
+the initials D. and H. subscribed.
+
+Drake's complete poems were not published during his lifetime. Sixteen
+years after his death by consumption in his twenty-sixth year, his
+daughter issued a volume dedicated to Halleck, in which were included
+the best specimens of her father's work. Many of the lesser known
+verses indicate his true place as a poet. In the touching poem
+'Abelard to Eloise,' in the third stanza of 'The American Flag,' and
+in innumerable beautiful lines scattered throughout his work, appears
+a genuine inspiration.
+
+In his own day, Drake filled a place which his death left forever
+vacant. His rare and winning personality, his generous friendships,
+his joy in life, and his courage in the contemplation of his
+inevitable fate, still appeal to a generation to whom they are but
+traditions. The exquisite monody in which Halleck celebrated his loss,
+links their names and decorates their friendship with imperishable
+garlands.
+
+
+
+A WINTER'S TALE
+
+From 'The Croakers'
+
+    "_A merry heart goes all the way,
+        A sad one tires in a mile-a._"
+                              --WINTER'S TALE.
+
+
+  The man who frets at worldly strife
+      Grows sallow, sour, and thin;
+  Give us the lad whose happy life
+      Is one perpetual grin:
+  He, Midas-like, turns all to gold;
+      He smiles when others sigh;
+  Enjoys alike the hot and cold,
+      And laughs through wet and dry.
+
+  There's fun in everything we meet;
+      The greatest, worst, and best
+  Existence is a merry treat,
+      And every speech a jest:
+  Be 't ours to watch the crowds that pass
+      Where mirth's gay banner waves;
+  To show fools through a quizzing glass,
+      And bastinade the knaves.
+
+  The serious world will scold and ban,
+      In clamor loud and hard,
+  To hear Meigs[A] called a Congressman,
+      And Paulding called a bard:
+  But come what may, the man's in luck
+      Who turns it all to glee,
+  And laughing, cries with honest Puck,
+      "Good Lord! what fools ye be!"
+
+    [A] Henry Meigs of New York, a Congressman from 1819 to 1821
+    in the Sixteenth Congress.
+
+
+
+THE CULPRIT FAY
+
+    My visual orbs are purged from film, and lo!
+      Instead of Anster's turnip-bearing vales,
+    I see old Fairyland's miraculous show!
+      Her trees of tinsel kissed by freakish gales,
+    Her ouphs that, cloaked in leaf-gold, skim the breeze,
+      And fairies, swarming....
+                                         --TENNANT'S 'ANSTER FAIR'
+
+
+  'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night--
+  The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
+  Naught is seen in the vault on high
+  But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,
+  And the flood which rolls its milky hue,
+  A river of light on the welkin blue.
+  The moon looks down on old Cronest;
+  She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
+  And seems his huge gray form to throw
+  In a silver cone on the wave below;
+  His sides are broken by spots of shade,
+  By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
+  And through their clustering branches dark
+  Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark--
+  Like starry twinkles that momently break
+  Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.
+
+  The stars are on the moving stream,
+    And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
+  A burnished length of wavy beam
+    In an eel-like, spiral line below;
+  The winds are whist, and the owl is still;
+    The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;
+  And naught is heard on the lonely hill
+  But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
+        Of the gauze-winged katydid;
+  And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill,
+  Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings.
+    Ever a note of wail and woe,
+  Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
+    And earth and sky in her glances glow.
+
+  'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:
+  The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
+  He has counted them all with click and stroke
+  Deep in the heart of the mountain oak,
+  And he has awakened the sentry elve
+    Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
+  To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
+    And call the fays to their revelry;
+  Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell--
+  ('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell)
+  "Midnight comes, and all is well!
+  Hither, hither, wing your way!
+  'Tis the dawn of the fairy day."
+
+  They come from beds of lichen green,
+  They creep from the mullein's velvet screen;
+  Some on the backs of beetles fly
+    From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
+  Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,
+    And rocked about in the evening breeze;
+  Some from the hum-bird's downy nest--
+    They had driven him out by elfin power,
+  And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
+    Had slumbered there till the charmèd hour;
+  Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,
+    With glittering ising-stars inlaid;
+  And some had opened the four-o'clock,
+    And stole within its purple shade.
+  And now they throng the moonlight glade,
+    Above, below, on every side,
+  Their little minim forms arrayed
+    In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!
+
+  They come not now to print the lea,
+  In freak and dance around the tree,
+  Or at the mushroom board to sup,
+  And drink the dew from the buttercup;--
+  A scene of sorrow waits them now,
+  For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow;
+  He has loved an earthly maid,
+  And left for her his woodland shade;
+  He has lain upon her lip of dew,
+  And sunned him in her eye of blue,
+  Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
+  Played in the ringlets of her hair,
+  And nestling on her snowy breast,
+  Forgot the lily-king's behest.
+  For this the shadowy tribes of air
+    To the elfin court must haste away:
+  And now they stand expectant there,
+    To hear the doom of the culprit fay.
+
+  The throne was reared upon the grass,
+  Of spice-wood and of sassafras;
+  On pillars of mottled tortoise-shell
+    Hung the burnished canopy--
+  And o'er it gorgeous curtains fell
+    Of the tulip's crimson drapery.
+  The monarch sat on his judgment seat;
+    On his brow the crown imperial shone;
+  The prisoner fay was at his feet,
+    And his peers were ranged around the throne.
+  He waved his sceptre in the air,
+    He looked around and calmly spoke;
+  His brow was grave and his eye severe,
+    But his voice in a softened accent broke:--
+
+  "Fairy! Fairy! list and mark:
+    Thou hast broke thine elfin chain;
+  Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
+    And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain--
+  Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity
+    In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye;
+  Thou hast scorned our dread decree,
+    And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high.
+  But well I know her sinless mind
+    Is pure as the angel forms above,
+  Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,
+    Such as a spirit well might love;
+  Fairy! had she spot or taint,
+  Bitter had been thy punishment:
+  Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
+  Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;
+  Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
+  With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
+  Or every night to writhe and bleed
+  Beneath the tread of the centipede;
+  Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
+  Your jailer a spider, huge and grim,
+  Amid the carrion bodies to lie
+  Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly:
+  These it had been your lot to bear,
+  Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.
+  Now list, and mark our mild decree--
+  Fairy, this your doom must be:--
+
+  "Thou shalt seek the beach of sand
+  Where the water bounds the elfin land;
+  Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
+  Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
+  Then dart the glistening arch below,
+  And catch a drop from his silver bow.
+  The water-sprites will wield their arms
+    And dash around, with roar and rave,
+  And vain are the woodland spirits' charms;
+    They are the imps that rule the wave.
+  Yet trust thee in thy single might:
+  If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
+  Thou shalt win the warlock fight.
+
+  "If the spray-bead gem be won,
+    The stain of thy wing is washed away;
+  But another errand must be done
+    Ere thy crime be lost for aye:
+  Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,--
+  Thou must re-illume its spark.
+  Mount thy steed and spur him high
+  To the heaven's blue canopy;
+  And when thou seest a shooting star,
+  Follow it fast, and follow it far--
+  The last faint spark of its burning train
+  Shall light the elfin lamp again.
+  Thou hast heard our sentence, fay;
+  Hence! to the water-side, away!"
+
+  The goblin marked his monarch well;
+    He spake not, but he bowed him low,
+  Then plucked a crimson colen-bell,
+    And turned him round in act to go.
+  The way is long; he cannot fly;
+    His soilèd wing has lost its power,
+  And he winds adown the mountain high
+    For many a sore and weary hour.
+  Through dreary beds of tangled fern,
+  Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,
+  Over the grass and through the brake,
+  Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake;
+  Now o'er the violet's azure flush
+    He skips along in lightsome mood;
+  And now he thrids the bramble-bush,
+    Till its points are dyed in fairy blood.
+  He has leaped the bog, he has pierced the brier,
+  He has swum the brook and waded the mire,
+  Till his spirits sank and his limbs grew weak,
+  And the red waxed fainter in his cheek.
+  He had fallen to the ground outright,
+    For rugged and dim was his onward track,
+  But there came a spotted toad in sight,
+    And he laughed as he jumped upon her back;
+  He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist,
+    He lashed her sides with an osier thong.
+  And now, through evening's dewy mist,
+    With leap and spring they bound along,
+  Till the mountain's magic verge is past,
+  And the beach of sand is reached at last.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Up, fairy! quit thy chickweed bower,
+  The cricket has called the second hour,
+  Twice again, and the lark will rise
+  To kiss the streaking of the skies--
+  Up! thy charmèd armor don;
+  Thou'lt need it ere the night be gone.
+
+  He put his acorn helmet on:
+  It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down;
+  The corselet plate that guarded his breast
+  Was once the wild bee's golden vest;
+  His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
+  Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
+  His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,
+  Studs of gold on a ground of green;
+  And the quivering lance which he brandished bright
+  Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.
+  Swift he bestrode his firefly steed;
+    He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue;
+  He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,
+    And away like a glance of thought he flew,
+  To skim the heavens, and follow far
+  The fiery trail of the rocket-star.
+
+  The moth-fly, as he shot in air,
+  Crept under the leaf and hid her there;
+  The katydid forgot its lay,
+  The prowling gnat fled fast away,
+  The fell mosquito checked his drone
+  And folded his wings till the fay was gone.
+  And the wily beetle dropped his head,
+  And fell on the ground as if he were dead;
+  They crouched them close in the darksome shade,
+    They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,
+  For they had felt the blue-bent blade,
+    And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;
+  Many a time, on a summer's night,
+  When the sky was clear, and the moon was bright,
+  They had been roused from the haunted ground
+  By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;
+  They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,
+    They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,
+  When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,
+  And the needle-shaft through air was borne,
+    Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing.
+  And now they deemed the courier ouphe
+    Some hunter-sprite of the elfin ground;
+  And they watched till they saw him mount the roof
+    That canopies the world around;
+  Then glad they left their covert lair,
+  And freaked about in the midnight air.
+
+  Up to the vaulted firmament
+  His path the firefly courser bent,
+  And at every gallop on the wind,
+  He flung a glittering spark behind;
+  He flies like a feather in the blast
+  Till the first light cloud in heaven is past.
+    But the shapes of air have begun their work,
+  And a drizzly mist is round him cast;
+    He cannot see through the mantle murk;
+  He shivers with cold, but he urges fast;
+    Through storm and darkness, sleet and shade,
+  He lashes his steed, and spurs amain--
+  For shadowy hands have twitched the rein,
+    And flame-shot tongues around him played,
+  And near him many a fiendish eye
+  Glared with a fell malignity,
+  And yells of rage, and shrieks of fear,
+  Came screaming on his startled ear.
+
+  His wings are wet around his breast,
+  The plume hangs dripping from his crest,
+  His eyes are blurred with the lightning's glare,
+  And his ears are stunned with the thunder's blare.
+  But he gave a shout, and his blade he drew;
+    He thrust before and he struck behind,
+  Till he pierced their cloudy bodies through,
+    And gashed their shadowy limbs of wind;
+  Howling the misty spectres flew;
+    They rend the air with frightful cries;
+  For he has gained the welkin blue,
+    And the land of clouds beneath him lies.
+
+  Up to the cope careering swift,
+    In breathless motion fast,
+  Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,
+    Or the sea-roc rides the blast,
+  The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
+    The sphered moon is past,
+  The earth but seems a tiny blot
+    On a sheet of azure cast.
+  Oh! it was sweet, in the clear moonlight,
+    To tread the starry plain of even!
+  To meet the thousand eyes of night,
+    And feel the cooling breath of heaven!
+  But the elfin made no stop or stay
+  Till he came to the bank of the Milky Way;
+  Then he checked his courser's foot,
+  And watched for the glimpse of the planet-shoot.
+
+  Sudden along the snowy tide
+    That swelled to meet their footsteps' fall,
+  The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide,
+    Attired in sunset's crimson pall;
+  Around the fay they weave the dance,
+    They skip before him on the plain.
+  And one has taken his wasp-sting lance,
+    And one upholds his bridle rein;
+  With warblings wild they lead him on
+    To where, through clouds of amber seen,
+  Studded with stars, resplendent shone
+    The palace of the sylphid queen.
+  Its spiral columns, gleaming bright,
+  Were streamers of the northern light;
+  Its curtain's light and lovely flush
+  Was of the morning's rosy blush;
+  And the ceiling fair that rose aboon,
+  The white and feathery fleece of noon.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Borne afar on the wings of the blast,
+  Northward away he speeds him fast,
+  And his courser follows the cloudy wain
+  Till the hoof-strokes fall like pattering rain.
+  The clouds roll backward as he flies.
+  Each flickering star behind him lies,
+  And he has reached the northern plain,
+  And backed his firefly steed again,
+  Ready to follow in its flight
+  The streaming of the rocket-light.
+
+  The star is yet in the vault of heaven,
+    But it rocks in the summer gale,
+  And now 'tis fitful and uneven,
+    And now 'tis deadly pale;
+  And now 'tis wrapped in sulphur-smoke,
+    And quenched is its rayless beam;
+  And now with a rattling thunder-stroke
+    It bursts in flash and flame.
+  As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance
+    That the storm spirit flings from high,
+  The star-shot flew o'er the welkin blue,
+    As it fell from the sheeted sky.
+  As swift as the wind in its train behind
+    The elfin gallops along:
+  The fiends of the clouds are bellowing loud.
+    But the sylphid charm is strong;
+  He gallops unhurt in the shower of fire,
+    While the cloud-fiends fly from the blaze;
+  He watches each flake till its sparks expire,
+    And rides in the light of its rays.
+
+  But he drove his steed to the lightning's speed,
+    And caught a glimmering spark;
+  Then wheeled around to the fairy ground,
+    And sped through the midnight dark.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!
+    Elf of eve! and starry fay!
+  Ye that love the moon's soft light,
+    Hither, hither, wend your way;
+  Twine ye in a jocund ring,
+    Sing and trip it merrily,
+  Hand to hand, and wing to wing,
+    Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
+
+  Hail the wanderer again
+    With dance and song, and lute and lyre;
+  Pure his wing and strong his chain,
+    And doubly bright his fairy fire.
+  Twine ye in an airy round,
+    Brush the dew and print the lea;
+  Skip and gambol, hop and bound,
+    Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
+
+  The beetle guards our holy ground,
+    He flies about the haunted place,
+  And if mortal there be found,
+    He hums in his ears and flaps his face;
+  The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay,
+    The owlet's eyes our lanterns be;
+  Thus we sing and dance and play,
+    Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
+
+  But hark! from tower on tree-top high,
+    The sentry elf his call has made;
+  A streak is in the eastern sky;
+    Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade!
+  The hill-tops gleam in Morning's spring,
+  The skylark shakes his dappled wing,
+  The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn,--
+  The cock has crowed, and the fays are gone.
+
+
+
+THE AMERICAN FLAG
+
+
+  When Freedom from her mountain height
+    Unfurled her standard to the air,
+  She tore the azure robe of night,
+    And set the stars of glory there;
+  She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
+  The milky baldric of the skies,
+  And striped its pure celestial white
+  With streakings of the morning light;
+  Then from his mansion in the sun
+  She called her eagle-bearer down,
+  And gave unto his mighty hand
+  The symbol of her chosen land.
+
+  Majestic monarch of the cloud!
+    Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
+  To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,
+  And see the lightning lances driven,
+    When strive the warriors of the storm,
+  And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven--
+  Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given
+    To guard the banner of the free,
+  To hover in the sulphur-smoke,
+  To ward away the battle-stroke,
+  And bid its blendings shine afar,
+  Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
+    The harbingers of victory!
+
+  Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
+  The sign of hope and triumph high,
+  When speaks the signal trumpet-tone,
+  And the long line comes gleaming on:
+  Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
+  Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
+  Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
+  To where the sky-born glories burn,
+  And as his springing steps advance,
+  Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
+  And when the cannon-mouthings loud
+  Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
+  And gory sabres rise and fall,
+  Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;--
+  Then shall thy meteor-glances glow,
+    And cowering foes shall sink beneath
+  Each gallant arm that strikes below
+    That lovely messenger of death.
+
+  Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
+  Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
+  When death, careering on the gale,
+  Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
+  And frighted waves rush wildly back
+  Before the broadside's reeling rack,
+  Each dying wanderer of the sea
+  Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
+  And smile to see thy splendors fly
+  In triumph o'er his closing eye.
+
+  Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
+    By angel hands to valor given;
+  Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
+    And all thy hues were born in heaven.
+  Forever float that standard sheet!
+    Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
+  With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
+    And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!
+
+
+
+
+JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
+
+(1811-1882)
+
+[Illustration: JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER]
+
+
+The subject of this sketch was born at St. Helen's, near Liverpool,
+England, on the 5th of May, 1811. His earliest education was obtained
+at a Wesleyan Methodist school, but after a time he came under private
+teachers, with whose help he made rapid progress in the physical
+sciences, thus showing in his boyhood the natural bent of his mind and
+the real strength of his intellect. He afterwards studied for a time
+at the University of London, but in 1833 came to the United States,
+and three years later graduated at the University of Pennsylvania with
+the degree of M. D. In 1839 he was elected to the chair of chemistry
+in the University of New York, a position which he held until his
+death in 1882.
+
+Draper's contributions to science were of a high order. He discovered
+some of the facts that lie at the basis of spectrum analysis; he was
+one of the first successful experimenters in the art of photography;
+and he made researches in radiant energy and other scientific
+phenomena. He published in 1858 a treatise on 'Human Physiology,'
+which is a highly esteemed and widely used text-book. He died on the
+4th of January, 1882.
+
+Draper's chief contributions to literature are three works: 'History
+of the Intellectual Development of Europe' (1863), a 'History of the
+American Civil War' (1867-1870), and 'The History of the Conflict
+between Religion and Science,' which appeared in the International
+Scientific Series in 1873. Of these works, the one on the intellectual
+development of Europe is the ablest, and takes a place beside the
+works of Lecky and Buckle as a contribution to the history of
+civilization. The history of the Civil War was written too soon after
+the events described to have permanent historical value. 'The History
+of the Conflict between Religion and Science' is a judicial
+presentation of the perennial controversy from the standpoint of the
+scientist.
+
+Draper's claims to attention as a philosophic historian rest mainly on
+his theory of the influence of climate on human character and
+development. He maintains that "For every climate, and indeed for
+every geographical locality, there is an answering type of humanity";
+and in his history of the American Civil War, as well as in his work
+on the intellectual development of Europe, he endeavored to prove that
+doctrine. Another theory which is prominent in his principal work is,
+that the intellectual development of every people passes through five
+stages; namely, 1, the Age of Credulity; 2, the Age of Inquiry; 3, the
+Age of Faith; 4, the Age of Reason; 5, the Age of Decrepitude. Ancient
+Greece, he thinks, passed through all those stages, the age of reason
+beginning with the advent of physical science. Europe as a whole has
+now also entered the age of reason, which as before he identifies with
+the age of physical science; so that everywhere in his historical
+works, physical influences and the scientific knowledge of physical
+phenomena are credited with most of the progress that mankind has
+made. Draper has left a distinct mark upon the scientific thought of
+his generation, and made a distinct and valuable contribution to the
+literature of his adopted country.
+
+
+
+THE VEDAS AND THEIR THEOLOGY
+
+From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+The Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, and of which there are
+four,--the Rig, Yagust, Saman, and Atharvan,--are asserted to have
+been revealed by Brahma. The fourth is however rejected by some
+authorities, and bears internal evidence of a later composition, at a
+time when hierarchical power had become greatly consolidated. These
+works are written in an obsolete Sanskrit, the parent of the more
+recent idiom. They constitute the basis of an extensive literature,
+Upavedas, Angas, etc., of connected works and commentaries. For the
+most part they consist of hymns suitable for public and private
+occasions, prayers, precepts, legends, and dogmas. The Rig, which is
+the oldest, is composed chiefly of hymns; the other three of
+liturgical formulas. They are of different periods and of various
+authorship, internal evidence seeming to indicate that if the later
+were composed by priests, the earlier were the production of military
+chieftains. They answer to a state of society advanced from the nomad
+to the municipal condition. They are based upon an acknowledgment of a
+universal Spirit, pervading all things. Of this God they therefore
+necessarily acknowledge the unity: "There is in truth but one Deity,
+the Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the universe, whose work is the
+universe." "The God above all gods, who created the earth, the
+heavens, and waters." The world, thus considered as an emanation of
+God, is therefore a part of him; it is kept in a visible state by his
+energy, and would instantly disappear if that energy were for a moment
+withdrawn. Even as it is, it is undergoing unceasing transformations,
+everything being in a transitory condition. The moment a given phase
+is reached, it is departed from, or ceases. In these perpetual
+movements the present can scarcely be said to have any existence, for
+as the Past is ending, the Future has begun.
+
+In such a never-ceasing career all material things are urged, their
+forms continually changing, and returning as it were through revolving
+cycles to similar states. For this reason it is that we may regard our
+earth and the various celestial bodies as having had a moment of
+birth, as having a time of continuance, in which they are passing
+onward to an inevitable destruction; and that after the lapse of
+countless ages similar progresses will be made, and similar series of
+events will occur again and again.
+
+But in this doctrine of universal transformation there is something
+more than appears at first. The theology of India is underlaid with
+Pantheism. "God is One because he is All." The Vedas, in speaking of
+the relation of nature to God, make use of the expression that he is
+the material as well as the cause of the universe, "the clay as well
+as the Potter." They convey the idea that while there is a pervading
+spirit existing everywhere, of the same nature as the soul of man,
+though differing from it infinitely in degree, visible nature is
+essentially and inseparably connected therewith; that as in man the
+body is perpetually undergoing changes, perpetually decaying and being
+renewed,--or as in the case of the whole human species, nations come
+into existence and pass away,--yet still there continues to exist what
+may be termed the universal human mind, so forever associated and
+forever connected are the material and the spiritual. And under this
+aspect we must contemplate the Supreme Being, not merely as a
+presiding intellect, but as illustrated by the parallel case of man,
+whose mental principle shows no tokens except through its connection
+with the body: so matter, or nature, or the visible universe, is to be
+looked upon as the corporeal manifestation of God.
+
+
+
+PRIMITIVE BELIEFS DISMISSED BY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
+
+From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+As man advances in knowledge, he discovers that of his primitive
+conclusions some are doubtless erroneous, and many require better
+evidence to establish their truth incontestably. A more prolonged and
+attentive examination gives him reason, in some of the most important
+particulars, to change his mind. He finds that the earth on which he
+lives is not a floor covered over with a starry dome, as he once
+supposed, but a globe self-balanced in space. The crystalline vault,
+or sky, is recognized to be an optical deception. It rests upon the
+earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all; there is no kingdom of
+happiness above it, but a limitless space adorned with planets and
+suns. Instead of a realm of darkness and woe in the depths on the
+other side of the earth, men like ourselves are found there, pursuing,
+in Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures and encountering
+the ordinary labors of life. By the aid of such lights as knowledge
+gradually supplies, he comes at last to discover that this our
+terrestrial habitation, instead of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is
+only one of similar myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea,
+and prodigally scattered through space.
+
+Never, perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. All the visible
+evidence was in direct opposition to it. The earth, which had hitherto
+seemed to be the very emblem of immobility, was demonstrated to be
+carried with a double motion, with prodigious velocity, through the
+heavens; the rising and setting of the stars were proved to be an
+illusion; and as respects the size of the globe, it was shown to be
+altogether insignificant when compared with multitudes of other
+neighboring ones--insignificant doubly by reason of its actual
+dimensions, and by the countless numbers of others like it in form,
+and doubtless like it the abodes of many orders of life.
+
+And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about twenty-five
+thousand miles in circumference. The voyager who circumnavigates it
+spends no inconsiderable portion of his life in accomplishing his
+task. It moves round the sun in a year, but at so great a distance
+from that luminary that if seen from him, it would look like a little
+spark traversing the sky. It is thus recognized as one of the members
+of the solar system. Other similar bodies, some of which are of
+larger, some of smaller dimensions, perform similar revolutions round
+the sun in appropriate periods of time.
+
+If the magnitude of the earth be too great for us to attach to it any
+definite conception, what shall we say of the compass of the solar
+system? There is a defect in the human intellect, which incapacitates
+us for comprehending distances and periods that are either too
+colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight into the matter,
+when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond the bounds of
+the system may perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a
+thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our
+grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination; the
+one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no
+conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.
+
+But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there are other
+worlds like our solar system. There are self-luminous suns, exceeding
+in number all computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into
+nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, and
+that system in its turn is only an invisible point if placed in
+relation with the countless hosts of other systems, which form with it
+clusters of stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the
+universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound by common
+laws and subject to like influences. Even on the very verge of
+creation, where imagination might lay the beginning of the realms of
+chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity in the
+arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are other
+intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the
+abysses of space.
+
+Though it may take a beam of light a million years to bring to our
+view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths
+of space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our
+own. The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast
+distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their
+movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which
+they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky
+glow.
+
+Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar system, from the
+solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to which we belong,
+we behold a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up one after
+another, and forming greater and greater colonies of worlds. No
+numbers can express them, for they make the firmament a haze of stars.
+Uniformity, even though it be the uniformity of magnificence, tires at
+last, and we abandon the survey; for our eyes can only behold a
+boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own unspeakable
+insignificance.
+
+But what has become of the time-honored doctrine of the human destiny
+of the universe?--that doctrine for the sake of which the controversy
+I have described in this chapter was raised? It has disappeared. In
+vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo imprisoned; the truth forced its way,
+in spite of all opposition, at last. The end of the conflict was a
+total rejection of authority and tradition, and the adoption of
+scientific truth.
+
+
+
+THE KORAN
+
+From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+Arabian influence, thus imposing itself on Africa and Asia by
+military successes, and threatening even Constantinople, rested
+essentially on an intellectual basis, the value of which it is needful
+for us to consider. The Koran, which is that basis, has exercised a
+great control over the destinies of mankind, and still serves as a
+rule of life to a very large portion of our race. Considering the
+asserted origin of this book,--indirectly from God himself,--we might
+justly expect that it would bear to be tried by any standard that man
+can apply, and vindicate its truth and excellence in the ordeal of
+human criticism. In our estimate of it, we must constantly bear in
+mind that it does not profess to be successive revelations made at
+intervals of ages and on various occasions, but a complete production
+delivered to one man. We ought therefore to look for universality,
+completeness, perfection. We might expect that it would present us
+with just views of the nature and position of this world in which we
+live, and that whether dealing with the spiritual or the material, it
+would put to shame the most celebrated productions of human genius, as
+the magnificent mechanism of the heavens and the beautiful living
+forms of the earth are superior to the vain contrivances of man. Far
+in advance of all that has been written by the sages of India, or the
+philosophers of Greece, on points connected with the origin, nature,
+and destiny of the universe, its dignity of conception and excellence
+of expression should be in harmony with the greatness of the subject
+with which it is concerned.
+
+    [Illustration: _AFRICAN ARABIC MANUSCRIPT._
+
+    Thirteenth Century.                  National Library, Paris.
+
+    Reduced fac-simile of part of a page of an Arabic Koran, in
+    the African character, captured at Tunis by Charles V.
+
+    The scribes of the East are distinguished by their efforts to
+    acquire a perfect style of execution; and their success
+    merits the greater praise, since they generally stand while
+    writing, resting only on the left arm; and notwithstanding
+    the inferiority of the reed to the modern pen, the Arabs have
+    succeeded in producing the most excellent specimens of
+    calligraphy.]
+
+We might expect that it should propound with authority, and
+definitively settle, those all-important problems which have exercised
+the mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for so many
+centuries, and which are at the foundation of all faith and all
+philosophy; that it should distinctly tell us in unmistakable language
+what is God, what is the world, what is the soul, and whether man has
+any criterion of truth; that it should explain to us how evil can
+exist in a world the Maker of which is omnipotent and altogether good;
+that it should reveal to us in what the affairs of men are fixed by
+Destiny, in what by free-will; that it should teach us whence we came,
+what is the object of our continuing here, what is to become of us
+hereafter. And since a written work claiming a divine origin must
+necessarily accredit itself even to those most reluctant to receive
+it, its internal evidences becoming stronger and not weaker with the
+strictness of the examination to which they are submitted, it ought to
+deal with those things that may be demonstrated by the increasing
+knowledge and genius of man; anticipating therein his conclusions.
+
+Such a work, noble as may be its origin, must not refuse but court the
+test of natural philosophy, regarding it not as an antagonist but as
+its best support. As years pass on, and human science becomes more
+exact and more comprehensive, its conclusions must be found in unison
+therewith. When occasion arises, it should furnish us at least the
+foreshadowings of the great truths discovered by astronomy and
+geology, not offering for them the wild fictions of earlier ages,
+inventions of the infancy of man. It should tell us how suns and
+worlds are distributed in infinite space, and how in their successions
+they come forth in limitless time. It should say how far the dominion
+of God is carried out by law, and what is the point at which it is his
+pleasure to resort to his own good providence or his arbitrary will.
+How grand the description of this magnificent universe, written by the
+Omnipotent hand! Of man it should set forth his relations to other
+living beings, his place among them, his privileges and
+responsibilities. It should not leave him to grope his way through the
+vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last; but it
+should teach him wherein true knowledge consists, anticipating the
+physical science, physical power, and physical well-being of our own
+times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that we are still
+ignorant of. The discussion of subjects so many and so high is not
+outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its manner of dealing
+with them is the only criterion it can offer of its authenticity to
+succeeding times.
+
+Tried by such a standard, the Koran altogether fails. In its
+philosophy it is incomparably inferior to the writings of Chakia
+Mouni, the founder of Buddhism; in its science it is absolutely
+worthless. On speculative or doubtful things it is copious enough; but
+in the exact, where a test can be applied to it, it totally fails. Its
+astronomy, cosmogony, physiology, are so puerile as to invite our
+mirth, if the occasion did not forbid. They belong to the old times of
+the world, the morning of human knowledge. The earth is firmly
+balanced in its seat by the weight of the mountains; the sky is
+supported over it like a dome, and we are instructed in the wisdom and
+power of God by being told to find a crack in it if we can. Ranged in
+stories, seven in number, are the heavens, the highest being the
+habitation of God, whose throne--for the Koran does not reject
+Assyrian ideas--is sustained by winged animal forms. The shooting
+stars are pieces of red-hot stone, thrown by angels at impure spirits
+when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of praise,
+setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it
+bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures them
+that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the Judgment Day they
+must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about whom
+ye disputed?"--though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
+mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
+merchandise of religion,--its ideas of the Deity are altogether
+anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man, living in a paradise. In
+this respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader
+rises from a perusal of the one hundred and fourteen chapters of the
+Koran with a final impression that they have given him low and
+unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising that one of the Mohammedan
+sects reads it in such a way as to find no difficulty in asserting
+that "from the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, and
+from the breast downward he is solid;" that he "has curled black hair,
+and roars like a lion at every watch of the night." The unity asserted
+by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction to the Trinity of
+the Christians, and the doctrine of a Divine generation. Our Savior is
+never called the Son of God, but always the Son of Mary. Throughout
+there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion of the human destiny
+of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse enough respecting a
+future state, speaking with clearness of a resurrection, the Judgment
+Day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm that never dies, the
+pains that never end; but with all this precise description of the
+future, there are many errors as to the past. If modesty did not
+render it unsuitable to speak of such topics here, it might be shown
+how feeble is his physiology when he has occasion to allude to the
+origin or generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond the ideas of
+Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things that are past
+cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.
+
+Of the literary execution of his work, it is perhaps scarcely possible
+to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the oldest prose
+composition among the Arabs, by whom Mohammed's boast of the
+unapproachable excellence of his work is almost universally sustained;
+but it must not be concealed that there have been among them very
+learned men who have held it in light esteem. Its most celebrated
+passages, as those on the nature of God, in Chapters ii., xxiv., will
+bear no comparison with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job.
+In the narrative style, the story of Joseph in Chapter xii., compared
+with the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
+Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends,
+derived probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he mixes
+with many of his own inventions the Scripture account of the
+temptation of Adam, the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, enriching the
+whole with stories like the later Night Entertainments of his country,
+the seven sleepers, Gog and Magog, and all the wonders of genii,
+sorcery, and charms.
+
+An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised that so
+feeble a production should serve its purpose so well. But the theory
+of religion is one thing, the practice another. The Koran abounds in
+excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so
+fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single page without finding
+maxims of which all men must approve. This fragmentary construction
+yields texts and mottoes and rules complete in themselves, suitable
+for common men in any of the incidents of life. There is a perpetual
+insisting on the necessity of prayer, an inculcation of mercy,
+almsgiving, justice, fasting, pilgrimage, and other good works;
+institutions respecting conduct, both social and domestic, debts,
+witnesses, marriage, children, wine, and the like; above all, a
+constant stimulation to do battle with the infidel and blasphemer. For
+life as it passes in Asia, there is hardly a condition in which
+passages from the Koran cannot be recalled suitable for instruction,
+admonition, consolation, encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the
+African, such devotional fragments are of far more use than any
+sustained theological doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed
+did not enable him to handle important philosophical questions with
+the well-balanced ability of the great Greek and Indian writers; but
+he has never been surpassed in adaptation to the spiritual wants of
+humble life, making even his fearful fatalism administer thereto. A
+pitiless destiny is awaiting us; yet the prophet is uncertain what it
+may be. "Unto every nation a fixed time is decreed. Death will
+overtake us even in lofty towers, but God only knoweth the place in
+which a man shall die." After many an admonition of the resurrection
+and the Judgment Day, many a promise of Paradise and threat of hell,
+he plaintively confesses, "I do not know what will be done with you or
+me hereafter."
+
+The Koran thus betrays a human and not a very noble intellectual
+origin. It does not however follow that its author was, as is so often
+asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and again, "I am
+nothing more than a public preacher." He defends, not always without
+acerbity, his work from those who even in his own life stigmatized it
+as a confused heap of dreams, or what is worse, a forgery. He is not
+the only man who has supposed himself to be the subject of
+supernatural and divine communications, for this is a condition of
+disease to which any one, by fasting and mental anxiety, may be
+reduced.
+
+In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many millions of
+men as a revelation from God, I have endeavored to speak with respect
+and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in mind how deeply to this
+book Asia and Africa are indebted for daily guidance, how deeply
+Europe and America for the light of science.
+
+As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have received many
+fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in the course of
+ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii largely figure. The
+latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink, propagate their kind,
+are of two sorts, good and bad, and existed long before men, having
+occupied the earth before Adam. Immediately after death, two greenish
+livid angels, Monkir and Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith
+in God and Mohammed; but the soul, having been separated from the body
+by the angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
+resurrection. There is however much diversity of opinion as to its
+precise disposal before the Judgment Day: some think that it hovers
+near the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem; some, that
+it retires into the trumpet of the angel of the resurrection; the
+difficulty apparently being that any final disposal before the Day of
+Judgment would be anticipatory of that great event, if indeed it would
+not render it needless. As to the resurrection, some believe it to be
+merely spiritual, others corporeal; the latter asserting that the _os
+coccygis_, or last bone of the spinal column, will serve as it were as
+a germ; and that, vivified by a rain of forty days, the body will
+sprout from it. Among the signs of the approaching resurrection will
+be the rising of the sun in the west. It will be ushered in by three
+blasts of a trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation,
+will shake the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars;
+the second, the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material
+things except Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years
+subsequently, the angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrection.
+From his trumpet there will be blown forth the countless myriads of
+souls who have taken refuge therein, or lain concealed. The Day of
+Judgment has now come. The Koran contradicts itself as to the length
+of this day; in one place making it a thousand, in another fifty
+thousand years. Most Mohammedans incline to adopt the longer period,
+since angels, genii, men, and animals have to be tried.
+
+As to men, they will rise in their natural state, but naked;
+white-winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting the saved. When
+the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with an
+intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called into
+existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a sweat to
+issue from them; and this, according to their demerits, will immerse
+them from the ankles to the mouth; but the righteous will be screened
+by the shadow of the throne of God. The Judge will be seated in the
+clouds, the books open before him, and everything in its turn called
+on to account for its deeds. For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel
+will hold forth his balance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise
+and one over hell. In these all works are weighed. As soon as the
+sentence is delivered, the assembly, in a long file, will pass over
+the bridge Al-Sirat. It is as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid
+over the mouth of hell. Mohammed and his followers will successfully
+pass the perilous ordeal; but the sinners, giddy with terror, will
+drop into the place of torment. The blessed will receive their first
+taste of happiness at a pond which is supplied by silver pipes from
+the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of Paradise is of musk. Its rivers
+tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies and emeralds. From tents of
+hollow pearls the Houris, or girls of Paradise, will come forth,
+attended by troops of beautiful boys. Each saint will have eighty
+thousand servants and seventy-two girls. To these, some of the more
+merciful Mussulmans add the wives they have had upon earth; but the
+grimly orthodox assert that hell is already nearly filled with women.
+How can it be otherwise, since they are not permitted to pray in a
+mosque upon earth?
+
+I have not space to describe the silk brocades, the green clothing,
+the soft carpets, the banquets, the perpetual music and songs. From
+the glorified body all impurities will escape, not as they did during
+life, but in a fragrant perspiration of camphor and musk. No one will
+complain, "I am weary;" no one will say, "I am sick.".
+
+From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indicated in
+the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the faith of
+Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such it is said that not
+less than seventy-three may be numbered. Some, as the Sonnites, are
+guided by traditions; some occupy themselves with philosophical
+difficulties,--the existence of evil in the world, the attributes of
+God, absolute predestination and eternal damnation, the invisibility
+and non-corporeality of God, his capability of local motion.... But
+the great Mohammedan philosophers, simply accepting the doctrine of
+the oneness of God as the only thing of which man can be certain, look
+upon all the rest as idle fables--having however this political use:
+that they furnish contention and therefore occupation to disputatious
+sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.
+
+
+
+
+MICHAEL DRAYTON
+
+(1563-1631)
+
+[Illustration: MICHAEL DRAYTON]
+
+
+While London still crowded to the new "Theatre" in Shoreditch, the
+first built in England; while Ben Jonson was still soldiering in the
+Low Countries; while Marlowe was working out the tragedy that was to
+revolutionize all stage traditions, and Shakespeare was yet but a
+"looker-on at greatness,"--there came up from Warwickshire a young man
+of good family who had served as page in a noble house, who had
+studied possibly at Oxford, and who in the first flush of manhood
+aspired to a place among those prodigies who made the later
+Elizabethan period immortal. This was Michael Drayton, whose gentle
+birth and breeding, education and talents, knowledge of the world and
+of men, together with a most sweet and lovable disposition, made him
+at once welcome in the literary Bohemia of the day. He became the
+"deare and bosom friend" of Beaumont and Fletcher, and his work
+received unquestioned honor from his illustrious contemporaries.
+
+As a child he had demanded of his elders to know what kind of beings
+poets were, had spent many hours in writing childishly fantastic
+verses, and had begged of his tutor to make a poet of him. And
+although he seems to have been poor and to have lived by the gifts of
+wealthy patrons, he cast in his lot with literature, and cherished no
+other ambition than that of writing well. His first book, a volume of
+spiritual poems, or metrical renderings of the Bible, was published in
+1590 under the title 'The Harmony of the Church.' It is difficult to
+see why this commonplace and orthodox performance should have given
+such umbrage that the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the entire
+edition to destruction. Yet this was its fate, with the exception of
+forty copies which Archbishop Whitgift ordered to be reserved for the
+ecclesiastical library at Lambeth Palace. Undiscouraged, the poet next
+produced a cycle of sixty-four sonnets and a collection of pastorals
+entitled 'Idea: the Shepherd's Garland,' in which under the name
+"Rowland" he celebrated an early love. It is strange that the
+intrinsic merit of these verses, and their undoubted popularity,
+should not have urged Drayton to continue in the same vein. Instead,
+however, he set about the composition of a series of historical poems
+which extended over the next twenty-four years, and to which he gave
+the best energies of his life. Beginning with the epic 'Matilda,'
+studied from English history, the series was continued by a poem on
+the 'Wars of the Roses,' afterward enlarged into 'The Barons' Wars.'
+This was followed by the epic 'Robert, Duke of Normandy.' Destitute of
+imagination, prolix and tedious, these verses were yet so popular in
+Drayton's day that in 1612 he began the publication of a poem in
+thirty books, meant to include the entire chronology and topography of
+Great Britain, from the earliest times. This was the famous
+'Poly-Olbion,' in which, in spite of the inspiring work of his
+contemporaries, Drayton harked back in spirit to the dreary monotony
+of the Saxon Chronicle; the detail is so minute, the matter so
+unimportant, and the absence of discrimination so apparent, that
+notwithstanding many noticeable beauties of thought and style, it is
+hard to realize that this poem was a favorite with that brilliant
+group which had known Shakespeare, and still delighted in Ben Jonson.
+After issuing eighteen books of 'Poly-Olbion,' his publishers--with
+whom he was always quarreling, and whom he declared that he "despised
+and kicked at"--refused to undertake the remaining twelve books of the
+second part. His friends, however, loyal in their love and praise of
+him, secured a more complaisant tradesman to bring out the rest of the
+already famous poem.
+
+Fortunately for his fame, Drayton had in the mean time produced two
+other volumes of verse, which displayed the real grace and
+fancifulness of his charming muse. The first of these, 'Poems Lyrical
+and Pastoral,' included the satire 'The Man in the Moon'; while in the
+second were printed the 'Ballad of Agincourt,' the most spirited of
+English martial lyrics, and that delightful fantasy 'Nymphidia, or the
+Court of Faery,' in which the touch is so light, the fancy so dainty,
+and the conceit so delicate, that the poem remains immortally fresh
+and young. Because everybody wrote plays, Drayton turned playwright,
+and is said to have collaborated with Massinger and Ford. Of his long
+works, the 'Heroicall Episodes' is perhaps the most readable. His last
+effort was 'The Muses' Elizium,' published in 1630. A year later he
+died, and was buried in Westminster, where a monument was erected to
+him by the Countess of Dorset.
+
+Drayton's place in English literature is with that considerable and
+not unimportant band who have done somewhat, but whose repute is much
+more for what they were in their friends' eyes than for what they did.
+In an age of great intellectual achievement, he yet managed, in spite
+of the stimulus of kindred minds and his own undoubted gift, to
+produce little that has sustained the reputation accorded him by his
+acquaintances. Most of his work lives chiefly to afford pleasing
+studies for the literary antiquary, to whom the tide of time brings
+nothing uninteresting. Yet in the art of living, in the unselfish
+devotion of his powers to his chosen calling, in the graces of
+affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so excellent and
+exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard of the most able men
+of the most brilliant period of English literature--men who felt a
+personal and unrequitable loss when he passed away, and who spoke of
+him always with admiring tenderness.
+
+In person he seems to have been small and dark. He describes himself
+as of "swart and melancholy face." Yet his talk was most delightful,
+and a strong proof of his wide popularity appears in the fact that he
+is quoted not less than one hundred and fifty times in 'England's
+Parnassus,' published as early as 1600. The tributes of his friends
+are innumerable, from the "good Rowland" of Barnfield to the
+"golden-mouthed Drayton, musicall," of Fitz-Geoffrey, the "man of
+vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-preserved
+carriage" of Meres, or the tender lines of his friend Ben Jonson:--
+
+  "Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
+  What they and what their children owe
+  To Drayton's name; whose sacred dust
+  We recommend unto thy trust.
+  Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
+  Remain a lasting monument of his glory.
+  And when thy ruins shall disclaim
+  To be the treasurer of his name,
+  His name, that cannot die, shall be
+  An everlasting monument to thee."
+
+
+
+SONNET
+
+
+  Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,--
+    Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
+  And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
+    That thus so clearly I myself can free:
+  Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
+    And when we meet at any time again,
+  Be it not seen in either of our brows
+    That we one jot of former love retain.
+  Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath.
+    When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
+  When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
+    And Innocence is closing up his eyes,--
+  Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
+  From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!
+
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT
+
+
+  Fair stood the wind for France,
+  When we our sails advance,
+  Nor now to prove our chance
+      Longer will tarry;
+  But putting to the main,
+  At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
+  With all his martial train,
+      Landed King Harry.
+
+  And taking many a fort,
+  Furnished in warlike sort,
+  Marched towards Agincourt
+      In happy hour--
+  Skirmishing day by day
+  With those that stopped his way,
+  Where the French gen'ral lay
+      With all his power.
+
+  Which in his height of pride,
+  King Henry to deride,
+  His ransom to provide
+      To the King sending;
+  Which he neglects the while,
+  As from a nation vile,
+  Yet, with an angry smile,
+      Their fall portending.
+
+  And turning to his men,
+  Quoth our brave Henry then:--
+  "Though they to one be ten,
+      Be not amazed;
+  Yet have we well begun--
+  Battles so bravely won
+  Have ever to the sun
+      By fame been raised.
+
+  "And for myself," quoth he,
+  "This my full rest shall be;
+  England ne'er mourn for me,
+      Nor more esteem me;
+  Victor I will remain,
+  Or on this earth lie slain;
+  Never shall she sustain
+      Loss to redeem me.
+
+  "Poitiers and Cressy tell,
+  When most their pride did swell,
+  Under our swords they fell;
+      No less our skill is
+  Than when our grandsire great,
+  Claiming the regal seat,
+  By many a warlike feat
+      Lopped the French lilies."
+
+  The Duke of York so dread
+  The eager vaward led;
+  With the main Henry sped,
+      Amongst his henchmen.
+  Excester had the rear--
+  A braver man not there:
+  O Lord! how hot they were
+      On the false Frenchmen!
+
+  They now to fight are gone;
+  Armor on armor shone;
+  Drum now to drum did groan--
+      To hear was wonder;
+  That with the cries they make
+  The very earth did shake;
+  Trumpet to trumpet spake,
+      Thunder to thunder.
+
+  Well it thine age became,
+  O noble Erpingham!
+  Which did the signal aim
+      To our hid forces;
+  When from a meadow by,
+  Like a storm suddenly,
+  The English archery
+      Struck the French horses,
+
+  With Spanish yew so strong,
+  Arrows a cloth-yard long,
+  That like to serpents stung,
+      Piercing the weather;
+  None from his fellow starts,
+  But playing manly parts,
+  And like true English hearts,
+      Stuck close together.
+
+  When down their bows they threw,
+  And forth their bilbows drew,
+  And on the French they flew,
+      Not one was tardy;
+  Arms were from shoulders sent;
+  Scalps to the teeth were rent;
+  Down the French peasants went;--
+      Our men were hardy.
+
+  This while our noble king,
+  His broadsword brandishing,
+  Down the French host did ding,
+      As to o'erwhelm it;
+  And many a deep wound lent,
+  His arm with blood besprent,
+  And many a cruel dent
+      Bruisèd his helmet.
+
+  Glo'ster, that duke so good,
+  Next of the royal blood,
+  For famous England stood,
+      With his brave brother--
+  Clarence, in steel so bright,
+  Though but a maiden knight,
+  Yet in that furious fight
+      Scarce such another.
+
+  Warwick in blood did wade;
+  Oxford the foe invade,
+  And cruel slaughter made,
+      Still as they ran up.
+  Suffolk his axe did ply;
+  Beaumont and Willoughby
+  Bare them right doughtily,
+      Ferrers and Fanhope.
+
+  Upon Saint Crispin's day
+  Fought was this noble fray,
+  Which fame did not delay
+      To England to carry;
+  Oh, when shall Englishmen
+  With such acts fill a pen,
+  Or England breed again
+      Such a King Harry?
+
+
+
+QUEEN MAB'S EXCURSION
+
+From 'Nymphidia, the Court of Faery'
+
+
+  Her chariot ready straight is made;
+  Each thing therein is fitting laid,
+  That she by nothing might be stay'd,
+      For naught must her be letting:
+  Four nimble gnats the horses were,
+  The harnesses of gossamer,
+  Fly Cranion, her charioteer,
+      Upon the coach-box getting.
+
+  Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
+  Which for the colors did excel,--
+  The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
+      So lively was the limning;
+  The seat the soft wool of the bee.
+  The cover (gallantly to see)
+  The wing of a py'd butterflee,--
+      I trow, 'twas simple trimming.
+
+  The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
+  And daintily made for the nonce;
+  For fear of rattling on the stones,
+      With thistle-down they shod it:
+  For all her maidens much did fear,
+  If Oberon had chanced to hear
+  That Mab his queen should have been there,
+      He would not have abode it.
+
+  She mounts her chariot with a trice,
+  Nor would she stay for no advice,
+  Until her maids, that were so nice,
+      To wait on her were fitted,
+  But ran away herself alone;
+  Which when they heard, there was not one
+  But hasted after to be gone,
+      As she had been diswitted.
+
+  Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear,
+  Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were
+  To Mab their sovereign dear,
+      Her special maids of honor;
+  Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,
+      Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin,
+  Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,
+      The train that wait upon her.
+
+  Upon a grasshopper they got,
+  And what with amble and with trot,
+  For hedge nor ditch they sparèd not,
+      But after her they hie them.
+  A cobweb over them they throw,
+  To shield the wind if it should blow;
+  Themselves they wisely could bestow,
+      Lest any should espy them.
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE DROZ
+
+(1832-1895)
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE DROZ]
+
+
+Gustave Droz enjoyed for a time the distinction of being the most
+popular writer of light literature in France, and his fame extended
+throughout Europe and to America, several of his books having been
+translated into English. Essentially a Parisian of the day,--gay,
+droll, adroit,--he not only caught and reflected the humor of his
+countrymen, but with a new, fresh touch, reached below the surface of
+their volatile emotions. Occasionally striking the note of deeper
+feeling, he avoided as a rule the more serious sides of life, as well
+as the sensational tendencies of most of his contemporaries. His
+friends claimed for him a distinctive _genre_, and on that account
+presented him as a candidate for the Academy; but he failed of
+election.
+
+The son of a well-known sculptor, he was born in Paris, and followed
+the traditions of his family in entering the École des Beaux-Arts,
+where he developed some aptitude with his brush; but a preference for
+writing beguiled him from the studio, and an acquaintance with
+Marcellin the illustrator, founder of La Vie Parisienne, led him to
+follow literature. At first he was timid, dreading the test of
+publication, but presently he gave himself up unreservedly to his pen.
+Within a year he was established as a favorite of the people, and his
+friend's journal was on the highway to success. For this he wrote a
+series of sketches of every-day life that were subsequently collected
+and published in book form, under the titles 'Monsieur, Madame, et
+Bébé,' 'Entre Nous,' and 'La Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot.' Within two
+years these books had reached their twentieth edition, and of the
+first, nearly one hundred and fifty editions have been demanded since
+it was issued. He has written several novels, the best known of which
+are 'Babolein,' 'Les Étangs' (The Ponds), and 'Autour d'une Source'
+(Around a Spring), but they did not fully sustain the reputation
+gained by his short sketches; a fact which induced him in 1884 to
+return to his earlier form in 'Tristesses et Sourires' (Sorrows and
+Smiles), a volume of light dissertations on things grave and gay that
+at once revived his popularity.
+
+The peculiarity of the work of Gustave Droz is its delicacy both in
+humor and pathos. He surprised the French by making them all laugh
+without making any of them wince; the sharp wits of his day were
+forgotten in the unalloyed enjoyment of his simple quaintness, in
+which there was neither affectation nor sarcasm. Yet as has been said,
+he was a Parisian of the Parisians, quick to perceive the ludicrous,
+ready to weep with the afflicted, and to laugh again with the happy.
+His studies of children are among his best, on account of their
+extreme naturalness, and are never uninteresting, despite the
+simplicity of the incidents and observations on which they are
+founded. In 'Le Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot' he has used striking
+colors to paint the petty afflictions that beset most lives; but lest
+these pictures should leave an unpleasant impression, they are set off
+by others of a happier sort, making a collection that constitutes a
+most effective lesson in practical philosophy.
+
+
+
+HOW THE BABY WAS SAVED
+
+From 'The Seamstress's Story'
+
+
+"Yes, Ma'm'selle Adèle," said the seamstress, "the real happiness of
+this world is not so unevenly distributed after all." Louise, as she
+said this, took from the reserve in the bosom of her dress a lot of
+pins, and applied them deftly to the trimming of a skirt which I was
+holding for her.
+
+"A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I answered; "but it does seem
+to me as if some people were born to live and to die unhappy."
+
+"It is only folks who never find anybody to love enough; and I think
+it's nobody's fault but their own."
+
+"But my good Louise, wouldn't you have suffered much less last year,
+when you came so near losing your boy, if you hadn't cared so much for
+him?"
+
+I was only drawing her on, you see; Louise's chat was the greatest
+resource to me at that time.
+
+"Why, Ma'm'selle Adèle, you are surely joking. You'd as well tell me
+to cut off my feet to save my shoes. You'll know one of these
+days--and not so far off neither, maybe--how mighty easy and sensible
+it would be not to love your children. They _are_ a worry, too; but oh
+the delight of 'em! I'd like to have had anybody tell me not to love
+my darling because it might grieve me, when he lay there in his
+mother's lap, with blue lips, gasping for his breath, and well-nigh
+dead, his face blackish, and his hands like this piece of wax. You
+could see that everything was going against him; and with his great
+big eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if the child was
+tugging at my very heart-strings. I kept smiling at him, though,
+through the tears that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them. Oh!
+such tears are bitter salt indeed, Ma'm'selle! And there was my poor
+husband on his knees, making paper figures to amuse him, and singing a
+funny song he used to laugh at. Now and then the corners of his mouth
+would pucker, and his cheeks would wrinkle a little bit under the
+eyes. You could tell he was still amused, but in such a dreamy way.
+Oh! our child seemed no longer with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait
+a minute. You must excuse me, for I can't help crying when I think of
+it."
+
+And the poor creature drew out her handkerchief and fairly sobbed
+aloud. In the midst of it however she smiled and said: "Well, that's
+over now; 'twas nothing, and I'm too silly. And Ma'm'selle, here I've
+gone and cried upon your mother's dress, and that's a pretty
+business."
+
+I took her hand in mine and pressed it.
+
+"Aren't you afraid you'll stick yourself, Ma'm'selle? I've got my
+needle in that hand," she said playfully. "But you did not mean what
+you said just now, did you?"
+
+"What did I say?"
+
+"That it would be better not to love your children with all your
+heart, on account of the great anxiety. Don't you know such thoughts
+are wicked? When they come into your head your mind wants purifying.
+But I'm sure I beg your pardon for saying so."
+
+"You are entirely right, Louise," I returned.
+
+"Ah! so I thought. And now let me see. Let's fix this ruche; pull it
+to the left a little, please."
+
+"But about the sick boy. Tell me about his recovery."
+
+"That was a miracle--I ought to say two miracles. It was a miracle
+that God restored him to us, and a miracle to find anybody with so
+much knowledge and feeling,--such talent, such a tender heart, and so
+much, so much--! I'm speaking of the doctor. A famous one he was, too,
+you must know; for it was no less than Doctor Faron. Heaven knows how
+he is run after, and how rich and celebrated he is! Aren't you
+surprised to hear that it was he who attended _our_ little boy?
+Indeed, the wonders begin with that. You may imagine my husband was at
+his wits' end when he saw how it was with the child; and all of a
+sudden I saw him jump up, get out his best coat and hat, and put them
+on.
+
+"'Where are you going' I asked.
+
+"'To bring Doctor Faron.'
+
+"Why, if he had said, 'To bring the Prime Minister,' it would have
+seemed as likely.
+
+"'Don't you believe Doctor Faron is going to trouble himself about
+such as we. They will turn you out of doors.'
+
+"But 'twas no use talking, my dear. He was already on the stairs, and
+I heard him running away as if the house was on fire. Fire, indeed;
+worse, far worse than any fire!
+
+"And there I was, left alone with the child upon my knees. He wouldn't
+stay in bed, and was quieter so, wrapped up in his little blanket.
+'Here will he die,' I thought. 'Soon will his eyes close, and then it
+will be all over;' and I held my own breath to listen to his feeble
+and oppressed pantings.
+
+"About an hour had passed, when I heard a rapid step upon the stairs
+(we are poor, and live in attic rooms). The door opened, and my
+husband came in, wet with perspiration and out of breath. If I live a
+century, I'll not forget his look when he said:--
+
+"'Well?'
+
+"I answered, 'No worse. But the doctor?'
+
+"'He's coming.'
+
+"Oh, those blessed words! It actually seemed as if my child were saved
+already. If you but knew how folks love their little ones! I kissed
+the darling, I kissed his father, I laughed, I cried, and I no longer
+felt the faintest doubt. It is by God's mercy that such gleams of hope
+are sent to strengthen us in our trials. It was very foolish, too; for
+something might easily have prevented the doctor's coming, after all.
+
+"'You found him at home, then?' I asked my husband.
+
+"Then he told me in an undertone what he had done, stopping every now
+and then to wipe his face and gather breath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My husband had scarcely uttered these words," continued Louise, "when
+I heard a step on the stairs. It was he! it was that blessed angel of
+a doctor, come to help us in our sore distress.
+
+"And what do you think he said in his deep voice when he got into the
+room?
+
+"God bless you, my friends, but I nearly broke my neck on those
+stairs. Where's that child?"
+
+"'Here he is, my dear, darling doctor.' I knew no better way to speak
+to him, with his dress cravat showing over his greatcoat, and his
+decorations dangling like a little bunch of keys at his buttonhole.
+
+"He took off his wrappings, stooped over the child, turned him over,
+more gently even than his mother could have done, and laid his own
+head first against his back, then against his breast. How I tried to
+read his eyes! but they know how to hide their thoughts.
+
+"'We must perform an operation here,' says he; 'and it is high time.'
+
+"Just at this moment the hospital doctor came in, and whispered to
+him, 'I'm afraid you didn't want to be disturbed, sir.'
+
+"'Oh, never mind. I am sorry it wasn't sooner, though. Get everything
+ready now.'
+
+"But Ma'm'selle Adèle, why should I tell you all this? I'd better mind
+my work."
+
+"Oh, go on, Louise, go on!"
+
+"Well then, Ma'm'selle, if you believe me, those two doctors--neither
+of 'em kin, or even friends till then--went to work and made all the
+preparations, while my husband went off to borrow lights. The biggest
+one tied a mattress on the table, and the assistant spread out the
+bright little knives.
+
+"You who have not been through it all, Ma'm'selle, can't know what it
+is to have your own little one in your lap, to know that those things
+are to be used upon him to pierce his tender flesh, and if the hand
+that guides them be not sure, that they may kill him.
+
+"When all was ready, Doctor Faron took off his cravat, then lifted my
+child from my arms and laid him on the mattress, in the midst of the
+lamps, and said to my poor man:--
+
+"'You will hold his head, and your wife his feet. Joseph will pass me
+the instruments. You've brought a breathing-tube with you, my son?'
+
+"'Yes, sir.'
+
+"My husband was as white as a sheet by this; and when I saw him about
+to take his place with his hands shaking so much, it scared me, so I
+said:--
+
+"'Doctor, please let me hold his head!"
+
+"'But my poor woman, if you should tremble?'
+
+"'Please let me do it, doctor!'
+
+"'Be it so, then;' and then added with a bright look at me, and a
+cheering smile, 'we shall save him for you, my dear; you are a brave
+little woman and you deserve it.'
+
+"Yes, and save him he did! God bless him! saved him as truly as if he
+had snatched him from the depths of the river."
+
+"And you didn't tremble, Louise?"
+
+"You may depend on that. If I had, it would have been the last of my
+child."
+
+"How in the world did you keep yourself steady?"
+
+"The Lord knows; but I was like a rock. When you must, you must, I
+suppose."
+
+"And you had to behold every detail of that operation?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it over since. His poor little
+neck laid open, and the veins, which the doctor pushed aside with his
+fingers, and the little silver tube which he inserted, and all that;
+and then the face of the child, changing as the air passed into his
+lungs. You've seen a lamp almost out, when you pour in oil? It was
+like that. They had laid him there but half alive, with his eyes all
+but set; and they gave him back to me, pale and with bloodless lips,
+it is true, but with life in his looks, and breathing--breathing the
+free, fresh air.
+
+"'Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, 'and put him to bed. Cover the
+place with some light thing or other, and Joseph must stay with you
+to-night; won't you, Joseph? Ah, well, that's all arranged.'
+
+"He put on his things and wrapped himself up to go. He was shaking
+hands with my husband, when I seized one hand, and kissed it--like a
+fool, as I was; but I didn't stop to think. He laughed heartily, and
+said to my husband, 'Are you not jealous, friend? Your wife is making
+great advances to me. But I must be off now. Good night, good people.'
+
+"And from that night he always talks so friendly and familiarly to us,
+not a bit contemptuously either, but as if he liked us, and was glad
+to be of service to us."
+
+
+
+A FAMILY NEW-YEAR'S
+
+From 'Monsieur, Madame, and Baby'
+
+
+It is barely seven o'clock. A pale ray of wan light filters through
+the double curtains, and some one is already at the door. In the next
+room I hear the stifled laughs and silvery voice of my little child,
+who trembles with impatience and begs to come.
+
+"But father dear," he cries, "it's Baby. It's your own little boy--to
+wish you 'Happy New Year.'"
+
+"Come in, darling; come quick and give me a kiss," I cry.
+
+The door opens, and my boy, with shining eyes and his arms in the air,
+rushes toward the bed. Long curls, escaping from the nightcap which
+imprisons his blond head, fall over his forehead. His loose
+night-shirt, embarrassing his little feet, adds to his impatience and
+makes him trip at every step. He has crossed the room at last, and
+stretching his hands toward mine, "Baby wishes you a happy New Year,"
+he says earnestly.
+
+"Poor darling, with his bare feet! Come, dear! Come and get warm under
+the covers; come and hide in the quilt."
+
+I draw him to me; but at this movement my wife wakes up suddenly....
+"How you frightened me! I was dreaming that there was a fire, and
+these voices in the midst of it! You are indiscreet with your cries!"
+
+"_Our_ cries! So you forget, dear mamma, that this is New-Year's day.
+Baby is waiting for you to wake up, and so am I."
+
+I wrap up my little man in the soft quilt, I bury him in the
+eiderdown, and warm his frozen feet with my hands.
+
+"Mother dear, this is New Year," he cries. He draws our two heads
+together with his arms, and kisses us anywhere at random, with his
+fresh lips. I feel his dimpled hand wandering about my neck; his
+little fingers are entangled in my beard. My mustache pricks the end
+of his nose. He bursts out laughing, and throws his head back.
+
+His mother, who has recovered from her fright, draws him into her
+arms. She pulls the bell.
+
+"The year begins well, my dears," she says, "but we need a little
+light."
+
+"Tell me, mamma, do naughty children have presents at New-Year's?"
+says the young dissembler, with an eye on the mountain of boxes and
+packages visible in the corner, in spite of the gloom.
+
+The curtains are drawn apart, the blinds are opened, there is a flood
+of daylight, the fire crackles gayly on the hearth, and two large
+packages, carefully wrapped up, are placed on the bed. One is for my
+wife; the other for the boy.
+
+What is it? What will it be? I have heaped up knots, and tripled the
+wrappings; and I watch with delight their nervous fingers, lost in the
+strings.
+
+My wife gets impatient, smiles, is vexed, kisses me, and asks for
+scissors. Baby on his side bites his lips, pulls with all his might,
+and at last asks me to help him. He longs to see through the paper.
+Desire and expectation are painted on his face. The convulsive
+movement of his hand in the folds of the quilt rustles the silk, and
+he makes a sound with his lips as though a savory fruit were
+approaching them.
+
+The last paper is off, finally the cover is lifted, there is an outcry
+of joy.
+
+"My tippet!"
+
+"My menagerie!"
+
+"Like my muff,--my dear husband!"
+
+"With a real shepherd, on wheels, dear papa, _how_ I love you!"
+
+They hug me, four arms at once wind round and press me close. I am
+stirred--a tear comes to my eyes; two come to those of my wife; and
+Baby, who loses his head, utters a sob as he kisses my hand.
+
+How absurd! you will say. I don't know whether it is absurd or not,
+but it is charming, I promise you. After all, does not sorrow wring
+tears enough from us to make up for the solitary one which joy may
+call forth? Life is less happy when one chances it alone; and when the
+heart is empty, the way seems long. It is so good to feel one's self
+loved; to hear the regular steps of one's fellow travelers beside one;
+and to think, "They are there, our three hearts beat together;" and
+once a year, when the great clock strikes the first of January, to sit
+down beside the way with hands clasped together and eyes fixed upon
+the dusty unknown road stretching on to the horizon, and to embrace
+and say:--"We will always love each other, my dear ones; you depend
+upon me and I on you. Let us trust and keep straight on."
+
+And that is how I explain that we weep a little in looking at a tippet
+and opening a menagerie.
+
+    Translated by Jane G. Cooke, for 'A Library of The World's
+    Best Literature.'
+
+
+
+THEIR LAST EXCURSION
+
+From 'Making an Omelette': from Lippincott's Magazine, 1871,
+copyrighted
+
+
+In this strange, rude interior, how refined and delicate Louise
+looked, with all her dainty appointments of long undressed kid gloves,
+jaunty boots, and looped-up petticoat! While I talked to the
+wood-cutters she shielded her face from the fire with her hands, and
+kept her eye on the butter beginning to sing in the pan.
+
+Suddenly she rose, and taking the pan-handle from the old woman, said,
+"Let me help you make the omelette, will you?" The good woman let go
+with a smile, and Louise found herself alone, in the attitude of a
+fisherman who has just had a nibble. She stood in the full light of
+the fire, her eyes fixed on the melted butter, her arms tense with
+effort; she was biting her lips, probably in order to increase her
+strength.
+
+"It's rather hard on madame's little hands," said the old man. "I bet
+it's the first time you ever made an omelette in a wood-cutter's
+hut--isn't it, my young lady?"
+
+Louise nodded yes, without turning her eyes from the omelette.
+
+"The eggs! the eggs!" she suddenly exclaimed, with such a look of
+uneasiness that we all burst out laughing--"hurry with the eggs! The
+butter is all puffing up! Be quick--or I can't answer for the
+consequences."
+
+The old woman beat the eggs energetically.
+
+"The herbs!" cried the old man. "The lard and salt!" cried the young
+ones. And they all set to work chopping, cutting, piling up, while
+Louise, stamping with excitement, called out, "Make haste! make
+haste!" Then there was a tremendous bubbling in the pan, and the great
+work began. We were all round the fire, gazing with an anxious
+interest inspired by our all having had a finger in the pie.
+
+The old woman, on her knees beside a large dish, slipped a knife under
+the edge of the omelette, which was turning a fine brown. "Now,
+madame, you've only got to turn it over," she said.
+
+"Just one little quick blow," suggested the old man.
+
+"Mustn't be violent," counseled the young one.
+
+"All at once; tip with it, dear!" I said.
+
+"If you all talk at once--"
+
+"Make haste, madame!"
+
+"If you all talk at once I never shall manage it. It is too awfully
+heavy."
+
+"One quick little blow."
+
+"But I can't; it's going over. Oh gracious!"
+
+In the heat of action, her hood had fallen off. Her cheeks were like a
+peach, her eyes shone, and though she lamented her fate, she burst
+into peals of laughter. At last by a supreme effort the pan moved, and
+the omelette rolled over, somewhat heavily, I confess, into the large
+dish which the old woman was holding. Never did an omelette look
+better!
+
+"I am sure the young lady's arms must be tired," said the old man, as
+he began cutting a round loaf into enormous slices.
+
+"Oh no, not so very," my wife answered with a merry laugh; "only I am
+crazy to taste my--our omelette."
+
+We had seated ourselves round the table. When we had eaten and drunk
+with the good souls, we rose and made ready to go home. The sun had
+set, and the whole family came out of the cabin to see us off and say
+good-night.
+
+"Don't you want my son to go with you?" the old woman called after us.
+
+It was growing dark and chilly under the trees, and we gradually
+quickened our pace. "Those are happy people," said Louise. "We will
+come some morning and breakfast with them,--shan't we? We can put the
+baby in one of the donkey panniers, and in the other a large pasty and
+a bottle of wine.--You are not afraid of losing your way, George?"
+
+"No, dear; no fear of that."
+
+"A pasty and a bottle of wine--What is that?"
+
+"Nothing; the stump of a tree."
+
+"The stump of a tree--the stump of a tree," she muttered. "Don't you
+hear something behind us?"
+
+"It is only the wind in the leaves, or the breaking of a dead branch."
+
+He is fortunate who at night, in the heart of a forest, feels as calm
+as at his own fireside. You do not tremble, but you feel the silence.
+Involuntarily you look for eyes peering out of the darkness, and you
+try to define the confused forms appearing and changing every minute.
+Something breaks and sounds beneath your tread, and if you stop you
+hear the distant melancholy howl of your watch-dog, the scream of an
+owl, and other noises, far and near, not so easily explained. A sense
+of strangeness surrounds you and weighs you down. If you are alone,
+you walk faster; if there are two of you, you draw close to your
+companion. My wife clung to my arm.
+
+"Let us turn wood-cutters. We could build a pretty little hut, simple,
+but nice enough. I would have curtains to the windows, and a carpet,
+and put my piano in one corner." She spoke very low, and occasionally
+I felt my hand tremble on her arm.
+
+"You would soon get enough of that, dearest."
+
+"It isn't fair to say so." And in another minute she went on:--"You
+think I don't love you, you and our boy? Oh yes, dear, I love you.
+Yes, yes, yes! The happiness that comes every day can't be expressed:
+we live on it, so we don't think of it. Like our daily bread--who
+thinks of that? But when you are thinking of yourself, when you put
+your head down, and really think, then you say, 'I am ungrateful, for
+I am happy, and I give no thanks for it.' Or when we are alone
+together, and walking arm-in-arm, now, at this very moment,--not that
+I mean only this moment,--I love you, I love you." She put her head
+down on my arm and pressed it earnestly. "Oh," she said, "if I were to
+lose you!" She spoke very low, as if afraid. What had frightened her?
+The darkness and the forest, or her own words?
+
+She went on:--"I have often and often dreamed that I was saying
+good-by to you. You both cried, and I pressed you so close to my heart
+that there was only one of us. It was a nightmare, you know, but I
+don't mind it, for it showed me that my life was in your lives, dear.
+What is that cracking noise? Didn't you see something just in front of
+us?"
+
+I answered her by taking her in my arms and folding her to my heart.
+We walked on, but it was impossible to go on talking. Every now and
+then she would stop and say, "Hush! hark! No, it is nothing."
+
+At last we saw ahead of us a little light, now visible, now hidden by
+a tree. It was the lamp set for us in our parlor window. We crossed
+the stile and were at home. It was high time, for we were wet through.
+
+I brought a huge log, and when the fire had blazed up we sat down in
+the great chimney-place. The poor girl was shivering. I took off her
+boots and held her feet to the fire, screening them with my hands.
+
+"Thanks, dear George, thanks!" she said, leaning on my shoulder and
+looking at me so tenderly that I felt almost ready to cry.
+
+"What were you saying to me in that horrid wood, my darling?" I asked
+her, when she was better.
+
+"You are thinking about that? I was frightened, that is all, and when
+you are frightened you see ghosts."
+
+"We shall be wood-cutters, shan't we?"
+
+And kissing me, with a laugh, she replied: "It is bedtime, Jean of the
+Woods."
+
+I well remember that walk, for it was our last. Often and often since,
+at sunset on a dark day, I have been over the same ground; often and
+often I have stopped where she stood, and stooped and pulled aside the
+fern, seeking to find, poor fool that I am! the traces of her vanished
+footsteps. And I have often halted in the clearing under the birches
+which rained down on us, and there in the shadow I have fancied I
+caught the flutter of her dress; I have thought I heard her startled
+note of fright. And on my way home at night, at every step I have
+found a recollection of her in the distant barking and the breaking
+branches, as in the trembling of her hand on my arm and the kiss which
+I gave her.
+
+Once I went into the wood-hut. I saw it all as before,--the family,
+the smoky interior, the little bench on which we sat,--and I asked for
+something to drink, that I might see the glass her lips had touched.
+
+"The little lady who makes such good omelettes, she isn't sick, for
+sure?" asked the old woman.
+
+Probably she saw the tears in my eyes, for she said no more, and I
+came away.
+
+And so it is that except in my heart, where she lives and is, all that
+was my darling grows faint and dark and dim.
+
+It is the law of life, but it is a cruel law. Even my poor child is
+learning to forget, and when I say to him most unwillingly, "Baby
+dear, do you remember how your mother did this or that?" he answers
+"Yes"; but I see, alas! that he too is ceasing to remember.
+
+                                       Translation of Agnes Irwin.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY DRUMMOND
+
+(1851-)
+
+[Illustration: HENRY DRUMMOND]
+
+
+One of the most widely read of modern essayists, Henry Drummond, was
+born at Stirling, Scotland, in 1851. Educated for the ministry, he
+passed through the Universities of Edinburgh and Tübingen, and the
+Free Church Divinity Hall, and after ordination was appointed to a
+mission chapel at Malta. The beauty and the historic interest of the
+famous island roused in him a desire for travel, and in the intervals
+of his professional work he has made semi-scientific pilgrimages to
+the Rocky Mountains and to South Africa, as well as lecturing tours to
+Canada, Australia, and the United States, where his addresses on
+scientific, religious, and sociological subjects have attracted large
+audiences.
+
+A man of indefatigable industry, he has published many books, the most
+widely read of these being 'Natural Law in the Spiritual World' a
+study of psychological conditions from the point of view of the
+Evolutionist. This work has passed through a large number of editions,
+and been translated into French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian.
+Scarcely less popular were 'The Greatest Thing in the World' (love),
+and 'Pax Vobiscum.' In 1894 he published a volume called 'The Ascent
+of Man,' in which he insists that certain altruistic factors modify
+the process of Natural Selection. This doctrine elicited much critical
+commentary from the stricter sects of the scientists, but the new view
+commended itself at once to the general reader.
+
+The citations here given are selected from Mr. Drummond's book of
+travels, 'Tropical Africa,' a book whose simplicity and vividness
+enable the reader to see the Dark Continent exactly as it is.
+
+
+
+THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE
+
+From 'Tropical Africa'
+
+
+Nothing could more wildly misrepresent the reality than the idea of
+one's school days that the heart of Africa is a desert. Africa rises
+from its three environing oceans in three great tiers, and the general
+physical geography of these has been already sketched:--first, a coast
+line, low and deadly; farther in, a plateau the height of the Scottish
+Grampians; farther in still, a higher plateau, covering the country
+for thousands of miles with mountain and valley. Now fill in this
+sketch, and you have Africa before you. Cover the coast belt with rank
+yellow grass; dot here and there a palm; scatter through it a few
+demoralized villages; and stock it with the leopard, the hyena, the
+crocodile, and the hippopotamus. Clothe the mountainous plateaux next,
+both of them, with endless forests; not grand umbrageous forest like
+the forests of South America, nor matted jungle like the forests of
+India, but with thin, rather weak forest,--with forest of low trees,
+whose half-grown trunks and scanty leaves offer no shade from the
+tropical sun. Nor is there anything in these trees to the casual eye
+to remind you that you are in the tropics. Here and there one comes
+upon a borassus or fan-palm, a candelabra-like euphorbia, a mimosa
+aflame with color, or a sepulchral baobab. A close inspection also
+will discover curious creepers and climbers; and among the branches
+strange orchids hide their eccentric flowers. But the outward type of
+tree is the same as we have at home--trees resembling the ash, the
+beech, and the elm, only seldom so large except by the streams, and
+never so beautiful. Day after day you may wander through these
+forests, with nothing except the climate to remind you where you are.
+The beasts to be sure are different, but unless you watch for them you
+will seldom see any; the birds are different, but you rarely hear
+them; and as for the rocks, they are our own familiar gneisses and
+granites, with honest basalt dikes boring through them, and
+leopard-skin lichens staining their weathered sides. Thousands and
+thousands of miles, then, of vast thin forest, shadeless, trackless,
+voiceless,--forest in mountain and forest in plain,--this is East
+Central Africa.
+
+The indiscriminate praise, formerly lavished on tropical vegetation,
+has received many shocks from recent travelers. In Kaffir-land, South
+Africa, I have seen one or two forests fine enough to justify the
+enthusiasm of arm-chair word-painters of the tropics; but so far as
+the central plateau is concerned, the careful judgment of Mr. Alfred
+Russell Wallace respecting the equatorial belt in general (a judgment
+which has at once sobered all modern descriptions of tropical lands
+and made imaginative people more content to stay at home) applies
+almost to this whole area. The fairy labyrinth of ferns and palms,
+the festoons of climbing plants blocking the paths and scenting the
+forests with their resplendent flowers, the gorgeous clouds of
+insects, the gayly plumaged birds, the paroquets, the monkey swinging
+from his trapeze in the shaded bowers--these are unknown to Africa.
+Once a week you will see a palm; once in three months the monkey will
+cross your path; the flowers on the whole are few; the trees are poor;
+and to be honest, though the endless forest-clad mountains have a
+sublimity of their own, and though there are tropical bits along some
+of the mountain streams of exquisite beauty, nowhere is there anything
+in grace and sweetness and strength to compare with a Highland glen.
+For the most part of the year these forests are jaded and
+sun-stricken, carpeted with no moss or alchemylla or scented woodruff,
+the bare trunks frescoed with few lichens, their motionless and
+unrefreshed leaves drooping sullenly from their sapless boughs.
+Flowers there are, small and great, in endless variety; but there is
+no display of flowers, no gorgeous show of blossom in the mass, as
+when the blazing gorse and heather bloom at home. The dazzling glare
+of the sun in the torrid zone has perhaps something to do with this
+want of color effect in tropical nature; for there is always about ten
+minutes just after sunset when the whole tone of the landscape changes
+like magic, and a singular beauty steals over the scene. This is the
+sweetest moment of the African day, and night hides only too swiftly
+the homelike softness and repose so strangely grateful to the
+over-stimulated eye.
+
+Hidden away in these endless forests, like birds' nests in a wood, in
+terror of one another and of their common foe the slaver, are small
+native villages; and here in his virgin simplicity dwells primeval
+man, without clothes, without civilization, without learning, without
+religion--the genuine child of nature, thoughtless, careless, and
+contented. This man is apparently quite happy; he has practically no
+wants. One stick, pointed, makes him a spear; two sticks rubbed
+together make him a fire; fifty sticks tied together make him a
+house. The bark he peels from them makes his clothes; the fruits which
+hang on them form his food. It is perfectly astonishing, when one
+thinks of it, what nature can do for the animal man, to see with what
+small capital after all a human being can get through the world. I
+once saw an African buried. According to the custom of his tribe, his
+entire earthly possessions--and he was an average commoner--were
+buried with him. Into the grave, after the body, was lowered the dead
+man's pipe, then a rough knife, then a mud bowl, and last his bow and
+arrows--the bowstring cut through the middle, a touching symbol that
+its work was done. This was all. Four items, as an auctioneer would
+say, were the whole belongings for half a century of this human being.
+No man knows what a man is till he has seen what a man can be without,
+and be withal a man. That is to say, no man knows how great man is
+till he has seen how small he has been once.
+
+The African is often blamed for being lazy, but it is a misuse of
+words. He does not need to work; with so bountiful a Nature round him
+it would be gratuitous to work. And his indolence, therefore, as it
+is called, is just as much a part of himself as his flat nose, and as
+little blameworthy as slowness in a tortoise. The fact is, Africa is
+a nation of the unemployed.
+
+
+
+THE EAST-AFRICAN LAKE COUNTRY
+
+From 'Tropical Africa'
+
+
+Somewhere in the Shiré Highlands, in 1859, Livingstone saw a large
+lake--Lake Shirwa--which is still almost unknown. It lies away to the
+east, and is bounded by a range of mountains whose lofty summits are
+visible from the hills round Blantyre. Thinking it might be a useful
+initiation to African travel if I devoted a short time to its
+exploration, I set off one morning, accompanied by two members of the
+Blantyre staff and a small retinue of natives. Steering across country
+in the direction in which it lay, we found, two days before seeing the
+actual water, that we were already on the ancient bed of the lake.
+Though now clothed with forest, the whole district has obviously been
+under water at a comparatively recent period, and the shores of Lake
+Shirwa probably reached at one time to within a few miles of Blantyre
+itself. On reaching the lake a very aged female chief came to see us,
+and told us how, long, long ago, a white man came to her village and
+gave her a present of cloth. Of the white man, who must have been
+Livingstone, she spoke very kindly; and indeed, wherever David
+Livingstone's footsteps are crossed in Africa, the fragrance of his
+memory seems to remain.
+
+The waters of Shirwa are brackish to the taste, and undrinkable; but
+the saltness must have a peculiar charm for game, for nowhere else in
+Africa did I see such splendid herds of the larger animals as here.
+The zebra was especially abundant; and so unaccustomed to be disturbed
+are these creatures, that with a little care one could watch their
+movements safely within a very few yards. It may seem unorthodox to
+say so, but I do not know if among the larger animals there is
+anything handsomer in creation than the zebra. At close quarters his
+striped coat is all but as fine as the tiger's, while the form and
+movement of his body are in every way nobler. The gait, certainly, is
+not to be compared for gracefulness with that of the many species of
+antelope and deer who nibble the grass beside him, and one can never
+quite forget that scientifically he is an ass; but taking him all in
+all, this fleet and beautiful animal ought to have a higher place in
+the regard of man than he has yet received.
+
+We were much surprised, considering that this region is almost
+uninhabited, to discover near the lake shore a native path so beaten,
+and so recently beaten, by multitudes of human feet, that it could
+only represent some trunk route through the continent. Following it
+for a few miles, we soon discovered its function. It was one of the
+great slave routes through Africa. Signs of the horrid traffic became
+visible on every side; and from symmetrical arrangements of small
+piles of stones and freshly cut twigs, planted semaphore-wise upon the
+path, our native guides made out that a slave caravan was actually
+passing at the time. We were in fact between two portions of it, the
+stones and twigs being telegraphic signals between front and rear. Our
+natives seemed much alarmed at this discovery, and refused to proceed
+unless we promised not to interfere--a proceeding which, had we
+attempted it, would simply have meant murder for ourselves and slavery
+for them. Next day from a hill-top we saw the slave encampment far
+below, and the ghastly procession marshaling for its march to the
+distant coast, which many of the hundreds who composed it would never
+reach alive.
+
+Talking of native foot-paths leads me to turn aside for a moment, to
+explain to the uninitiated the true mode of African travel. In spite
+of all the books that have been lavished upon us by our great
+explorers, few people seem to have any accurate understanding of this
+most simple process. Some have the impression that everything is done
+in bullock wagons; an idea borrowed from the Cape, but hopelessly
+inapplicable to Central Africa, where a wheel at present would be as
+great a novelty as a polar bear. Others, at the opposite extreme,
+suppose that the explorer works along solely by compass, making a
+bee-line for his destination, and steering his caravan through the
+trackless wilderness like a ship at sea. Now, it may be a surprise to
+the unenlightened to learn that probably no explorer in forcing his
+passage through Africa has ever, for more than a few days at a time,
+been off some beaten track. Probably no country in the world,
+civilized or uncivilized, is better supplied with paths than this
+unmapped continent. Every village is connected with some other
+village, every tribe with the next tribe, every State with its
+neighbor, and therefore with all the rest. The explorer's business is
+simply to select from this network of tracks, keep a general
+direction, and hold on his way. Let him begin at Zanzibar, plant his
+foot on a native foot-path, and set his face towards Tanganyika. In
+eight months he will be there. He has simply to persevere. From
+village to village he will be handed on, zig-zagging it may be,
+sometimes, to avoid the impassable barriers of nature or the rarer
+perils of hostile tribes; but never taking to the woods, never guided
+solely by the stars, never in fact leaving a beaten track, till
+hundreds and hundreds of miles are between him and the sea, and his
+interminable foot-path ends with a canoe on the shores of Tanganyika.
+Crossing the lake, landing near some native village, he picks up the
+thread once more. Again he plods on and on, now on foot, now by canoe,
+but always keeping his line of villages, until one day suddenly he
+sniffs the sea-breeze again, and his faithful foot-wide guide lands
+him on the Atlantic seaboard.
+
+Nor is there any art in finding out these successive villages with
+their intercommunicating links. He _must_ find them out. A whole army
+of guides, servants, carriers, soldiers, and camp-followers accompany
+him in his march, and this nondescript regiment must be fed. Indian
+corn, cassava, mawere, beans, and bananas--these do not grow wild even
+in Africa. Every meal has to be bought and paid for in cloth and
+beads; and scarcely three days can pass without a call having to be
+made at some village where the necessary supplies can be obtained. A
+caravan, as a rule, must live from hand to mouth, and its march
+becomes simply a regulated procession through a chain of markets. Not
+however that there are any real markets--there are neither bazaars nor
+stores in native Africa. Thousands of the villages through which the
+traveler eats his way may never have victualed a caravan before. But
+with the chief's consent, which is usually easily purchased for a
+showy present, the villagers unlock their larders, the women flock to
+the grinding-stones, and basketfuls of food are swiftly exchanged for
+unknown equivalents in beads and calico.
+
+The native tracks which I have just described are the same in
+character all over Africa. They are veritable foot-paths, never over a
+foot in breadth, beaten as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath the
+level of the forest bed by centuries of native traffic. As a rule
+these foot-paths are marvelously direct. Like the roads of the old
+Romans, they run straight on through everything, ridge and mountain
+and valley, never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to
+breathe. Yet within this general straightforwardness there is a
+singular eccentricity and indirectness in detail. Although the African
+foot-path is on the whole a bee-line, no fifty yards of it are ever
+straight. And the reason is not far to seek. If a stone is
+encountered, no native will ever think of removing it. Why should he?
+It is easier to walk round it. The next man who comes that way will do
+the same. He knows that a hundred men are following him; he looks at
+the stone; a moment, and it might be unearthed and tossed aside, but
+no--he also holds on his way. It is not that he resents the trouble,
+it is the idea that is wanting. It would no more occur to him that
+that stone was a displaceable object, and that for the general weal he
+might displace it, than that its feldspar was of the orthoclase
+variety. Generations and generations of men have passed that stone,
+and it still waits for a man with an altruistic idea. But it would be
+a very stony country indeed--and Africa is far from stony--that would
+wholly account for the aggravating obliqueness and indecision of the
+African foot-path. Probably each four miles, on an average path, is
+spun out, by an infinite series of minor sinuosities, to five or six.
+Now, these deflections are not meaningless. Each has some history--a
+history dating back perhaps a thousand years, but to which all clue
+has centuries ago been lost. The leading cause probably is fallen
+trees. When a tree falls across a path no man ever removes it. As in
+the case of the stone, the native goes round it. It is too green to
+burn in his hut; before it is dry and the white ants have eaten it,
+the new detour has become part and parcel of the path. The smaller
+irregularities, on the other hand, represent the trees and stumps of
+the primeval forest where the track was made at first. But whatever
+the cause, it is certain that for persistent straightforwardness in
+the general, and utter vacillation and irresolution in the particular,
+the African roads are unique in engineering.
+
+Though one of the smaller African lakes, Shirwa is probably larger
+than all the lakes of Great Britain put together. With the splendid
+environment of mountains on three of its sides, softened and distanced
+by perpetual summer haze, it reminds one somewhat of the Great Salt
+Lake simmering in the July sun. We pitched our tent for a day or two
+on its western shore, among a harmless and surprised people who had
+never gazed on the pallid countenances of Englishmen before. Owing to
+the ravages of the slaver, the people of Shirwa are few, scattered,
+and poor, and live in abiding terror. The densest population is to be
+found on the small island, heavily timbered with baobabs, which forms
+a picturesque feature of the northern end. These Wa-Nyassa, or people
+of the lake, as they call themselves, have been driven away by fear,
+and they rarely leave their lake dwelling unless under cover of night.
+Even then they are liable to capture by any man of a stronger tribe
+who happens to meet them, and numbers who have been kidnapped in this
+way are to be found in the villages of neighboring chiefs. This is an
+amenity of existence in Africa that strikes one as very terrible. It
+is impossible for those at home to understand how literally savage man
+is a chattel, and how much his life is spent in the mere safeguarding
+of his main asset, _i. e._, himself. There are actually districts in
+Africa where _three_ natives cannot be sent on a message, in case two
+should combine and sell the third before they return.
+
+
+
+WHITE ANTS
+
+From 'Tropical Africa'
+
+
+The termite or white ant is a small insect, with a bloated,
+yellowish-white body, and a somewhat large thorax, oblong-shaped, and
+colored a disagreeable oily brown. The flabby, tallow-like body makes
+this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is for quite another reason
+that the white ant is the worst abused of all living vermin in warm
+countries. The termite lives almost exclusively upon wood; and the
+moment a tree is cut or a log sawn for any economical purpose, this
+insect is upon its track. One may never see the insect, possibly, in
+the flesh, for it lives underground; but its ravages confront one at
+every turn. You build your house perhaps, and for a few months fancy
+you have pitched upon the one solitary site in the country where there
+are no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and
+lintel and rafters come down together with a crash. You look at a
+section of the wrecked timbers, and discover that the whole inside is
+eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which the rest of the
+house is built are now mere cylinders of bark, and through the
+thickest of them you could push your little finger. Furniture, tables,
+chairs, chests of drawers, everything made of wood, is inevitably
+attacked, and in a single night a strong trunk is often riddled
+through and through, and turned into matchwood. There is no limit, in
+fact, to the depredation by these insects, and they will eat books, or
+leather, or cloth, or anything; and in many parts of Africa I believe
+if a man lay down to sleep with a wooden leg, it would be a heap of
+sawdust in the morning. So much feared is this insect now, that no one
+in certain parts of India and Africa ever attempts to travel with such
+a thing as a wooden trunk. On the Tanganyika plateau I have camped on
+ground which was as hard as adamant, and as innocent of white ants
+apparently as the pavement of St. Paul's; and wakened next morning to
+find a stout wooden box almost gnawed to pieces. Leather portmanteaus
+share the same fate, and the only substances which seem to defy the
+marauders are iron and tin.
+
+But what has this to do with earth or with agriculture? The most
+important point in the work of the white ant remains to be noted. I
+have already said that the white ant is never seen. Why he should have
+such a repugnance to being looked at is at first sight a mystery,
+seeing that he himself is stone blind. But his coyness is really due
+to the desire for self-protection; for the moment his juicy body shows
+itself above ground there are a dozen enemies waiting to devour it.
+And yet the white ant can never procure any food until it comes above
+ground. Nor will it meet the case for the insect to come to the
+surface under the shadow of night. Night in the tropics, so far as
+animal life is concerned, is as the day. It is the great feeding-time,
+the great fighting-time, the carnival of the carnivores, and of all
+beasts, birds, and insects of prey, from the least to the greatest. It
+is clear then that darkness is no protection to the white ant; and yet
+without coming out of the ground it cannot live. How does it solve the
+difficulty? It takes the ground out along with it. I have seen white
+ants working on the top of a high tree, and yet they were underground.
+They took up some of the ground with them to the tree-top; just as the
+Esquimaux heap up snow, building it into the low tunnel-huts in which
+they live, so the white ants collect earth, only in this case not from
+the surface, but from some depth underneath the ground, and plaster it
+into tunneled ways. Occasionally these run along the ground, but more
+often mount in endless ramifications to the top of trees, meandering
+along every branch and twig, and here and there debouching into large
+covered chambers which occupy half the girth of the trunk. Millions of
+trees in some districts are thus fantastically plastered over with
+tubes, galleries, and chambers of earth, and many pounds' weight of
+subsoil must be brought up for the mining of even a single tree. The
+building material is conveyed by the insects up a central pipe with
+which all the galleries communicate, and which at the downward end
+connects with a series of subterranean passages leading deep into the
+earth. The method of building the tunnels and covered ways is as
+follows: At the foot of a tree the tiniest hole cautiously opens in
+the ground close to the bark. A small head appears, with a grain of
+earth clasped in its jaws. Against the tree trunk this earth-grain is
+deposited, and the head is withdrawn. Presently it reappears with
+another grain of earth; this is laid beside the first, rammed tight
+against it, and again the builder descends underground for more. The
+third grain is not placed against the tree, but against the former
+grain; a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth follow, and the plan of the
+foundation begins to suggest itself as soon as these are in position.
+The stones or grains or pellets of earth are arranged in a
+semicircular wall; the termite, now assisted by three or four others,
+standing in the middle between the sheltering wall and the tree, and
+working briskly with head and mandible to strengthen the position. The
+wall in fact forms a small moon-rampart, and as it grows higher and
+higher it soon becomes evident that it is going to grow from a low
+battlement into a long perpendicular tunnel running up the side of the
+tree. The workers, safely ensconced inside, are now carrying up the
+structure with great rapidity, disappearing in turn as soon as they
+have laid their stone, and rushing off to bring up another. The way in
+which the building is done is extremely curious, and one could watch
+the movement of these wonderful little masons by the hour. Each stone
+as it is brought to the top is first of all covered with mortar. Of
+course, without this the whole tunnel would crumble into dust before
+reaching the height of half an inch; but the termite pours over the
+stone a moist sticky secretion, turning the grain round and round with
+its mandibles until the whole is covered with slime. Then it places
+the stone with great care upon the top of the wall, works it about
+vigorously for a moment or two till it is well jammed into its place,
+and then starts off instantly for another load.
+
+Peering over the growing wall, one soon discovers one, two, or more
+termites of a somewhat larger build, considerably longer, and with a
+very different arrangement of the parts of the head, and especially of
+the mandibles. These important-looking individuals saunter about the
+rampart in the most leisurely way, but yet with a certain air of
+business, as if perhaps the one was the master of works and the other
+the architect. But closer observation suggests that they are in no
+wise superintending operations, nor in any immediate way contributing
+to the structure, for they take not the slightest notice either of the
+workers or the works. They are posted there in fact as sentries; and
+there they stand, or promenade about, at the mouth of every tunnel,
+like Sister Anne, to see if anybody is coming. Sometimes somebody does
+come, in the shape of another ant; the real ant this time, not the
+defenseless _Neuropteron_, but some valiant and belted knight from the
+warlike _Formicidæ_. Singly or in troops, this rapacious little
+insect, fearless in its chitinous coat of mail, charges down the tree
+trunk, its antennæ waving defiance to the enemy and its cruel
+mandibles thirsting for termite blood. The worker white ant is a poor
+defenseless creature, and blind and unarmed, would fall an immediate
+prey to these well-drilled banditti, who forage about in every
+tropical forest in unnumbered legion. But at the critical moment, like
+Goliath from the Philistines, the soldier termite advances to the
+fight. With a few sweeps of its scythe-like jaws it clears the ground,
+and while the attacking party is carrying off its dead, the builders,
+unconscious of the fray, quietly continue their work. To every hundred
+workers in a white-ant colony, which numbers many thousands of
+individuals, there are perhaps two of these fighting men. The division
+of labor here is very wonderful; and the fact that besides these two
+specialized forms there are in every nest two other kinds of the same
+insect, the kings and queens, shows the remarkable height to which
+civilization in these communities has attained.
+
+But where is this tunnel going to, and what object have the insects in
+view in ascending this lofty tree? Thirty feet from the ground, across
+innumerable forks, at the end of a long branch, are a few feet of dead
+wood. How the ants know it is there, how they know its sap has dried
+up, and that it is now fit for the termites' food, is a mystery.
+Possibly they do not know, and are only prospecting on the chance. The
+fact that they sometimes make straight for the decaying limb argues in
+these instances a kind of definite instinct; but on the other hand,
+the fact that in most cases the whole tree, in every branch and limb,
+is covered with termite tunnels, would show perhaps that they work
+most commonly on speculation, while the number of abandoned tunnels,
+ending on a sound branch in a _cul de sac_, proves how often they must
+suffer the usual disappointments of all such adventurers. The extent
+to which these insects carry on their tunneling is quite incredible,
+until one has seen it in nature with his own eyes. The tunnels are
+perhaps about the thickness of a small-sized gas-pipe, but there are
+junctions here and there of large dimensions, and occasionally patches
+of earthwork are found, embracing nearly the whole trunk for some
+feet. The outside of these tunnels, which are never quite straight,
+but wander irregularly along stem and branch, resembles in texture a
+coarse sandpaper; and the color, although this naturally varies with
+the soil, is usually a reddish brown. The quantity of earth and mud
+plastered over a single tree is often enormous; and when one thinks
+that it is not only an isolated specimen here and there that is
+frescoed in this way, but often all the trees of a forest, some idea
+will be formed of the magnitude of the operations of these insects,
+and the extent of their influence upon the soil which they are thus
+ceaselessly transporting from underneath the ground.
+
+In traveling through the great forests of the Rocky Mountains or of
+the Western States, the broken branches and fallen trunks, strewing
+the ground breast-high with all sorts of decaying litter, frequently
+make locomotion impossible. To attempt to ride through these Western
+forests, with their meshwork of interlocked branches and decaying
+trunks, is often out of the question, and one has to dismount and drag
+his horse after him as if he were clambering through a wood-yard. But
+in an African forest not a fallen branch is seen. One is struck at
+first at a certain clean look about the great forests of the interior,
+a novel and unaccountable cleanness, as if the forest bed was
+carefully swept and dusted daily by unseen elves. And so indeed it is.
+Scavengers of a hundred kinds remove decaying animal matter, from the
+carcass of a fallen elephant to the broken wing of a gnat; eating it,
+or carrying it out of sight and burying it in the deodorizing earth.
+And these countless millions of termites perform a similar function
+for the vegetable world, making away with all plants and trees, all
+stems, twigs, and tissues, the moment the finger of decay strikes the
+signal. Constantly in these woods one comes across what appear to be
+sticks and branches and bundles of fagots, but when closely examined
+they are seen to be mere casts in mud. From these hollow tubes, which
+preserve the original form of the branch down to the minutest knot or
+fork, the ligneous tissue is often entirely removed, while others are
+met with in all stages of demolition. There is the section of an
+actual specimen, which is not yet completely destroyed, and from which
+the mode of attack may be easily seen. The insects start apparently
+from two centres. One company attacks the inner bark, which is the
+favorite morsel, leaving the coarse outer bark untouched, or more
+usually replacing it with grains of earth, atom by atom, as they eat
+it away. The inner bark is gnawed off likewise as they go along, but
+the woody tissue beneath is allowed to remain, to form a protective
+sheath for the second company, who begin work at the centre. This
+second contingent eats its way outward and onward, leaving a thin
+tube of the outer wood to the last, as props to the mine, till they
+have finished the main excavation. When a fallen trunk lying upon the
+ground is the object of attack, the outer cylinder is frequently left
+quite intact, and it is only when one tries to drag it off to his
+camp-fire that he finds to his disgust that he is dealing with a mere
+hollow tube, a few lines in thickness, filled up with mud.
+
+But the works above ground represent only a part of the labors of
+these slow-moving but most industrious of creatures. The arboreal
+tubes are only the prolongation of a much more elaborate system of
+subterranean tunnels, which extend over large areas and mine the earth
+sometimes to a depth of many feet or even yards.
+
+The material excavated from these underground galleries and from the
+succession of domed chambers--used as nurseries or granaries--to which
+they lead, has to be thrown out upon the surface. And it is from these
+materials that the huge ant-hills are reared, which form so
+distinctive a feature of the African landscape. These heaps and mounds
+are so conspicuous that they may be seen for miles, and so numerous
+are they and so useful as cover to the sportsman, that without them in
+certain districts hunting would be impossible. The first things,
+indeed, to strike the traveler in entering the interior are the mounds
+of the white ant, now dotting the plain in groups like a small
+cemetery, now rising into mounds, singly or in clusters, each thirty
+or forty feet in diameter and ten or fifteen in height; or again,
+standing out against the sky like obelisks, their bare sides carved
+and fluted into all sorts of fantastic shapes. In India these
+ant-heaps seldom attain a height of more than a couple of feet, but in
+Central Africa they form veritable hills, and contain many tons of
+earth. The brick houses of the Scotch mission-station on Lake Nyassa
+have all been built out of a single ants' nest, and the quarry from
+which the material has been derived forms a pit beside the settlement
+some dozen feet in depth. A supply of bricks as large again could
+probably still be taken from this convenient depot; and the
+missionaries on Lake Tanganyika and onwards to Victoria Nyanza have
+been similarly indebted to the labors of the termites. In South Africa
+the Zulus and Kaffirs pave all their huts with white-ant earth; and
+during the Boer war our troops in Pretoria, by scooping out the
+interior from the smaller beehive-shaped ant-heaps and covering the
+top with clay, constantly used them as ovens. These ant-heaps may be
+said to abound over the whole interior of Africa, and there are
+several distinct species. The most peculiar, as well as the most
+ornate, is a small variety from one to two feet in height, which
+occurs in myriads along the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It is built in
+symmetrical tiers, and resembles a pile of small rounded hats, one
+above another, the rims depending like eaves, and sheltering the body
+of the hill from rain. To estimate the amount of earth per acre raised
+from the waterline of the subsoil by white ants, would not in some
+districts be an impossible task; and it would be found probably that
+the quantity at least equaled that manipulated annually in temperate
+regions by the earthworm.
+
+These mounds, however, are more than mere waste-heaps. Like the
+corresponding region underground, they are built into a meshwork of
+tunnels, galleries, and chambers, where the social interests of the
+community are attended to. The most spacious of these chambers,
+usually far underground, is very properly allocated to the head of the
+society, the queen. The queen termite is a very rare insect, and as
+there are seldom more than one or at most two to a colony, and as the
+royal apartments are hidden far in the earth, few persons have ever
+seen a queen; and indeed most, if they did happen to come across it,
+from its very singular appearance would refuse to believe that it had
+any connection with white ants. It possesses indeed the true termite
+head, but there the resemblance to the other members of the family
+stops; for the size of the head bears about the same proportion to the
+rest of the body as does the tuft on his Glengarry bonnet to a
+six-foot Highlander. The phenomenal corpulence of the royal body in
+the case of the queen termite is possibly due in part to want of
+exercise; for once seated upon her throne, she never stirs to the end
+of her days. She lies there, a large, loathsome, cylindrical package,
+two or three inches long, in shape like a sausage, and as white as a
+bolster. Her one duty in life is to lay eggs; and it must be confessed
+she discharges her function with complete success, for in a single day
+her progeny often amounts to many thousands, and for months this
+enormous fecundity never slackens. The body increases slowly in size,
+and through the transparent skin the long folded ovary may be seen,
+with the eggs, impelled by a peristaltic motion, passing onward for
+delivery to the workers, who are waiting to carry them to the
+nurseries, where they are hatched. Assiduous attention meantime is
+paid to the queen by other workers, who feed her diligently, with much
+self-denial stuffing her with morsel after morsel from their own jaws.
+A guard of honor in the shape of a few of the larger soldier ants is
+also in attendance, as a last and almost unnecessary precaution. In
+addition finally to the soldiers, workers, and queen, the royal
+chamber has also one other inmate--the king. He is a very
+ordinary-looking insect, about the same size as the soldiers, but the
+arrangement of the parts of the head and body is widely different, and
+like the queen he is furnished with eyes.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN
+
+(1585-1649)
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM DRUMMOND]
+
+
+It seems to be the mission of many writers to illuminate contemporary
+literature and so to light the way for future students, rather than to
+make any vital contribution to the achievement of their time. Such
+writers reflect the culture of their own day and represent its ideals;
+and although their creative work may be slight, their loss to
+literature would be serious. Among these lesser men stands that
+sincere poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. In Scotland under the Stuarts,
+when the vital energy of the land was concentrated upon politics and
+theology, native literature was reduced to a mere reflection of the
+pre-Spenserian classicism of England. Into this waste of correct
+mediocrity entered the poetry of William Drummond, an avowed and
+enthusiastic follower of the Elizabethan school, a finished scholar,
+one of the typical Scottish gentlemen who were then making Scottish
+history. Courtier and trifler though he was, however, he showed
+himself so true a poet of nature that his felicities of phrase seem to
+anticipate the sensuous realism of Keats and his successors.
+
+William Drummond, born in 1585, was a cadet of the historic house
+which in 1357 gave in marriage to King Robert III. the beautiful
+Annabella Drummond, who was destined to become the ancestress of the
+royal Stuarts of Scotland and England. In his own day the family,
+whose head was the Earl of Perth, was powerful in Scottish affairs,
+and the history of the clan Drummond would be largely a history of the
+events which led to the Protectorate. Throughout the storm and stress
+that preceded the civil war Drummond was a loyalist, though at one
+time he appeared to be identified with the Covenanters. His literary
+influence, which was considerable, was always thrown on the side of
+the King, while the term "Drummondism" was a popular synonym for the
+conservative policy. Throughout the struggle, however, Drummond seems
+to have been forced into activity by circumstances rather than by
+choice. He had the instincts of a recluse and a scholar. He delighted
+in the society of literary men, and he was much engrossed in
+philosophical speculations.
+
+In spite of the difficulties of distance, he managed to keep abreast
+of the thought of literary London, the London of Drayton and Webster,
+of Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, and Ford. His chief satisfaction was
+to know that his own work was not unacceptable to this brilliant
+group, and one of the great pleasures of his life was a visit from Ben
+Jonson, who, making a walking tour to Scotland, found at Hawthornden
+that congenial hospitality in which his soul delighted. Of this famous
+visit, as of other important events, Drummond kept a record, in which
+he set down his guest's behavior, opinions, and confidential sayings.
+Warmly as he admired Jonson's genius, he found his personality
+oppressive, and intrusted his criticisms to his diary. When this was
+published, more than a century later, the gentle Scot was accused of
+bad taste, breach of confidence, and disloyalty to friendship. But his
+defense lies in the fact that the book was meant for no eyes but his
+own, and that the intimacy and candor of its revelations were intended
+to preserve his recollections of a memorable experience.
+
+If his environment was not entirely favorable to literary excellences,
+it is yet very likely that Drummond developed the full measure of his
+gift. He expressed the spirit of the more imaginative generation which
+succeeded a hard and fettered predecessor, and it is for this that
+literature owes him its peculiar debt.
+
+His career began in his twenty-ninth year with the publication of an
+elegy on the death of Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I.
+This poem, under the title 'Tears on the Death of Moeliades,' appeared
+in 1613, and reached a third edition within a twelvemonth. Its two
+hundred lines show the finished versification of the scholar, with
+much poetic grace. It was a product of the Spenserian school, and
+emphasized the fact that the representative literature of the land had
+abandoned the Scottish dialect for English forms. Drummond's second
+volume of poems commemorated the death of his wife and his love of
+her. It is in this work that the ultimate mood of the poet appears.
+Much beauty of form, a delightful sensitiveness to nature, a
+luxuriance of color, and a finely tempered thoughtfulness pervade the
+poems. His next production, celebrating the visit of James I. to his
+native land, was entitled 'Forth Feasting,' and represented the Forth
+and all its borders as rejoicing in the presence of their King. To the
+reader of to-day the panegyric sounds fulsome and the poetry stilted,
+and the once famous book has now merely an archaic interest.
+
+Drummond's reputation is based upon the 'Poems,' and upon the
+Jeremy-Taylor-like 'Cypress Grove,' published in 1623 in connection
+with the religious verses called 'Flowers of Sion.' 'Cypress Grove'
+is an essay on death, akin in spirit to the religious temper of the
+Middle Ages, and in philosophic breadth to the diviner mood of Plato.
+Only a mind of a high order would have conceived so beautiful and
+lofty a meditation on the Final Mystery. This brief essay marks the
+utmost reach of Drummond's mind, and shows the strength of that serene
+spirituality, which could thus hold its way undisturbed by the
+sectarian bitterness that fixed a great gulf between England and
+Scotland. 'The History of the Five Jameses,' which Drummond was ten
+years in compiling and which was not published until six years after
+his death, added nothing to his reputation. It lacked alike the
+diligent minuteness of the chronicler and the broader view of the
+historian. Many minor papers on the state of religion and politics,
+chief of which is the political tract 'Irene,' show Drummond's
+aggressive interest in contemporary affairs. It is not generally known
+that this gentle scholar was also an inventor of military engines. In
+1626 Charles I. engaged him to produce sixteen machines and "not a few
+inventions besides." The biographers have remained curiously ignorant
+of this phase of his activity, but the State papers show that the King
+named him "our faithful subject, William Drummond of Hawthornden." He
+died in 1649, his death being hastened, it was said, by his passion of
+grief over the martyrdom of King Charles.
+
+
+
+SEXTAIN
+
+
+  The heaven doth not contain so many stars,
+    So many leaves not prostrate lie in woods
+  When autumn's old and Boreas sounds his wars,
+    So many waves have not the ocean floods,
+  As my rent mind hath torments all the night,
+  And heart spends sighs when Phoebus brings the light.
+
+  Why should I have been partner of the light,
+    Who, crost in birth by bad aspéct of stars,
+  Have never since had happy day or night?
+  Why was not I a liver in the woods,
+  Or citizen of Thetis's crystal floods,
+    Than made a man, for love and fortune's wars?
+
+  I look each day when death should end the wars,
+    Uncivil wars, 'twixt sense and reason's light;
+      My pains I count to mountains, meads, and floods,
+  And of my sorrow partners make the stars;
+      All desolate I haunt the fearful woods,
+    When I should give myself to rest at night.
+
+  With watchful eyes I ne'er behold the night,
+    Mother of peace, but ah! to me of wars,
+      And Cynthia, queen-like, shining through the woods,
+  When straight those lamps come in my thought, whose light
+    My judgment dazzled, passing brightest stars,
+      And then mine eyes en-isle themselves with floods.
+
+  Turn to their springs again first shall the floods,
+    Clear shall the sun the sad and gloomy night,
+      To dance about the pole cease shall the stars,
+      The elements renew their ancient wars
+    Shall first, and be deprived of place and light,
+  E'er I find rest in city, fields, or woods.
+
+  End these my days, indwellers of the woods,
+  Take this my life, ye deep and raging floods;
+  Sun, never rise to clear me with thy light,
+  Horror and darkness, keep a lasting night;
+  Consume me, care, with thy intestine wars,
+  And stay your influence o'er me, bright stars!
+
+  In vain the stars, indwellers of the woods,
+  Care, horror, wars, I call, and raging floods,
+    For all have sworn no night shall dim my sight.
+
+
+
+MADRIGAL
+
+
+              This world a-hunting is,
+  The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is Death;
+              His speedy greyhounds are
+              Lust, sickness, envy, care,
+              Strife that ne'er falls amiss,
+  With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe.
+              Now if by chance we fly
+              Of these the eager chase,
+              Old age with stealing pace
+  Casts up his nets, and there we panting die.
+
+
+
+REASON AND FEELING
+
+
+  I know that all beneath the moon decays,
+    And what by mortals in this world is brought,
+    In Time's great periods shall return to naught;
+  That fairest States have fatal nights and days.
+  I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays,
+    With toil of spirit, which are so dearly bought,
+    As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,--
+  That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
+    I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
+  To which one morn oft birth and death affords;
+  That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
+    Where sense and will envassal Reason's power:
+  Know what I list, all this cannot me move,
+  But that, alas! I both must write and love.
+
+
+
+DEGENERACY OF THE WORLD
+
+
+  What hapless hap had I for to be born
+    In these unhappy times, and dying days
+    Of this now doting World, when Good decays,
+  Love's quite extinct, and Virtue's held a-scorn!
+    When such are only prized, by wretched ways,
+  Who with a golden fleece them can adorn;
+    When avarice and lust are counted praise,
+  And bravest minds live orphan-like forlorn!
+  Why was not I born in that golden age
+    When gold was not yet known? and those black arts.
+    By which base worldlings vilely play their parts,
+  With horrid acts staining Earth's stately stage?
+  To have been then, O Heaven! 't had been my bliss;
+  But bless me now, and take me soon from this.
+
+
+
+THE BRIEFNESS OF LIFE
+
+
+  Look, how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade,
+  The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,
+    Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,
+  As high as it did raise, bows low the head:
+  Right so my life, contentment being dead,
+    Or in their contraries but only seen,
+  With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,
+    And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.
+  As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night
+    By darkness would imprison on his way,--
+  Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright,
+    Of what's yet left thee of life's wasting day;
+  Thy sun posts westward, passèd is thy morn,
+  And twice it is not given thee to be born.
+
+
+
+THE UNIVERSE
+
+
+  Of this fair volume which we World do name,
+    If we the leaves and sheets could turn with care--
+  Of Him who it corrects and did it frame
+    We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
+  Find out his power, which wildest powers doth tame,
+    His providence, extending everywhere,
+    His justice, which proud rebels doth not spare,
+  In every page and period of the same.
+  But silly we, like foolish children, rest
+    Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold,
+  Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best;
+    On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
+  Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught,
+  It is some picture on the margin wrought.
+
+
+
+ON DEATH
+
+From 'Cypress Grove'
+
+
+Death is a piece of the order of this all, a part of the life of this
+world; for while the world is the world, some creatures must die and
+others take life. Eternal things are raised far above this orb of
+generation and corruption where the First Matter, like a still flowing
+and ebbing sea, with diverse waves but the same water, keepeth a
+restless and never tiring current; what is below in the universality
+of its kind doth not in itself abide.... If thou dost complain there
+shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too
+grieve that there was a time in which thou wast not, and so that thou
+art not as old as the enlivening planet of Time?... The excellent
+fabric of the universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or change
+like ruin, and poor earthlings, thus to be handled, complain!
+
+
+
+
+JOHN DRYDEN
+
+(1631-1700)
+
+BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
+
+
+John Dryden, the foremost man of letters of the period following the
+Restoration, was born at Aldwinkle, a village of Northamptonshire, on
+August 9th, 1631. He died May 1st, 1700. His life was therefore coeval
+with the closing period of the fierce controversies which culminated
+in the civil war and the triumph of the Parliamentary party; that, in
+turn, to be followed successively by the iron rule of Cromwell, by the
+restoration of the exiled Stuarts, and the reactionary tendencies in
+politics that accompanied that event; and finally with the effectual
+exclusion from the throne of this same family by the revolution of
+1688, leaving behind, however, to their successors a smoldering
+Jacobite hostility that perpetually plotted the overthrow of the new
+government and later broke out twice into open revolt. All these
+changes of fortune, with their changes of opinion, are faithfully
+reflected in the productions of Dryden. To understand him thoroughly
+requires therefore an intimate familiarity with the civil and
+religious movements which characterize the whole period. Equally also
+do his writings, both creative and critical, represent the revolution
+of literary taste that took place in the latter half of the
+seventeenth century. It was while he was in the midst of his
+intellectual activity that French canons of criticism became largely
+the accepted rules, by which the value of English productions was
+tested. This was especially true of the drama. The study of Dryden is
+accordingly a study of the political and literary history of his times
+to an extent that is correspondingly true of no other English author
+before or since.
+
+His family, both on the father's and the mother's side, was in full
+sympathy with the party opposed to the court. The son was educated at
+Westminster, then under the mastership of Richard Busby, whose
+relentless use of the rod has made his name famous in that long line
+of flagellants who have been at the head of the great English public
+schools. From Westminster he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. There
+he received the degree of A. B. in January 1654. Later in that same
+decade--the precise date is not known--he took up his residence in
+London; and in London the rest of his life was almost entirely spent.
+
+Dryden's first published literary effort appeared in a little volume
+made up of thirty-three elegies, by various authors, on the death of a
+youth of great promise who had been educated at Westminster. This was
+Lord Hastings, the eldest son of the Earl of Huntingdon. He had died
+of the small-pox. Dryden's contribution was written in 1649, and
+consisted of but little over a hundred lines. No one expects great
+verse from a boy of eighteen; but the most extravagant anticipations
+of sorry performance will fail to come up to the reality of the
+wretchedness which was here attained. It was in words like these that
+the future laureate bewailed the death of the young nobleman and
+depicted the disease of which he died:--
+
+          "Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
+          The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
+          So many spots, like naeves, our Venus soil?
+          One jewel set off with so many a foil?
+  Blisters with pride swelled, which through his flesh did sprout
+          Like rosebuds, stuck in the lily-skin about.
+          Each little pimple had a tear in it,
+          To wail the fault its rising did commit;
+          Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
+          Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
+          Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
+          The cabinet of a richer soul within?
+          No comet need foretell his change drew on,
+          Whose corps might seem a constellation."
+
+Criticism cannot be rendered sufficiently vituperative to characterize
+properly such a passage. It is fuller of conceits than ever Cowley
+crowded into the same space; and lines more crabbed and inharmonious
+Donne never succeeded in perpetrating. Its production upsets all
+principles of prophecy. The wretchedest of poetasters can take
+courage, when he contemplates the profundity of the depth out of which
+uprose the greatest poet of his time.
+
+[Illustration: John Dryden.]
+
+Dryden is, in fact, an example of that somewhat rare class of writers
+who steadily improve with advancing years. Most poets write their best
+verse before middle life. Many of them after that time go through a
+period of decline, and sometimes of rapid decline; and if they live to
+reach old age, they add to the quantity of their production without
+sensibly increasing its value. This general truth is conspicuously
+untrue of Dryden. His first work gave no promise of his future
+excellence, and it was by very slow degrees that he attained to the
+mastery of his art. But the older he grew, the better he wrote; and
+the volume published a few months before his death, and largely
+composed almost under its shadow, so far from showing the slightest
+sign of failing power, contains a great deal of the best poetry he
+ever produced.
+
+As Dryden's relatives were Puritans, and some of them held place under
+the government, it was natural that upon coming to London he should
+attach himself to that party. Accordingly it is no surprise to find
+him duly mourning the death of the great Protector in certain 'Heroic
+Stanzas Consecrated to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell.' The first
+edition bears the date of 1659, and so far as we know, the production
+was Dryden's second venture in poetry. It was written in the measure
+of Davenant's 'Gondibert,' and is by no means a poor piece of work,
+though it has been sometimes so styled. It certainly pays not simply a
+high but a discerning tribute to the genius of Cromwell. Before two
+years had gone by, we find its author greeting the return of Charles
+with effusive loyalty, and with predictions of prosperity and honor to
+attend his reign, which events were soon woefully to belie. The poet
+has been severely censured for this change of attitude. It is a
+censure which might be bestowed with as much propriety upon the whole
+population of England. The joyful expectations to which he gave
+utterance were almost universal; and no other charge can well be
+brought against him than that he had the ability and took the occasion
+to express sentiments which were felt by nearly the entire nation.
+
+From this time on, Dryden appears more and more in the public eye, and
+slowly but steadily forged his way to the front as the representative
+man of letters of his time. In 1670 he was appointed to the two
+distinct offices of poet laureate and historiographer royal.
+Thenceforward his relations with the court became close, and so they
+did not cease to be until the expulsion of James II. In 1683 he
+received a further mark of royal favor, in being made collector of
+customs of the port of London. In the political controversies which
+subsequently arose, Dryden's writings faithfully represented the
+sentiments of the side he had chosen, and expressed their prejudices
+and aversions not merely with force but also with virulence. His first
+literary activity, however, was on neutral ground. After eighteen
+years of compulsory closing, the Restoration opened wide once more the
+doors of the theatre. Dryden, like every one else possessed of
+literary ability, began to write for the stage. His first play, a
+comedy entitled 'The Wild Gallant,' was brought out in February 1663;
+and for the eighteen years following, it was compositions of such
+nature that occupied the main portion of his literary life. During
+that time he produced wholly or in part twenty-two comedies and
+tragedies. His pieces must from the outset have met with a fair degree
+of success, otherwise the King's Company would not have entered into a
+contract with him, as it did in 1667, to furnish for them each year a
+fixed number of plays, in consideration of his receiving a certain
+share of the profits of the theatre.
+
+Yet it cannot be said that Dryden was in any respect a dramatist of
+a high order. As a writer of comedy he was not only inferior to
+contemporaries and immediate successors like Wycherley, Congreve,
+Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, but in certain ways he was surpassed by
+Shadwell, the very man whom he himself has consigned to a disagreeable
+immortality as the hero of the 'MacFlecknoe.' His comedies are not
+merely full of obscenity,--which seems to have been a necessary
+ingredient to suit them to the taste of the age,--but they are full of
+a peculiarly disagreeable obscenity. One of his worst offenses in this
+direction, and altogether his most impudent one, was his adaptation
+for the stage of Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' The two plays are worth
+reading together for the sake of seeing how easily a pure and perfect
+creation of genius can be vulgarized in language and spirit almost
+beyond the possibility of recognition. In his tragedies, however,
+Dryden was much more successful. Yet even these, in spite of the
+excellence of occasional passages, do not attain to a high rank.
+Indeed, thought and expression are at times extravagant, not to say
+stilted, to an extent which afterward led him himself to make them the
+subject of ridicule. It was in them, however, during these years that
+he perfected by degrees his mastery of heroic verse, of which later he
+was to display the capabilities in a way that had never previously
+been seen and has never since been surpassed.
+
+A controversy in regard to the proper method of composing plays
+brought forward Dryden, at an early period in his literary career, as
+a writer of prose. In this he at once attained unusual eminence. In
+him appear for the first time united the two characters of poet and of
+critic. Ben Jonson had in a measure preceded him in this respect; but
+Jonson's criticism was not so much devoted to the examination of
+general principles as to the exposure of the hopeless, helpless
+obtuseness of the men who had a different opinion of his works from
+what he himself entertained. The questions discussed by Dryden were of
+a more general nature. With the Stuarts had come in French literary
+tastes and French literary methods. The age was supposed to be too
+refined to be pleased with what had satisfied the coarse palates of
+preceding generations. In stage-writing in particular, the doctrine of
+the unities, almost uniformly violated by Shakespeare and most of the
+Elizabethans, was now held up as the only correct method of
+composition that could be employed by any writer who sought to conform
+to the true principles of art. Along with this came the substitution
+in the drama of rhyme for blank verse. Upon the comparative merits of
+these two as employed in tragedy, arose the first controversy in which
+Dryden was engaged. This one was with his brother-in-law, Sir Robert
+Howard; for in 1663 Dryden had become the husband of the daughter of
+the Earl of Berkshire, thus marrying, as Pope expressed it, "misery in
+a noble wife." Dryden was an advocate of rhyme; and the controversy on
+this point began with the publication in 1668 of his 'Essay of
+Dramatic Poesy.' It was afterward carried on by both parties, in
+prefaces to the plays they successively published. The prefaces to
+these productions regularly became later the place where Dryden laid
+down his critical doctrines on all points that engaged his attention;
+and whether we agree with his views or not, we are always sure to be
+charmed with the manner in which they are expressed.
+
+In 1667 Dryden published a long poem entitled 'Annus Mirabilis.' It
+was in the same measure as the stanzas on Oliver Cromwell. It gave him
+a good deal of reputation at the time; but though it is far from being
+a despicable performance, few there are now who read it and still
+fewer who re-read it. Far different has been the fate of his next
+work. It was not until 1681, when England was beginning to emerge
+slowly from the excitement and agitation growing out of the alleged
+Popish plot, that he brought out his 'Absalom and Achitophel,' without
+question the greatest combined poetical and political satire to be
+found in our tongue. Here it was that for the first time he fully
+displayed his mastery over heroic verse. The notion once so widely
+prevalent--for the vogue of which, indeed, Dryden himself is mainly
+responsible--that Waller and Denham brought this verse to perfection,
+it now requires both extensive and special ignorance of our earlier
+authors to entertain; but on the other hand, there is no question that
+he himself imparted to the line a variety, vigor, and sustained
+majesty of movement such as the verse in its modern form had never
+previously received. There is therefore a fairly full measure of truth
+in the lines in which he was characterized by Pope:--
+
+  "Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
+  The varying verse, the full resounding line,
+  The long majestic march and energy divine."
+
+These lines of Pope, it may be added, exemplify purposely two
+peculiarities of Dryden's versification,--the occasional use of the
+triplet instead of the regular couplet, and of the Alexandrine, or
+line of six feet, in place of the usual line of five.
+
+The poem is largely an attack upon the Earl of Shaftesbury, who in it
+bears the title of Achitophel. The portrayal of this statesman, which
+is given in this volume, is ample evidence of that skill of the poet
+in characterization which has made the pictures he drew immortal.
+Perhaps even more effective was the description of the Duke of
+Buckingham, under the designation of Zimri. For attacking that
+nobleman Dryden had both political and personal reasons. Buckingham
+had now joined the opponents of the court. Ten years previously the
+poet himself had been brought by him on the stage, with the aid of
+others, in the play called "The Rehearsal." His usual actions had been
+mimicked, his usual expressions had been put into the mouth of the
+character created to represent him, who was styled Bayes. This title
+had been given him because Dryden figuratively wore the bays, or
+laurel, as poet laureate. The name henceforward stuck. Dryden's turn
+had now come; and it was in these following lines that he drew the
+unfaded and fadeless picture of this nobleman, whose reputation even
+then was notorious rather than famous, and whose intellect was
+motley-minded rather than versatile:--
+
+  "Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
+  In the front rank of these did Zimri stand,
+  A man so various that he seemed to be
+  Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
+  Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
+  Was everything by starts and nothing long,
+  But in the course of one revolving moon
+  Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
+  Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
+  Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
+  Blest madman, who could every hour employ
+  With something new to wish or to enjoy!
+  Railing and praising were his usual themes,
+  And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
+  So over-violent or over-civil
+  That every man with him was God or Devil.
+  In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:
+  Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
+  Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,
+  He had his jest, and they had his estate."
+
+As an example of the loftier and more majestic style occasionally
+found in this poem, is the powerful appeal of Achitophel to Absalom.
+The latter, it is to be said, stands for the Duke of Monmouth, the
+eldest of the illegitimate sons of Charles II. Him many of the
+so-called country party, now beginning to be styled Whigs, were
+endeavoring to have recognized as the next successor to the throne, in
+place of the Roman Catholic brother of the king, James, Duke of York.
+As a favorite son of the monarch, he, though then in opposition, is
+treated tenderly by Dryden throughout; and this feeling is plainly
+visible in the opening of the address to him put into the mouth of
+Achitophel, in these words:--
+
+  "Auspicious prince, at whose nativity
+  Some royal planet ruled the southern sky,
+  Thy longing country's darling and desire,
+  Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire,
+  Their second Moses, whose extended wand
+  Divides the seas and shows the promised land,
+  Whose dawning day in every distant age
+  Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage,
+  The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
+  The young men's vision and the old men's dream,--
+  Thee savior, thee the nation's vows confess,
+  And never satisfied with seeing, bless."
+
+Dryden followed up the attack upon Shaftesbury with a poem entitled
+'The Medal.' This satire, which appeared in March 1682, was called
+forth by the action of the partisans of the Whig leader in having a
+medal struck commemorating his release from the Tower, after the grand
+jury had thrown out the charge of treason which had been brought
+against him. Both of these pieces were followed by a host of replies.
+Some of them did not refrain from personal attack, which indeed had a
+certain justification in the poet's own violence of denunciation. The
+most abusive of these was a poem by Thomas Shadwell, entitled 'The
+Medal of John Bayes.' Such persons as fancy Dryden's subsequent
+punishment of that dramatist unwarranted in its severity should in
+justice read this ferociously scurrilous diatribe, in which every
+charge against the poet that malice or envy had concocted and rumor
+had set afloat, was here industriously raked together; and to the
+muck-heap thus collected, the intimacy of previous acquaintance was
+doubtless enabled to contribute its due quota of malignant assertion
+and more malignant insinuation. Shadwell was soon supplied, however,
+with ample reason to regret his action. Dryden's first and best known
+rejoinder is 'MacFlecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant
+Poet T. S.' This production has always had the reputation in
+literature of being the severest personal satire in the language; but
+it requires now for its appreciation an intimate acquaintance with
+Shadwell's plays, which very few possess. It is further disfigured in
+places by a coarseness from which, indeed, none of the poet's writings
+were certain to be free. Its general spirit can be indicated by a
+brief extract from its opening paragraph. Flecknoe, it is to be said,
+was a feeble poet who had died a few years before. He is here
+represented as having long reigned over the kingdom of dullness, but
+knowing that his end was close at hand, determines to settle the
+succession to the State. Accordingly he fixes upon his son Shadwell as
+the one best fitted to take his place in ruling over the realm of
+nonsense, and in continuing the war with wit and sense. The
+announcement of his intention he begins in the following words:--
+
+    "--Tis resolved, for Nature pleads that he
+  Should only rule who most resembles me.
+  Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
+  Mature in dullness from his tender years;
+  Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
+  Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
+  The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
+  But Shadwell never deviates into sense."
+
+Far more bitter, however, was the renewed attack which a month later
+Dryden inserted in the two hundred lines he contributed to the
+continuation of 'Absalom and Achitophel' that was written by Nahum
+Tate. In this second part, which came out in November 1682, he devoted
+himself in particular to two of his opponents, Settle and Shadwell,
+under the names respectively of Doeg and Og--"two fools," he says, in
+his energetic way,--
+
+      "That crutch their feeble sense on verse;
+  Who by my Muse to all succeeding times
+  Shall live in spite of their own doggerel rhymes."
+
+Of Settle, whose poetry was possessed of much smoothness but little
+sense, he spoke in a tone of contemptuous good-nature, though the
+object of the attack must certainly have deemed the tender mercies of
+Dryden to be cruel. It was in this way he was described, to quote a
+few lines:--
+
+  "Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
+  For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
+  And nothing suffer, since he nothing meant;
+  Hanging supposes human soul and reason,--
+  This animal's below committing treason:
+  Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?
+  That's a preferment for Achitophel.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Let him rail on; let his invective Muse
+  Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
+  Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
+  Indict him of a capital offense."
+
+But it was not till he came to the portraiture of Shadwell that he
+gave full vent to the ferocity of his satire. He taunted him with the
+unwieldiness of his bulk, the grossness of his habits, with his want
+of wealth, and finally closed up with some lines into which he
+concentrated all the venom of his previous attacks:--
+
+  "But though Heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,
+  He never was a poet of God's making
+  The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
+  With this prophetic blessing--_Be thou dull_;
+  Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
+  Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.
+  Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men;
+  A strong nativity--but for the pen;
+  Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
+  Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.
+  I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
+  For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
+  Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck;
+  'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
+  For writing treason and for writing dull;
+  To die for faction is a common evil,
+  But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
+  Hadst thou the glories of thy King exprest,
+  Thy praises had been satires at the best;
+  But thou in clumsy verse, unlicked, unpointed,
+  Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.
+  I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
+  For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
+  But of King David's foes be this the doom,--
+  May all be like the young man Absalom;
+  And for my foes may this their blessing be,--
+  To talk like Doeg and to write like thee."
+
+Refinement of tone is not the distinguishing characteristic of satire
+of this sort. It does not attack its object by delicate insinuation or
+remote suggestion. It operates by heavy downright blows which crush by
+the mere weight and power of the stroke. There was in truth in those
+days a certain brutality not only permitted but expected in the way
+men spoke of each other, and Dryden conformed in this as in other
+respects to the manners and methods of his age. But of its kind the
+attack is perfect. The blows of a bludgeon which make of the victim a
+shapeless mass kill as effectively as the steel or poison which leaves
+every feature undisturbed, and to the common apprehension it serves to
+render the killing more manifest. At any rate, so long as a person has
+been done to death, it makes comparatively little difference how the
+death was brought about; and the object in this instance of Dryden's
+attack, though a man of no mean abilities, has never recovered from
+the demolition which his reputation then underwent.
+
+In 1685 Charles II. died, and his brother James ascended the throne. In
+the following year Dryden went over to the Roman Catholic Church. No
+act of his life has met with severer censure. Nor can there be any
+doubt that the time he took to change his religion afforded ground for
+distrusting the sincerity of his motives. A king was on the throne who
+was straining every nerve to bring the Church of England once more
+under the sway of the Church of Rome. Obviously the adoption of the
+latter faith would recommend the poet to the favor of the bigoted
+monarch, and tend to advance his personal interests. There is no
+wonder, therefore, that he should at the time have been accused of
+being actuated by the unworthiest of reasons, and that the charge
+should continue to be repeated to our day. Yet a close study of
+Dryden's life and writings indicates that the step he took was a
+natural if not an inevitable outcome of the processes through which
+his opinions had been passing. He had been early trained in the strict
+tenets of the Puritan party. From these he had been carried over to
+the loose beliefs and looser life that followed everywhere hard upon
+the Restoration. By the sentiments then prevailing he was profoundly
+affected. Nothing in the writings of the first half of his literary
+life is more marked--not even his flings at matrimony--than the
+scoffing way in which he usually spoke of the clergy. His tone towards
+them is almost always contemptuous, where it is not positively
+vituperative. His famous political satire began with this line--
+
+  "In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin;"--
+
+and a little later in the course of the same poem he observed that--
+
+  "Fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade,"
+
+the "sacrificer" here denoting the priest. This feeling toward the
+clergy never in truth deserted him entirely. But no one who reads
+carefully his 'Religio Laici,' a poem published in 1682, can fail to
+perceive that even then he had not only drifted far away from the
+faith of his childhood, but had begun to be tormented and perplexed by
+the insoluble problems connected with the life and destiny of man, and
+with his relations to his Creator. The subject was not likely to weigh
+less heavily upon him in the years that followed. To Dryden, as to
+many before and since, it may have seemed the easiest method of
+deliverance from the difficulties in which he found himself involved,
+to cast the burden of doubts which disquieted the mind and depressed
+the heart, upon a Church that undertakes to assume the whole
+responsibility for the man's future on condition of his yielding to it
+an unquestioning faith in the present.
+
+An immediate result of his conversion was the production in 1687 of
+one of his most deservedly famous poems, 'The Hind and the Panther.'
+He began it with the idea of assisting in bringing about the
+reconciliation between the Panther, typifying the Church of England,
+and the Hind, typifying the Church of Rome. It is apparent that
+before he finished it he saw that the project was hopeless. It is a
+poem of over twenty-five hundred lines, of which the opening up to
+line 150 is printed in this volume. Part of the passage here cited
+contains, without professing it as an object, and probably without
+intending it, the best defense that could be made for his change of
+religion. The production in its entirety is remarkable for the skill
+which its author displayed in carrying on an argument in verse. In
+this he certainly had no superior among poets, perhaps no equal. The
+work naturally created a great sensation in those days of fierce
+political and religious controversy. Both it and its writer were made
+the object of constant attack. A criticism, in particular, appeared
+upon it in the shape of a dialogue in prose with snatches of verse
+interspersed. It is usually known by the title of 'The Town Mouse and
+the Country Mouse,' and was exalted at the time by unreasoning
+partisanship into a wonderful performance. Even to the present day,
+this dreary specimen of polemics is described as a very witty work by
+those who have never struggled to read it. It was the production of
+Charles Montagu, the future Earl of Halifax, and of Matthew Prior. A
+story too is still constantly repeated that Dryden was much hurt by
+the attacks of these two young men, to whom he had been kind, and wept
+over their ingratitude. If he shed any tears at all upon the occasion,
+they must have been due to the mortification he felt that any two
+persons who had been admitted to his friendship should have been
+guilty of twaddle so desperately tedious.
+
+The flight of James and the accession of William and Mary threw Dryden
+at once out of the favor of the court, upon which to a large extent he
+had long depended for support. As a Jacobite he could not take the
+oath of allegiance; but there is hardly any doubt that under any
+circumstances he would have been deprived of the offices of place and
+profit he held. In the laureateship he was succeeded by his old
+antagonist Shadwell; and within a few years he saw the dignity of the
+position still further degraded by the appointment to it of Nahum
+Tate, one of the worst of the long procession of poetasters who have
+filled it. Dryden henceforth belonged to the party out of power. His
+feelings about his changed relations are shown plainly in the fine
+epistle with which he consoled Congreve for the failure of his comedy
+of the 'Double Dealer.' Yet displaced and unpensioned, and sometimes
+the object of hostile attack, his literary supremacy was more absolute
+than ever. All young authors, whether Whigs or Tories, sought his
+society and courted his favor; and his seat at Will's coffee-house was
+the throne from which he swayed the literary sceptre of England.
+
+After the revolution of 1688 Dryden gave himself entirely up to
+authorship. He first turned to the stage; and between 1690 and 1694
+he produced five plays. With the failure in the last-mentioned year of
+his tragi-comedy called 'Love Triumphant,' he abandoned writing for
+the theatre. The period immediately following he devoted mainly to his
+translation of Virgil, which was published in 1697. It was highly
+successful; but far more reputation came to him from a large folio
+volume that was brought out in November 1699, under the title of
+'Fables.' Its contents consisted mainly of poetical narratives founded
+upon certain stories of the 'Decameron,' and of the modernization of
+some of the 'Canterbury Tales.' In certain ways these have been his
+most successful pieces, and have made his name familiar to successive
+generations of readers. Of the tales from Boccaccio, that of 'Cymon
+and Iphigenia' is on the whole the most pleasing. The modernizations
+of Chaucer were long regarded as superior to the original; and though
+superior knowledge of the original has effectually banished that
+belief, there is on the other hand no justification for the derogatory
+terms which are now sometimes applied to Dryden's versions.
+
+The verse in this volume was preceded by a long critical essay in
+prose. Many of its views, especially those about the language of
+Chaucer, have been long discarded; but the criticism will always be
+read with pleasure for the genial spirit and sound sense which pervade
+it, and the unstudied ease with which it is written. Cowley and Dryden
+are in fact the founders of modern English prose; and the influence of
+the latter has been much greater than that of the former, inasmuch as
+he touched upon a far wider variety of topics, and for that reason
+obtained a far larger circle of readers in the century following his
+death. There was also the same steady improvement in Dryden's critical
+taste that there was in his poetical expression. His admiration for
+Shakespeare constantly improved during his whole life; and it is to be
+noticed that in what is generally regarded as the best of his
+plays--'All for Love,' brought out in the winter of 1677-78--he of his
+own accord abandoned rhyme for blank verse.
+
+The publication of the 'Fables' was Dryden's last appearance before
+the public. In the following year he died, and was buried in
+Westminster Abbey by the side of Chaucer and Cowley. After his death
+his fame steadily increased instead of diminishing. For a long period
+his superiority in his particular line was ungrudgingly conceded by
+all, or if contested, was contested by Pope alone. His poetry indeed
+is not of the highest kind, though usually infinitely superior to that
+of his detractors. Still his excellences were those of the intellect
+and not of the spirit. On the higher planes of thought and feeling he
+rarely moves; to the highest he never aspires. The nearest he ever
+approaches to the former is in his later work, where religious
+emotion or religious zeal has lent to expression the aid of its
+intensity. There is a striking example of this in the personal
+references to his own experiences in the lines cited below from 'The
+Hind and the Panther.' Something too of the same spirit can be found,
+expressed in lofty language, in the following passage from the same
+poem, descriptive of the unity of the Church of Rome as contrasted
+with the numerous warring sects into which the Protestant body is
+divided:--
+
+  "One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound,
+  Entire, one solid shining diamond,
+  Not sparkles shattered into sects like you:
+  One is the Church, and must be to be true,
+  One central principle of unity.
+  As undivided, so from errors free;
+  As one in faith, so one in sanctity.
+  Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage
+  Of heretics opposed from age to age;
+  Still when the giant brood invades her throne,
+  She stoops from heaven and meets them half-way down,
+  And with paternal thunders vindicates her crown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread,
+  Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed;
+  From east to west triumphantly she rides,
+  All shores are watered by her wealthy tides.
+  The gospel sound diffused from Pole to Pole,
+  Where winds can carry and where waves can roll,
+  The selfsame doctrine of the sacred page
+  Conveyed to every clime, in every age."
+
+But though Dryden's poetry is not of the highest class, it is of the
+very highest kind in its class. Wherever the pure intellect comes into
+play, there he is invariably excellent. There is never any weakness;
+there is never any vagueness; there is never any deviation from the
+true path into aimless digression. His words invariably go straight to
+the mark, and not unfrequently with a directness and force that fully
+merit the epithet of "burning" applied to them by the poet Gray. His
+thoughts always rise naturally out of the matter in hand; and in the
+treatment of the meanest subjects he is not only never mean, but often
+falls without apparent effort into a felicity of phrase which holds
+the attention and implants itself in the memory. The benefit of
+exercise, for instance, is not a topic that can be deemed highly
+poetical; but in his epistle on country life addressed to his cousin
+John Driden, the moment he comes to speak of hunting and its salutary
+results his expression at once leaves the commonplace, and embodies
+the thought in these pointed lines:--
+
+  "So lived our sires, ere doctors learned to kill,
+  And multiply with theirs the weekly bill.
+  The first physicians by debauch were made;
+  Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food;
+  Toil strung the nerves and purified the blood:
+  But we their sons, a pampered race of men,
+  Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
+  Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
+  Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
+  The wise for cure on exercise depend;
+  God never made his work for man to mend."
+
+In a similar way in 'Cymon and Iphigenia' the contempt which Dryden,
+in common with the Tories of his time, felt for the English militia
+force, found vent in the following vigorous passage, really
+descriptive of them and their conduct though the scene is laid in
+Rhodes:--
+
+  "The country rings around with loud alarms,
+  And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;
+  Mouths without hands; maintained at vast expense,
+  In peace a charge, in war a weak defense;
+  Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
+  And ever, but in times of need, at hand:
+  This was the morn when, issuing on the guard,
+  Drawn up in rank and file they stood prepared
+  Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
+  Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day."
+
+In a world where what is feeble in expression is so often supposed to
+indicate peculiar delicacy; where what is vague is so often deemed
+peculiarly poetical; and where what is involved and crabbed and hard
+to comprehend is thought to denote peculiar profundity,--it is a
+pleasure to turn to a writer with a rank settled by the consensus of
+successive generations, who thought clearly and wrote forcibly, who
+knew always what he had to say and then said it with directness and
+power. There are greater poets than he; but so long as men continue to
+delight in vividness of expression, in majesty of numbers, in
+masculine strength and all-abounding vigor, so long will Dryden
+continue to hold his present high place among English authors.
+
+The writings of Dryden constitute of themselves a literature. They
+treat of a vast variety of topics in many different departments of
+intellectual activity. The completest edition of his works was first
+published in 1808 under the editorship of Walter Scott. It fills
+twenty-one volumes, the first of which however is devoted to a
+biography. The notes to this edition are generally excellent; the text
+is very indifferent. A revised edition of it has been recently
+published under the editorship of George Saintsbury. But easily
+accessible is a single-volume edition of the poems alone, edited by W.
+D. Christie, which furnishes a superior text, and is amply supplied
+with all necessary annotations.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Thomas R. Lounsbury)]
+
+
+
+FROM 'THE HIND AND THE PANTHER'
+
+
+  A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
+  Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;
+  Without unspotted, innocent within,
+  She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+  Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,
+  And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds
+  Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,
+  And doomed to death, though fated not to die.
+
+  Not so her young; for their unequal line
+  Was hero's make, half human, half divine.
+  Their earthly mold obnoxious was to fate,
+  The immortal part assumed immortal state.
+  Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,
+  Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,
+  Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose
+  And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.
+  Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,
+  Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.
+  So captive Israel multiplied in chains,
+  A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains.
+  With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed
+  Her martyred offspring and their race renewed;
+  Their corps to perish, but their kind to last,
+  So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.
+
+  Panting and pensive now she ranged alone,
+  And wandered in the kingdoms once her own.
+  The common hunt, though from their rage restrained
+  By sovereign power, her company disdained,
+  Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye
+  Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.
+  'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light,
+  They had not time to take a steady sight;
+  For truth has such a face and such a mien
+  As to be loved needs only to be seen.
+
+  The bloody Bear, an independent beast,
+  Unlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed.
+  Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare
+  Professed neutrality, but would not swear.
+  Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,
+  Mimicked all sects and had his own to chuse;
+  Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent,
+  And paid at church a courtier's compliment.
+  The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he,
+  But whitened with the foam of sanctity,
+  With fat pollutions filled the sacred place,
+  And mountains leveled in his furious race;
+  So first rebellion founded was in grace.
+  But since the mighty ravage which he made
+  In German forests had his guilt betrayed,
+  With broken tusks and with a borrowed name,
+  He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame,
+  So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile
+  False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil;
+  The graceless beast by Athanasius first
+  Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed,
+  His impious race their blasphemy renewed,
+  And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed;
+  Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye,
+  Nor in an infant could a God descry.
+  New swarming sects to this obliquely tend,
+  Hence they began, and here they all will end.
+
+  What weight of ancient witness can prevail,
+  If private reason hold the public scale?
+  But gracious God, how well dost thou provide
+  For erring judgments an unerring guide!
+  Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,
+  A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
+  O teach me to believe thee thus concealed,
+  And search no farther than thy self revealed,
+  But her alone for my director take,
+  Whom thou hast promised never to forsake!
+  My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires;
+  My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,
+  Followed false lights; and when their glimpse was gone,
+  My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
+  Such was I, such by nature still I am;
+  Be thine the glory and be mine the shame!
+  Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;
+  What more could fright my faith than Three in One?
+  Can I believe eternal God could lie
+  Disguised in mortal mold and infancy,
+  That the great Maker of the world could die?
+  And after that, trust my imperfect sense
+  Which calls in question his omnipotence?
+  Can I my reason to my faith compel,
+  And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel?
+  Superior faculties are set aside;
+  Shall their subservient organs be my guide?
+  Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,
+  And winking tapers show the sun his way;
+  For what my senses can themselves perceive
+  I need no revelation to believe.
+  Can they, who say the Host should be descried
+  By sense, define a body glorified,
+  Impassible, and penetrating parts?
+  Let them declare by what mysterious arts
+  He shot that body through the opposing might
+  Of bolts and bars impervious to the light,
+  And stood before his train confessed in open sight.
+  For since thus wondrously he passed, 'tis plain
+  One single place two bodies did contain;
+  And sure the same omnipotence as well
+  Can make one body in more places dwell.
+  Let Reason then at her own quarry fly;
+  But how can finite grasp infinity?
+
+  'Tis urged again, that faith did first commence
+  By miracles, which are appeals to sense,
+  And thence concluded, that our sense must be
+  The motive still of credibility.
+  For latter ages must on former wait,
+  And what began belief must propagate.
+
+  But winnow well this thought, and you shall find
+  'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind.
+  Were all those wonders wrought by power Divine
+  As means or ends of some more deep design?
+  Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,
+  To prove the Godhead of the Eternal Son.
+  God thus asserted:  Man is to believe
+  Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive,
+  And for mysterious things of faith rely
+  On the proponent Heaven's authority.
+  If then our faith we for our guide admit,
+  Vain is the farther search of human wit;
+  As when the building gains a surer stay,
+  We take the unuseful scaffolding away.
+  Reason by sense no more can understand;
+  The game is played into another hand.
+  Why choose we then like bilanders to creep
+  Along the coast, and land in view to keep,
+  When safely we may launch into the deep?
+  In the same vessel which our Savior bore,
+  Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore,
+  And with a better guide a better world explore.
+  Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood
+  And not veil these again to be our food?
+  His grace in both is equal in extent;
+  The first affords us life, the second nourishment.
+
+  And if he can, why all this frantic pain
+  To construe what his clearest words contain,
+  And make a riddle what he made so plain?
+  To take up half on trust and half to try,
+  Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry.
+  Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,
+  To pay great sums and to compound the small,
+  For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?
+
+  Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed:
+  Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed.
+  Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss;
+  The bank above must fail before the venture miss.
+
+
+
+TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE
+
+ON HIS COMEDY CALLED 'THE DOUBLE DEALER'
+
+
+  Well then, the promised hour is come at last;
+  The present age of wit obscures the past:
+  Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ;
+  Conquering with force of arms and dint of wit:
+  Theirs was the giant race before the flood;
+  And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood.
+  Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured,
+  With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
+  Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude,
+  And boisterous English wit with art endued.
+  Our age was cultivated thus at length,
+  But what we gained in skill we lost in strength.
+  Our builders were with want of genius curst;
+  The second temple was not like the first;
+  Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,
+  Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
+  Firm Doric pillars found your solid base,
+  The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space;
+  Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
+  In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise;
+  He moved the mind, but had not power to raise.
+  Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please,
+  Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.
+  In differing talents both adorned their age,
+  One for the study, t'other for the stage.
+  But both to Congreve justly shall submit,
+  One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit.
+  In him all beauties of this age we see:
+  Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity,
+  The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherley.
+  All this in blooming youth you have achieved;
+  Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved.
+  So much the sweetness of your manners move,
+  We cannot envy you, because we love.
+  Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
+  A beardless Consul made against the law,
+  And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome,
+  Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
+  Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,
+  And scholar to the youth he taught became.
+
+  O that your brows my laurel had sustained!
+  Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:
+  The father had descended for the son,
+  For only you are lineal to the throne.
+  Thus, when the State one Edward did depose,
+  A greater Edward in his room arose:
+  But now, not I, but poetry, is curst;
+  For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.
+  But let them not mistake my patron's part,
+  Nor call his charity their own desert.
+  Yet this I prophesy:  Thou shalt be seen,
+  Though with some short parenthesis between,
+  High on the throne of wit, and seated there,
+  Not mine--that's little--but thy laurel wear.
+  Thy first attempt an early promise made;
+  That early promise this has more than paid.
+  So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
+  That your least praise is to be regular.
+  Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,
+  But genius must be born, and never can be taught.
+  This is your portion, this your native store:
+  Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,
+  To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more.
+
+  Maintain your post:  that's all the fame you need;
+  For 'tis impossible you should proceed.
+  Already I am worn with cares and age,
+  And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:
+  Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense,
+  I live a rent-charge on His providence:
+  But you, whom every Muse and grace adorn,
+  Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
+  Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend,
+  Against your judgment, your departed friend!
+  Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
+  But shade those laurels which descend to you:
+  And take for tribute what these lines express;
+  You merit more, nor could my love do less.
+
+
+
+ODE
+
+TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY
+
+MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW,
+
+EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING.
+
+
+        Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies,
+          Made in the last promotion of the blest;
+        Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,
+      In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
+        Rich with immortal green above the rest:
+      Whether, adopted to some neighboring star,
+        Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race,
+      Or in procession fixed and regular
+        Moved with the heaven's majestic pace,
+          Or called to more superior bliss,
+      Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
+      Whatever happy region be thy place,
+      Cease thy celestial song a little space;
+      Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
+          Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
+      Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse
+              In no ignoble verse,
+      But such as thy own voice did practice here,
+        When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
+      To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
+          While yet a young probationer,
+              And candidate of Heaven.
+
+          If by traduction came thy mind,
+          Our wonder is the less to find
+      A soul so charming from a stock so good;
+      Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
+      So wert thou born into the tuneful strain
+      (An early, rich, and inexhausted vein).
+        But if thy pre-existing soul
+      Was formed at first with myriads more,
+        It did through all the mighty poets roll
+      Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
+  And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
+    If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
+      Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
+    Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find
+    Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:
+  Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind.
+
+      May we presume to say that at thy birth
+  New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth?
+      For sure the milder planets did combine
+      On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
+      And even the most malicious were in trine.
+          Thy brother angels at thy birth
+          Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,
+          That all the people of the sky
+      Might know a poetess was born on earth;
+          And then, if ever, mortal ears
+          Had heard the music of the spheres.
+          And if no clustering swarm of bees
+      On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,
+          'Twas that such vulgar miracles
+          Heaven had not leisure to renew:
+      For all the blest fraternity of love
+  Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.
+
+        O gracious God! how far have we
+        Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy!
+      Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
+      Debased to each obscene and impious use,
+      Whose harmony was first ordained above,
+      For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!
+      Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down
+        This lubric and adulterate age,
+      (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own,)
+        To increase the steaming ordures of the stage?
+      What can we say to excuse our second fall?
+      Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all:
+      Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
+      Unmixed with foreign filth and undefiled;
+  Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
+
+        Art she had none, yet wanted none,
+          For Nature did that want supply:
+        So rich in treasures of her own,
+          She might our boasted stores defy:
+      Such noble vigor did her verse adorn
+      That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born.
+      Her morals too were in her bosom bred,
+          By great examples daily fed,
+  What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.
+      And to be read herself she need not fear;
+      Each test and every light her Muse will bear,
+      Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
+      Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest)
+  Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast;
+          Light as the vapors of a morning dream,
+        So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
+          'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
+
+        Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
+  One would have thought she should have been content
+          To manage well that mighty government;
+        But what can young ambitious souls confine?
+          To the next realm she stretched her sway,
+          For Painture near adjoining lay,
+        A plenteous province and alluring prey.
+        A Chamber of Dependences was framed,
+          As conquerors will never want pretense,
+            (When armed to justify the offense,)
+  And the whole fief in right of Poetry she claimed.
+      The country open lay without defense;
+        For poets frequent inroads there had made,
+          And perfectly could represent
+      The shape, the face, with every lineament,
+  And all the large demains which the dumb Sister swayed;
+          All bowed beneath her government.
+      Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
+      Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,
+  And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind;
+        The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks
+        And fruitful plains and barren rocks;
+        Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear,
+        The bottom did the top appear;
+        Of deeper too and ampler floods
+        Which, as in mirrors, showed the woods;
+        Of lofty trees, with sacred shades
+        And perspectives of pleasant glades,
+        Where nymphs of brightest form appear,
+        And shaggy satyrs standing near,
+        Which them at once admire and fear.
+        The ruins too of some majestic piece,
+      Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
+      Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie,
+      And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;
+      What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,
+      Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
+      So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
+    But when the peopled Ark the whole creation bore.
+
+      The scene then changed; with bold erected look
+      Our martial King the sight with reverence strook:
+      For, not content to express his outward part,
+      Her hand called out the image of his heart:
+      His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
+      His high-designing thoughts were figured there,
+      As when by magic ghosts are made appear.
+        Our phoenix Queen was portrayed too so bright
+      Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
+      Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
+      Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
+      With such a peerless majesty she stands,
+    As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands;
+      Before a train of heroines was seen,
+      In beauty foremost, as in rank the Queen.
+      Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
+        But like a ball of fire, the farther thrown,
+        Still with a greater blaze she shone,
+      And her bright soul broke out on every side.
+      What next she had designed, Heaven only knows:
+      To such immoderate growth her conquest rose
+      That Fate alone its progress could oppose.
+
+      Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
+      The well-proportioned shape and beauteous face,
+      Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
+      In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
+      Not wit nor piety could Fate prevent;
+      Nor was the cruel Destiny content
+      To finish all the murder at a blow,
+      To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
+        But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
+      To work more mischievously slow,
+        And plundered first, and then destroyed.
+      O double sacrilege on things divine,
+      To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
+                  But thus Orinda died:
+      Heaven by the same disease did both translate;
+    As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
+
+      Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
+      His waving streamers to the winds displays,
+    And vows for his return with vain devotion pays.
+        Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
+        The winds too soon will waft thee here!
+        Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;
+      Alas! thou knowest not, thou art wrecked at home,
+      No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face;
+      Thou hast already had her last embrace.
+      But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far,
+      Among the Pleiads, a new-kindled star,
+      If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
+      'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
+
+      When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound
+        To raise the nations under ground;
+      When in the Valley of Jehoshaphat
+      The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
+        And there the last assizes keep
+        For those who wake and those who sleep;
+        When rattling bones together fly
+        From the four corners of the sky;
+      When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
+      Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
+      The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
+      And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
+      For they are covered with the lightest ground;
+      And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing,
+      Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
+      There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shalt go,
+      As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show,
+      The way which thou so well hast learned below.
+
+
+
+A SONG
+
+
+    Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
+    Reserved for your victorious eyes:
+    From crowds whom at your feet you see,
+    Oh pity and distinguish me!
+    As I from thousand beauties more
+  Distinguish you, and only you adore.
+
+    Your face for conquest was designed,
+    Your every motion charms my mind;
+    Angels, when you your silence break,
+    Forget their hymns to hear you speak;
+    But when at once they hear and view,
+  Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.
+
+    No graces can your form improve,
+    But all are lost, unless you love;
+    While that sweet passion you disdain,
+    Your veil and beauty are in vain:
+    In pity then prevent my fate,
+  For after dying all reprieve's too late.
+
+
+
+LINES PRINTED UNDER MILTON'S PORTRAIT
+
+IN TONSON'S FOLIO EDITION OF THE 'PARADISE LOST,' 1688
+
+
+  Three poets, in three distant ages born,
+  Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
+  The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
+  The next in majesty, in both the last:
+  The force of Nature could no farther go;
+  To make a third she joined the former two.
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC
+
+A SONG IN HONOR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY: 1697
+
+
+I
+
+              'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
+                  By Philip's warlike son:
+                Aloft in awful state
+                The godlike hero sate
+                  On his imperial throne;
+              His valiant peers were placed around;
+        Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:
+              (So should desert in arms be crowned.)
+              The lovely Thais, by his side,
+              Sate like a blooming Eastern bride,
+              In flower of youth and beauty's pride,
+                Happy, happy, happy pair!
+                  None but the brave,
+                  None but the brave,
+              None but the brave deserves the fair.
+
+CHORUS
+
+                Happy, happy, happy pair!
+                  None but the brave,
+                  None but the brave,
+              None but the brave deserves the fair.
+
+II
+
+                    Timotheus, placed on high
+                      Amid the tuneful quire,
+              With flying fingers touched the lyre:
+                The trembling notes ascend the sky,
+                    And heavenly joys inspire.
+                    The song began from Jove,
+              Who left his blissful seats above,
+              (Such is the power of mighty love.)
+              A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
+              Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
+              When he to fair Olympia pressed:
+              And while he sought her snowy breast,
+              Then round her slender waist he curled,
+  And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
+      The listening crowd admire the lofty sound
+      A present deity, they shout around;
+      A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
+                      With ravished ears
+                      The monarch hears,
+                      Assumes the god,
+                      Affects to nod,
+              And seems to shake the spheres.
+
+CHORUS
+
+                      With ravished ears
+                      The monarch hears,
+                      Assumes the god,
+                      Affects to nod,
+              And seems to shake the spheres.
+
+III
+
+      The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
+        Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
+              The jolly god in triumph comes;
+              Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
+                    Flushed with a purple grace
+                    He shows his honest face:
+      Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
+                    Bacchus, ever fair and young,
+                      Drinking joys did first ordain;
+              Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,
+              Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
+                    Rich the treasure,
+                    Sweet the pleasure,
+                      Sweet is pleasure after pain.
+
+CHORUS
+
+              Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,
+              Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
+                    Rich the treasure,
+                    Sweet the pleasure,
+                      Sweet is pleasure after pain.
+
+IV
+
+          Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
+              Fought all his battles o'er again;
+  And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
+        The master saw the madness rise,
+        His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
+        And while he heaven and earth defied,
+        Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
+              He chose a mournful Muse,
+              Soft pity to infuse;
+        He sung Darius great and good,
+              By too severe a fate,
+        Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
+              Fallen from his high estate,
+        And weltering in his blood;
+        Deserted at his utmost need
+        By those his former bounty fed;
+        On the bare earth exposed he lies,
+        With not a friend to close his eyes.
+    With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
+        Revolving in his altered soul
+          The various turns of chance below;
+        And now and then a sigh he stole,
+          And tears began to flow.
+
+CHORUS
+
+        Revolving in his altered soul
+          The various turns of chance below;
+        And now and then a sigh he stole,
+          And tears began to flow.
+
+V
+
+        The mighty master smiled to see
+        That love was in the next degree;
+        'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
+        For pity melts the mind to love.
+          Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
+          Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
+        War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
+        Honor but an empty bubble,
+        Never ending, still beginning,
+          Fighting still, and still destroying:
+        If the world be worth thy winning,
+          Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
+        Lovely Thais sits beside thee;
+        Take the good the gods provide thee;
+  The many rend the skies with loud applause;
+  So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.
+  The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
+                Gazed on the fair
+                Who caused his care,
+        And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
+        Sighed and looked, and sighed again;
+  At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
+  The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.
+
+CHORUS
+
+  The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
+                Gazed on the fair
+                Who caused his care,
+        And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
+        Sighed and looked, and sighed again;
+  At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
+  The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.
+
+VI
+
+        Now strike the golden lyre again;
+        A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
+        Break his bands of sleep asunder,
+  And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
+            Hark, hark, the horrid sound
+              Has raised up his head;
+              As awaked from the dead,
+            And amazed, he stares around.
+        Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
+              See the Furies arise;
+              See the snakes that they rear,
+              How they hiss in their hair,
+  And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
+              Behold a ghastly band,
+              Each a torch in his hand!
+  Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
+              And unburied remain
+              Inglorious on the plain:
+              Give the vengeance due
+              To the valiant crew.
+  Behold how they toss their torches on high,
+        How they point to the Persian abodes,
+  And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
+  The princes applaud with a furious joy;
+  And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
+              Thais led the way,
+              To light him to his prey,
+  And like another Helen, fired another Troy.
+
+CHORUS
+
+  And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
+              Thais led the way,
+              To light him to his prey,
+  And like another Helen, fired another Troy.
+
+VII
+
+                    Thus long ago,
+          Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
+            While organs yet were mute,
+            Timotheus, to his breathing flute
+                  And sounding lyre,
+  Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
+          At last divine Cecilia came,
+          Inventress of the vocal frame;
+  The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
+          Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
+          And added length to solemn sounds,
+  With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
+          Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
+            Or both divide the crown:
+          He raised a mortal to the skies;
+            She drew an angel down.
+
+GRAND CHORUS
+
+          At last divine Cecilia came,
+          Inventress of the vocal frame;
+  The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
+          Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
+          And added length to solemn sounds,
+  With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
+          Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
+            Or both divide the crown:
+          He raised a mortal to the skies;
+            She drew an angel down.
+
+
+
+ACHITOPHEL[A]
+
+From 'Absalom and Achitophel'
+
+
+  This plot, which failed for want of common-sense,
+  Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence:
+  For as when raging fevers boil the blood,
+  The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
+  And every hostile humor, which before
+  Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
+  So several factions from this first ferment
+  Work up to foam, and threat the government.
+  Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise,
+  Opposed the power to which they could not rise.
+  Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence,
+  Like fiends were hardened in impenitence.
+  Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
+  From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,
+  Were raised in power and public office high;
+  Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
+
+  Of these the false Achitophel was first;
+  A name to all succeeding ages curst:
+  For close designs and crooked councils fit;
+  Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
+  Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
+  In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
+  A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
+  Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
+  And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
+  A daring pilot in extremity;
+  Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
+  He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
+  Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
+  Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
+  And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
+  Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
+  Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
+  Punish a body which he could not please;
+  Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
+  And all to leave what with his toil he won,
+  To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;
+  Got while his soul did huddled notions try,
+  And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
+  In friendship false, implacable in hate;
+  Resolved to ruin or to rule the State.
+  To compass this the triple bond he broke,
+  The pillars of the public safety shook,
+  And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke:
+  Then, seized with fear yet still affecting fame,
+  Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
+  So easy still it proves in factious times,
+  With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
+  How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
+  Where none can sin against the people's will!
+  Where crowds can wink, and no offense be known,
+  Since in another's guilt they find their own!
+  Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
+  The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
+  In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
+  With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
+  Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
+  Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.
+  Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown,
+  With virtues only proper to the gown;
+  Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
+  From cockle that oppressed the noble seed;
+  David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
+  And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
+  But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
+  And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
+  Achitophel, grown weary to possess
+  A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
+  Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
+  And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
+  Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,
+  He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
+  Held up the buckler of the people's cause
+  Against the Crown, and skulked behind the laws.
+  The wished occasion of the plot he takes;
+  Some circumstances finds, but more he makes.
+  By buzzing emissaries fills the ears
+  Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears
+  Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
+  And proves the king himself a Jebusite.
+
+    [A] Lord Shaftesbury.
+
+
+
+
+MAXIME DU CAMP
+
+(1822-1894)
+
+[Illustration: MAXIME DU CAMP]
+
+
+"Why have I always felt happy, filled with the spirit of content and
+of infinite independence, whenever I have slept in the tent or in the
+ruins of foreign lands?" The love of change and adventure has been the
+spring of Du Camp's life, a life whose events are blended so
+intimately with his literary achievement, that to know the one is to
+know the other. This practical man of the world has an imaginative,
+beauty-loving side to his nature, which craves stimulus from tropical
+unfamiliar nature and exotic ways.
+
+So, after the usual training of French boys in lycée and college,--"in
+those hideous houses where they wearied our childhood," as he
+says,--the just-emancipated youth of twenty-two left his home in Paris
+for an eighteen-months' trip in the far East. The color and variety of
+the experience whetted his love of travel, and very soon after his
+return he began a serious study of photography in view of future
+plans.
+
+Then came the revolution of 1848, the overthrow of Louis Philippe; and
+Du Camp had an opportunity to prove his courage and patriotism in the
+ranks of the National Guard. In his 'Souvenirs de l'Année 1848,' he
+tells the story with color and interest, and with the forceful logic
+of an eye-witness.
+
+His bravery and a serious wound won him the red ribbon of the Legion
+of Honor, bestowed by General Cavaignac. This drew attention to him,
+and led the minister of public instruction to intrust him a few months
+later with a mission of exploration to Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, and
+Asia Minor; a result of which trip was his first literary success.
+Utilizing his photographic knowledge, he collected a great many
+negatives for future development. Upon his return he published a
+volume of descriptive sketches, 'Le Nil, Egypte, et Nubie,' generously
+illustrated with printed reproductions of these pictures. This first
+combination of photography and typography was popular, and was
+speedily imitated, initiative of many illustrated books.
+
+Later, Du Camp's warlike and exploring instincts led him at his own
+expense into Sicily with Garibaldi, where he collected matter and
+photographs for 'Les Deux Siciles', another successful volume. In 1851
+he associated with others to found the Revue de Paris, for which he
+wrote regularly until its suspension in 1858. He has also written a
+great deal for the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which for several years
+he continued a series of historical studies upon the government of
+Paris. The six volumes upon 'Paris: its Organs, its Functions, its
+Life, during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,' form one of
+his chief achievements. His personal knowledge on the subject, and his
+access to valuable unpublished documents, give it authoritative value.
+
+In 'Les Ancêtres de la Commune,' and 'Les Convulsions de Paris,' he
+has accomplished much more in the same line. The latter, a brilliant
+circumstantial exposition of the Commune, a logical condemnation of
+its folly and ignorance, brought him gratitude from the French
+Academy, and aided his election to that body in 1880. For this
+extensive work on contemporary politics, for his illustrated travels,
+and his artistic and literary criticism, he is better known than for
+his two or three novels and volumes of poetry.
+
+Du Camp's may be characterized as a soldierly style, strong, direct,
+and personal. He loves to retrace old scenes with the later visible
+sequence of cause and effect. Always straightforward, sometimes
+bluntly self-assertive, he is sometimes eloquent. Perhaps his great
+charm is spontaneity.
+
+
+
+A STREET SCENE DURING THE COMMUNE
+
+From 'The Convulsions of Paris'
+
+
+There were strange episodes during this terrible evening. At half-past
+eight, M. Rouville, a Protestant minister, was at home in a house he
+owns on the Rue de Lille. He heard an alarm, the cry, "Everything is
+burning! Escape!" Then he went down, saw the street in flames, and the
+poor people weeping as they escaped. Just as he was returning to
+rescue a few valuables, some federates rushed into the court, crying,
+"Hurry! They are setting the place on fire!" He took some money and
+the manuscript of the sermons he had preached. Mechanically he seized
+his hat and cane. Then, throwing a last look around the apartment
+where he had long lived, invoking the memory of the great Biblical
+destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ, weak and trembling with
+emotion, he descended the staircase from his home.
+
+There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by the cry of
+women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror, vibrating above
+the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no supernatural power
+replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house next his own was in
+flames. They were setting fire to the one opposite. The houses between
+the Rue de Beaune and the Rue du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were
+vomiting flame from all the broken windows.
+
+The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a faithful
+maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubtless determined
+his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all to save his house.
+If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he would have thought only
+of their safety, and would have hastened to get them away from the
+place, where, he said, "One could die of horror."
+
+Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps him young
+and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong race of Southern
+Protestants, which has resisted everything to guard its faith. I
+should not be surprised if he has had some nimble Cévennole, companion
+of Jean Cavalier, among his ancestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the
+Seine, accustomed to sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts
+some intact fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in
+faith, eloquent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
+knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound that
+light cannot be made to penetrate it,--he had remained on duty at his
+post during the Commune; for the prisoners had more need of spiritual
+aid, now that the regular administration no longer watched over them.
+He had been indignant at the incarceration of Catholic priests, and
+had signed the fine protest demanding the liberty of the archbishop,
+which the ministers had carried to the Hôtel de Ville.
+
+Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened him, he
+commended his spirit to God, remembering that the little stone of
+David had killed the giant Philistine, and he decided to fight for his
+home. He encamped energetically before the door, to forbid access; and
+using the weapons bestowed upon him by Providence and study, he spoke.
+The federates stopped before this man, whose simplicity rendered him
+heroic. One may guess what he said to them:--
+
+"Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execrable? Why be
+enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose religion, founded on the
+dogma of free examination, is naturally allied to republican ideas?
+The faith he teaches is that promulgated by Christ: Christ said to
+Peter, 'Sheathe thy sword;' he said to men,'Love one another!' No, the
+people of Paris, this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose
+unfortunates have been succored during the siege; this people, so good
+when not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the house
+of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in the exercise
+of charity."
+
+The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with profound
+conviction, for the federates who were listening to him began to weep,
+then seized and embraced him. Meantime the tenants of the shops in his
+house had lowered the iron curtains, which at least was an obstacle
+against the first throwing of petroleum. This lasted an hour. The
+federates, evidently softened and touched by the pastor's despair,
+remained near him and had pity upon him. An old sergeant of the
+National Guard stayed beside him, as if to bring him help in case of
+need, and to maintain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope
+revived in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that
+perhaps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing the
+braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires. Seeing
+one house intact, emerging like a little island from an ocean of
+flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and wanted to argue
+with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these young scamps said to
+him, "You are an old reactionist: you bore us with your talking. If
+you don't like it, we will pin you to the wall." Then, turning toward
+the federates and pointing to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he
+cried, "All that belongs to the people. The people have the right to
+burn every thing."
+
+This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when the
+sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer said to
+him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here." "Show me
+your order," answered the officer. The sergeant replied, "It is a
+verbal order." Then there was a lively quarrel between the two men.
+The sergeant was firm. The officer insisted, and according to the
+custom of the moment, threatened to have the rebel shot.
+
+The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved it. A
+mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates to retreat,
+because they were about to be surrounded by the troops from
+Versailles.
+
+Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant who had
+remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry, father! You will get
+yourself killed, and that will not save your camp."
+
+The other officers passed, commanded everything to be burned, and when
+the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave. For half an hour the
+unhappy pastor remained alone, holding back the incendiaries, passing
+from supplications to threats, and gaining time by every possible
+artifice. The sergeant returned with tearful eyes, and showed the
+dismayed pastor a written order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs.
+Not yet discouraged, the pastor roused the compassion of the old
+sergeant, and so moved him that the rebel cried, "Ah, well! so much
+the worse! I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
+shoot me. It's all the same. I deserve to be." Then raising his hand
+toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks through the veil of
+wind-driven smoke, he cried "O my father, I believe in God! Fear
+nothing; I will stay here. They shan't touch your house. I shall know
+how to keep off plunderers!"
+
+O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all good
+actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and the emotion
+which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed thy likeness, and
+one need not despair of thee, although thou dishearten those who love
+thee best!
+
+The brandy at the wine merchants'; the ether at the druggists'; the
+powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in cellars, burst
+with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals. The pastor
+looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He gave it a last
+look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock. For three hours in
+the midst of this furnace he had resisted the incendiaries. His
+strength was exhausted. The faithful servant, who went back again and
+again to rescue one thing more from the burning, dragged him away. In
+the Rue des Saints-Pères they plunged into darkness, all the deeper
+for the brazier of sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way
+over the barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
+fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved, they
+reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where they found
+refuge in a lodging-house.
+
+Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His house was
+standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word. What became of
+this brave man, who at the risk of his life saved the property of a
+man whose speech had touched him? Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he
+received his due reward. Perhaps he drags out a wretched life in some
+workshop of a penitentiary. I know not his fate, nor even his name.
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
+
+(1803?-1870)
+
+BY ANDREW LANG
+
+
+No author is less capable of being illustrated by extracts than
+Alexandre Dumas. Writers like Prosper Mérimée or Mr. Robert Louis
+Stevenson can be not inadequately represented by a short story or a
+brief scene. Even from Scott's work we can detach 'Wandering Willie's
+Tale,' or 'The Tapestried Chamber,' or the study of Effie Deans in
+prison, or of Jeanie Deans before the Queen. But Dumas is invariably
+diffuse; though, unlike other diffuse talkers and writers, he is
+seldom tedious. He is long without _longueurs_. A single example will
+explain this better than a page of disquisition. The present selector
+had meant to extract Dumas's first meeting with Charles Nodier at the
+theatre. In memory, that amusing scene appeared to occupy some six
+pages. In fact, it covers nearly a hundred and thirty pages of the
+Brussels edition of the 'Memoirs' of Dumas. One reads it with such
+pleasure that looked back upon, it seems short, while it is infinitely
+too long to be extracted. In dialogue Dumas is both excellent and
+copious, so that he cannot well be abbreviated. He is the Porthos of
+novelists, gigantic, yet (at his best) muscular and not overgrown. For
+these reasons, extracts out of his romances do no justice to Dumas. To
+read one of his novels, say 'The Three Musketeers,' even in a slovenly
+translation, is to know more of him than a world of critics and
+essayists can teach. It is also to forget the world, and to dwell in a
+careless Paradise. Our object therefore is not to give an "essence of
+Dumas," but to make readers peruse him in his own books, and to save
+them trouble by indicating, among these books, the best.
+
+It is notorious that Dumas was at the head of a "Company" like that
+which Scott laughingly proposed to form "for writing and publishing
+the class of books called Waverley Novels." In legal phrase, Dumas
+"deviled" his work; he had assistants, "researchers," collaborators.
+He would briefly sketch a plot, indicate the authorities to be
+consulted, hand his notes to Maquet or Fiorentino, receive their
+draught, and expand that into a romance. Work thus executed cannot be
+equal to itself. Many books signed by Dumas may be neglected without
+loss. Even to his best works, one or other of his assistants was apt
+to assert a claim. The answer is convincing. Not one of these
+ingenious men ever produced, by himself, anything that could be
+mistaken for the work of the master. All his good things have the same
+stamp and the same spirit, which we find nowhere else. Again, nobody
+contests his authorship of his own 'Memoirs,' or of his book about his
+dogs, birds, and other beasts--'The Story of My Pets.' Now, the merit
+of these productions is, in kind, identical with many of the merits of
+his best novels. There is the same good-humor, gayety, and fullness of
+life. We may therefore read Dumas's central romances without much fear
+of being grateful to the wrong person. Against the modern theory that
+the Iliad and Odyssey are the work of many hands in many ages, we can
+urge that these supposed "hands" never did anything nearly so good for
+themselves; and the same argument applies in the case of Alexandre
+Dumas.
+
+A brief sketch of his life must now be given. "No man has had so many
+of his possessions disputed as myself," says Dumas. Not only his right
+to his novels, but his right to his name and to legitimate birth, was
+contested. Here we shall follow his own account of himself in his
+'Memoirs,' which do not cover nearly the whole of his life. Alexandre
+Dumas was born at Villers-Cotterets-sur-Aisne, on July 24th, 1803(?).
+He lived to almost exactly the threescore and ten years of the
+Psalmist. He saw the fall of Napoleon, the restoration of the rightful
+king, the expulsion of the Legitimate monarch in 1830, the Orleans
+rule, its overthrow in 1848, the Republic, the Empire, and the
+Terrible Year, 1870-1871. Then he died, in the hour of the sorrow
+of his
+
+  "Immortal and indomitable France."
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS.]
+
+Dumas's full name was noble: he was Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la
+Pailleterie. His family estate, La Pailleterie, was made a marquisate
+by Louis XIV. in 1707. About 1760 the grandfather of Dumas sold his
+lands in France, and went to Hayti. There in 1762 was born his father,
+son of Louise Cossette Dumas and of the Marquis de la Pailleterie. The
+mother must have been a woman of color; Dumas talks of his father's
+"mulatto hue," and he himself had undoubted traces of African blood.
+Yet it appears that the grandparents were duly married. In 1772, his
+wife having died, the old marquis returned to France. The Revolution
+broke out, and the father of Alexandre Dumas fought in the armies of
+the Republic. The cruel mob called him by way of mockery, "Monsieur
+Humanity," because he endeavored to rescue the victims of their
+ferocity. He was a man of great courage and enormous physical
+strength. Napoleon, in honor of one of his feats of arms, called him
+in a dispatch "The Horatius Cocles of the Republic." He was with
+Napoleon in Egypt, where a quarrel arose, as he suspected and opposed
+the ambition of the future emperor. Though Dumas found a treasure in a
+bey's house, he honorably presented it to his government. He died in
+France, a poor man, in 1806.
+
+Dumas was not at home when his father died. He was staying, a
+child of four, with his cousin Marianne.
+
+    "At midnight I was awakened, or rather my cousin and I were
+    awakened, by a great blow struck on the door of our room. By
+    the light of a night lamp I saw my cousin start up, much
+    alarmed. No mortal could have knocked at our chamber door,
+    for the outer doors were locked. [He gives a plan of the
+    house.] I got out of bed to open the door. 'Where are you
+    going, Alexandre?' cried my cousin.
+
+    "'To let in papa, who is coming to say adieu.'
+
+    "The girl dragged me back to bed; I cried, 'Adieu, papa,
+    adieu!' Something like a sighing breath passed over my
+    face.... My father had died at the hour when we heard the
+    knock!"
+
+This anecdote may remind the reader of what occurred at Abbotsford on
+the night when Mr. Bullock died in London. Dumas tells another tale of
+the same kind ('Memoirs,' Vol. xi., page 255: Brussels, 1852). On the
+night of his mother's death he in vain sought a similar experience.
+These things "come not by observation"; but Dumas, like Scott, had a
+mind not untuned to such themes, though not superstitious.
+
+Young Dumas, like most men of literary genius, taught himself to read.
+A Buffon with plates was the treasure of the child, already a lover of
+animals. To know more about the beasts he learned to read for his own
+pleasure. Of mythology he was as fond as Keats. His intellectual life
+began (like the imaginative life of our race) in legends of beasts and
+gods. For Dumas was born _un primitif_, as the French say; his taste
+was the old immortal human taste for romance, for tales of adventure,
+love, and war. This predilection is now of course often scouted by
+critics who are over-civilized and under-educated. Superior persons
+will never share the love of Dumas which was common to Thackeray and
+Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. From Buffon he went on to the 'Letters to
+Émil' (letters on mythology), and to the 'Arabian Nights.' An
+imaginative child, he knew the "pains of sleep" as Coleridge did, and
+the terrors of vain imagination. Many children whose manhood is not
+marked by genius are visionaries. A visionary too was little Dumas,
+like Scott, Coleridge, and George Sand in childhood. To the material
+world he ever showed a bold face. "I have never known doubt or
+despair," he says; his faith in God was always unshaken; the doctrine
+of immortality he regarded rather with hope than absolute belief. Yet
+surely it is a corollary to the main article of his creed.
+
+At ten, Dumas went to a private school kept by an Abbé Grégoire. At
+the Restoration, a boy of twelve, he made and he adhered to an
+important resolution. He chose to keep his grandmaternal name of
+Dumas, like his father, and to drop the name and arms of De la
+Pailleterie, with all the hopes of boons from the restored Royalists.
+Dumas remained a man of the popular party, though he had certain
+relations of friendship with the house of Orléans. But he entertained
+no posthumous hatred of the old monarchy and the old times. His kings
+are nearly as good, in his romances, as Sir Walter's own, and his
+Henri III. and Henri IV. may be named with Scott's Gentle King Jamie
+and Louis XI.
+
+Madame Dumas, marquise as she was by marriage, kept a tobacconist's
+shop; and in education, Dumas was mainly noted for his calligraphy.
+Poaching was now the boy's favorite amusement; all through his life he
+was very fond of sport. Napoleon returned from Elba; Dumas saw him
+drive through Villers-Cotterets on his way to Waterloo. Soon
+afterwards came in stragglers; the English, they said, had been
+defeated at five o'clock on June 18th, but the Prussians arrived at
+six o'clock and won the battle. What the English were doing between
+five and six does not appear; it hardly seems that they quitted the
+field. The theory of that British defeat at Waterloo was never
+abandoned by Dumas. He saw Napoleon return through Villers-Cotterets.
+"Wellington, Bülow, Blücher, were but masks of men; really they were
+spirits sent by the Most High to defeat Napoleon." It is a pious
+opinion!
+
+At the age of fifteen Dumas, like Scott, became a notary's clerk.
+About this time he saw 'Hamlet' played, in the version of Ducis.
+Corneille and Racine had always been disliked by this born
+romanticist. 'Hamlet' carried him off his feet. Soon afterwards he
+read Bürger's 'Lenore,' the ballad which Scott translated at the
+very beginning of his career as an author.
+
+  "Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
+      Splash! splash! along the sea;
+  The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
+      The flashing pebbles flee."
+
+This German ballad, says Scott, "struck him as the kind of thing he
+could do himself." And Dumas found that the refrain
+
+  "Hurrah, fantôme, les morts vont vite,"
+
+was more to his taste than the French poetry of the eighteenth
+century. He tried to translate 'Lenore.' Scott finished it in a night;
+Dumas gave up in despair. But this, he says, was the beginning of his
+authorship. He had not yet opened a volume of Scott or Cooper, "ces
+deux grands romanciers." With a friend named Leuven he began to try
+to write plays (1820-1821). He now poached his way to Paris, defraying
+his expenses with the game he shot on the road. Shakespeare too was a
+poacher; let us excuse the eccentricities of genius. He made Talma's
+acquaintance; he went to the play; he resigned his clerkship: "Paris
+was my future." Thither he went; his father's name served him with
+General Foy, and he obtained a little post in the household of the Duc
+D'Orléans--a supernumerary secretaryship at £60 a year. At the play he
+met Charles Nodier, reading the rarest of Elzevirs, and at intervals
+(like Charles Lamb) hissing his own piece! This delightful scene, with
+its consequences, occupies one hundred and thirty pages!
+
+Dumas now made the acquaintance of Frederic Soulié, and became a
+pillar of theatres. He began to read with a purpose: first he read
+Scott; "The clouds lifted, and I beheld new horizons." Then he turned
+to Cooper; then to Byron. One day he entered his office, crying aloud,
+"Byron is dead!" "Who is Byron?" said one of his chiefs. Here Dumas
+breaks off in his 'Memoirs' to give a life of Byron! He fought his
+first duel in the snow, and won an easy, almost a bloodless victory.
+For years he and Leuven wrote plays together,--plays which were never
+accepted.
+
+At last he, Rousseau (not Jean Jacques!), and Leuven composed a piece
+together. Refused at one house, it was accepted at another: 'La Chasse
+et l'Amour' (The Chase and Love) was presented on September 22d, 1823.
+It succeeded. A volume of three short stories sold to the extent of
+four copies. Dumas saw that he must "make a name" before he could make
+a livelihood. "I do not believe in neglected talent and unappreciated
+genius," says he. Like Mr. Arthur Pendennis, he wrote verses "up to"
+pictures. Thackeray did the same. "Lady Blessington once sent him an
+album print of a boy and girl fishing, with a request that he would
+make some verses for it. 'And,' he said, 'I liked the idea, and set
+about it at once. I was two entire days at it,--was so occupied with
+it, so engrossed by it, that I did not shave during the whole time.'"
+So says Mr. Locker-Lampson.
+
+We cannot all be Dumas or Thackeray. But if any literary beginner
+reads these lines, let him take Dumas's advice; let him disbelieve in
+neglected genius, and do the work that comes in his way, as best he
+can. Dumas had a little anonymous success in 1826, a vaudeville at the
+Porte-Saint-Martin. At last he achieved a serious tragedy, or
+melodrama, in verse, 'Christine.' He wrote to Nodier, reminding him of
+their meeting at the play. The author of 'Trilby' introduced him to
+Taylor; Taylor took him to the Théâtre Français; 'Christine' was read
+and accepted unanimously.
+
+Dumas now struck the vein of his fortune. By chance he opened a volume
+of Anquetil, and read an anecdote of the court of Henri III. This led
+him to study the history of Saint Megrin, in the Memoirs of L'Estoile,
+where he met Quelus, and Maugiron, and Bussy d'Amboise, with the
+stirring tale of his last fight against twelve men. Out of these facts
+he made his play 'Henri III.,' and the same studies inspired that
+trilogy of romances 'La Reine Margot' (Queen Margot), 'La Dame de
+Monsoreau' (The Lady of Monsoreau), and 'Les Quarante-Cinq' (The
+Forty-Five). These are, with the trilogy of the 'Mousquetaires,' his
+central works as a romancer, and he was twenty-five when he began to
+deal with the romance of history. His habit was to narrate his play or
+novel, to his friends, to invent as he talked, and so to arrive at his
+general plan. The mere writing gave him no trouble. We shall later
+show his method in the composition of 'The Three Musketeers.'
+
+'Christine' had been wrecked among the cross-currents of theatrical
+life. 'Henri III.' was more fortunate. Dumas was indeed obliged to
+choose between his little office and the stage; he abandoned his
+secretaryship. In 1829 occurred this "duel between his past and his
+future." Just before the first night of the drama, Dumas's mother,
+whom he tenderly loved, was stricken down by paralysis. He tended her,
+he watched over his piece, he almost dragged the Duc d'Orléans to the
+theatre. On that night he made the acquaintance of Hugo and Alfred de
+Vigny. Dumas passed the evening between the theatre and his mother's
+bedside. When the curtain fell, he was "called on"; the audience stood
+up uncovered, the Duc d'Orléans and all!
+
+Next morning Dumas, like Byron, "woke to find himself famous." He had
+"made his name" in the only legitimate way,--by his work. Troubles
+followed, difficulties with the Censorship, duels and rumors of duels,
+and the whole romantic upheaval which accompanied the Revolution of
+1830. Dumas was attached again to the Orléans household. He dabbled in
+animal magnetism, which had been called mesmerism, and now is known as
+hypnotism. The phenomena are the same; only the explanations vary.
+About 1830 there was a mania for animal magnetism in Paris; Lady
+Louisa Stuart recounted some of the marvels to Sir Walter Scott, who
+treated the reports with disdain. When writing his romance 'Joseph
+Balsamo' (a tale of the French Revolution), Dumas made studies of
+animal magnetism, and was, or believed himself to be, an adept. The
+orthodox party of modern hypnotists merely hold that by certain
+physical means, a state of somnambulism can be produced in certain
+people. Once in that state, the patients are subject, to "suggestion,"
+and are obedient to the will of the hypnotizer. He for his part exerts
+no "magnetic current," no novel unexplained force or fluid. Some
+recent French and English experiments are not easily to be reconciled
+with this hypothesis. Dumas himself believed that he exerted a
+magnetic force, and without any "passes" or other mechanical means,
+could hypnotize persons who did not know what he was about, and so
+were not influenced by "suggestion." In a few cases he held that his
+patients became clairvoyant; one of them made many political
+prophecies,--all unfulfilled. Another, in trance, improved vastly as a
+singer; "her normal voice stopped at _contre-si_. I bade her rise to
+_contre-re_, which she did; though incapable of it when awake." So
+far, this justifies the plot of Mr. Du Maurier's novel 'Trilby.' Dumas
+offers no theory; he states facts, as he says, including
+"post-hypnotic suggestion."
+
+These experiments were made by Dumas merely as part of his studies for
+'Joseph Balsamo' (Cagliostro); his conclusion was that hypnotism is
+not yet reduced to a scientific formula. In fiction it is already
+overworked. Dumas got his 'Christine' acted at last. Then broke out
+the Revolution of 1830. Dumas's description of his activity is "as
+good as a novel," but too long and varied for condensation. It seems
+better to give this extract about his life of poverty before his
+mother died, before fame visited him. (I quote Miss Cheape's
+translation of the passage included in her 'Stories of Beasts,'
+published by Longmans, Green and Company.)
+
+    He had, in later years, named a cat Mysouff II.
+
+    "If you won't think me impertinent, sir," said Madame
+    Lamarque, "I should so like to know what Mysouff means."
+
+    "Mysouff just means Mysouff, Madame Lamarque."
+
+    "It is a cat's name, then?"
+
+    "Certainly, since Mysouff the First was so-called. It is
+    true, Madame Lamarque, you never knew Mysouff." And I became
+    so thoughtful that Madame Lamarque was kind enough to
+    withdraw quietly, without asking any questions about Mysouff
+    the First.
+
+    That name had taken me back to fifteen years ago, when my
+    mother was still living. I had then the great happiness of
+    having a mother to scold me sometimes. At the time I speak
+    of, I held a situation in the service of the Duc d'Orléans,
+    with a salary of 1500 francs. My work occupied me from ten in
+    the morning until five in the afternoon. We had a cat in
+    those days, whose name was Mysouff. This cat had missed his
+    vocation; he ought to have been a dog. Every morning I
+    started for my office at half-past nine, and came back every
+    evening at half-past five. Every morning Mysouff followed me
+    to the corner of a particular street, and every evening I
+    found him in the same street, at the same corner, waiting for
+    me. Now the curious thing was that on the days when I had
+    found some amusement elsewhere, and was not coming home to
+    dinner, it was of no use to open the door for Mysouff to go
+    and meet me. Mysouff, in the attitude of the serpent with its
+    tail in its mouth, refused to stir from his cushion. On the
+    other hand, on the days I did come, Mysouff would scratch at
+    the door until some one opened it for him. My mother was very
+    fond of Mysouff; she used to call him her barometer.
+
+    "Mysouff marks my good and my bad weather," my dear mother
+    would say: "the days you come in are my days of sunshine; my
+    rainy days are when you stay away."
+
+    When I came home I used to see Mysouff at the street corner,
+    sitting quite still and gazing into the distance. As soon as
+    he caught sight of me, he began to move his tail; then as I
+    drew nearer, he rose and walked backward and forward across
+    the pavement with his back arched and his tail in the air.
+    When I reached him, he jumped up upon me as a dog would have
+    done, and bounded and played round me as I walked towards the
+    house; but when I was close to it he dashed in at full speed.
+    Two seconds after, I used to see my mother at the door.
+
+    Never again in this world, but perhaps in the next, I shall
+    see her standing waiting for me at the door.
+
+    That is what I was thinking of, dear readers, when the name
+    of Mysouff brought back all these recollections; so you
+    understand why I did not answer Madame Lamarque's question.
+
+The life of Dumas after 1830 need not be followed step by step;
+indeed, for lack of memoirs, to follow it is by no means easy.
+
+Dumas, by dint of successful plays, and later of successful novels,
+earned large sums of money--£40,000 in one year, it is said. He
+traveled far and wide, and compiled books of travel. In the forties,
+before the Revolution of 1848, he built a kind of Abbotsford of his
+own, named "Monte Cristo," near St. Germains, and joyously ruined
+himself. "Monte Cristo," like Abbotsford, has been described as a
+palace. Now, Abbotsford is so far from being a palace that Mr. Hope
+Scott, when his wife, Scott's granddaughter, inherited the place, was
+obliged to build an additional wing.
+
+At Monte Cristo Dumas kept but one man-servant, Michel (his "Tom
+Purdie"), who was groom, keeper, porter, gardener, and everything. Nor
+did Dumas ruin himself by paying exorbitant prices for poor lands, as
+Scott did. His collection of books and curios was no rival for that of
+Abbotsford. But like Scott, he gave away money to right and left, and
+he kept open house. He was eaten up by parasites,--beggars, poor
+greedy hangers-on of letters, secretaries, above all by tribes of
+musical people. On every side money flowed from him; hard as he
+worked, largely as he earned, he spent more. His very dog brought in
+thirteen other dogs to bed and board. He kept monkeys, cats, eagles, a
+vulture, a perfect menagerie. His own account of these guests may be
+read in "My Pets"; perhaps the most humorous, good-humored, and
+amusing of all his works.
+
+The Revolution of 1848 impoverished him and drove him from Monte
+Cristo; not out of debt to his neighbors. Dumas was a cheerful giver,
+but did not love to "fritter away his money in paying bills." He
+started newspapers, such as The Musketeer, and rather lost than gained
+by a careless editorship. A successful play would enrich him, and he
+would throw away his gains. He went with Garibaldi on his expedition
+against the King of Naples, and was received with ingratitude by the
+Neapolitans.
+
+A friend of Daniel Dunglas Home, the "medium," he accompanied him to
+Russia, where Home married a lady of a noble and wealthy family.
+Returned to France, Dumas found his popularity waning. His plays often
+failed; he had outlived his success and his generation; he had saved
+nothing; he had to turn in need to his son Alexandre, the famous
+dramatist. Finally he died, doubting the security of his own fame, in
+the year of the sorrows of France.
+
+Dumas is described by Michelet as "a force of nature." Never was there
+in modern literature a force more puissant, more capricious, or more
+genial. His quantity of mind was out of all proportion to its quality.
+He could learn everything with ease; he was a skilled cook, a fencer;
+he knew almost as if by intuition the technique and terminology of all
+arts and crafts. Ignorant of Greek, he criticized and appreciated
+Homer with an unmatched zest and appreciation. Into the dry bones of
+history he breathed life, mere names becoming full-blooded
+fellow-creatures under his spell. His inspiration was derived from
+Scott, a man far more learned than he, but scarcely better gifted with
+creative energy. Like Scott he is long, perhaps prolix; like him he is
+indifferent to niceties of style, does not linger over the choice of
+words, but serves himself with the first that comes to hand. Scott's
+wide science of human nature is not his; but his heroes, often rather
+ruffianly, are seldom mere exemplary young men of no particular mark.
+More brilliantly and rapidly than Scott, he indicates action in
+dialogue. He does not aim at the construction of rounded plots; his
+novels are chronicles which need never stop while his heroes are
+alive. His plan is to take a canvas of fact, in memoir or history, and
+to embroider his fantasies on that. Occasionally the canvas (as Mr.
+Saintsbury says) shows through, and we have blocks of actual history.
+His 'Joan of Arc' begins as a romance, and ends with a comparatively
+plain statement of facts too great for any art but Shakespeare's. But
+as a rule it is not historical facts, it is the fictitious adventures
+of characters living in an historical atmosphere, that entertain us in
+Dumas.
+
+The minute inquirer may now compare the sixteenth-century 'Memoirs of
+Monsieur D'Artagnan' (fictitious memoirs, no doubt) with the use made
+of them by Dumas in 'The Three Musketeers' and 'Twenty Years After.'
+The 'Memoirs' (reprinted by the Librairie Illustrée, Paris) gave Dumas
+his opening scenes; gave him young D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, Aramis,
+Rosnay, De Treville, Milady, the whole complicated intrigue of Milady,
+D'Artagnan, and De Vardes. They gave him several incidents, duels, and
+"local color." By making Milady the wife of Athos, Dumas knotted his
+plot; he added the journey to England, after the Queen's diamonds;
+from a subordinate character he borrowed the clerical character of
+Aramis; a mere hint in the 'Memoirs' suggested the Bastion
+Saint-Gervais. The discrimination of character, the dialogue, and many
+adventures, are Dumas's own; he was aided by Maquet in the actual
+writing. In a similar way, Brantôme and L'Estoile, in their 'Memoirs,'
+supply the canvas of the tales of the Valois cycle.
+
+The beginner in Dumas will assuredly find the following his best
+works. For the Valois period, 'The Horoscope' (a good deal neglected),
+'Queen Margot,' 'The Lady of Monsoreau,' 'The Forty-Five.' 'Isabeau of
+Bavière,' an early novel, deals with the anarchy and misery before the
+coming of Jeanne d'Arc. For Henri II., 'The Two Dianas' is indicated.
+For the times of Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIV., we have 'The Three
+Musketeers,' 'Twenty Years After,' and 'The Viscount of Bragelonne.'
+These deal with the youth, middle age, old age, and death of
+D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. The Revolutionary novels,
+'Joseph Balsamo,' 'The Queen's Necklace,' and others, are much less
+excellent. The Regency is not ill done in 'The Regent's Daughter'; and
+'The Chevalier of Harmenthal,' with 'Olympe of Cleves,' has many
+admirers. Quite apart from these is the immense modern fantasy of 'The
+Count of Monte Cristo'; the opening part alone is worthy of the
+master. 'The Black Tulip,' so warmly praised by Thackeray, is an
+innocent little romance of the days of Dutch William. _Les jeunes
+filles_ may read 'The Black Tulip': indeed, Dumas does not sacrifice
+at all to "the Goddess of Lubricity," even when he describes very lax
+moralities.
+
+With a knowledge of these books, and of 'My Pets' and the 'Memoirs,'
+any student will find himself at home in Dumas, and can make wider
+ranges in that great wilderness of fancy. Some autobiographical
+details will be found in the novel called 'Ange Pithou.' 'Isaac
+Laquedem' was meant to be a romance of the Wandering Jew; only two
+volumes are published. Philosophy a reader will not find, nor delicate
+analysis, nor "chiseled style"; but he will be in touch with a great
+sunny life, rejoicing in all the accidents of existence.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (A. Lang)]
+
+
+
+THE CURE FOR DORMICE THAT EAT PEACHES
+
+From 'The Count of Monte Cristo'
+
+
+Not on the same night he had intended, but the next morning, the Count
+of Monte Cristo went out on the road to Orléans. Leaving the village
+of Linas, without stopping at the telegraph, which at the moment the
+count passed threw out its long bony arms, he reached the tower of
+Montlhéry, situated, as every one knows, upon the highest point of the
+plain of that name. At the foot of the hill the count dismounted, and
+began to ascend the mountain by a little winding path about eighteen
+inches wide; when he reached the summit he found himself stopped by a
+hedge, upon which green fruit had succeeded to red and white flowers.
+
+Monte Cristo looked for the door of the inclosure, and was not long in
+finding it. It was a little wooden gate, working on willow hinges, and
+fastened with a nail and string. The count soon understood its
+mechanism, and the door opened. He then found himself in a little
+marvelously well-kept garden, about twenty feet long by twelve wide,
+bounded on one side by part of the hedge, in which was formed the
+ingenious machine we have named a door; and on the other by the old
+tower, covered with ivy and studded with wild flowers. Monte Cristo
+stopped, after having closed the door and fastened the string to the
+nail, and cast a look around.
+
+"The man at the telegraph," said he, "must either keep a gardener or
+devote himself passionately to horticulture." Suddenly he struck
+himself against something crouching behind a wheelbarrow filled with
+leaves; the something rose, uttered an exclamation of astonishment,
+and Monte Cristo found himself facing a man about fifty years old, who
+was plucking strawberries, which he was placing upon vine-leaves. He
+had twelve leaves and about as many strawberries, which, on rising
+suddenly, he let fall from his hand. "You are gathering your crop,
+sir?" said Monte Cristo, smiling.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," replied the man, raising his hand to his cap; "I am
+not up there, I know, but I have only just come down."
+
+"Do not let me interfere with you in anything, my friend," said the
+count; "gather your strawberries, if indeed there are any left."
+
+"I have ten left," said the man, "for here are eleven, and I had
+twenty-one, five more than last year. But I am not surprised; the
+spring has been warm this year, and strawberries require heat, sir.
+This is the reason that, instead of the sixteen I had last year, I
+have this year, you see, eleven already plucked--twelve, thirteen,
+fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Ah, I miss three!
+they were here last night, sir--I am sure they were here--I counted
+them. It must be the son of Mother Simon who has stolen them; I saw
+him strolling about here this morning. Ah! the young rascal! stealing
+in a garden; he does not know where that may lead him to."
+
+"Certainly, it is wrong," said Monte Cristo, "but you should take into
+consideration the youth and greediness of the delinquent."
+
+"Of course," said the gardener, "but that does not make it the less
+unpleasant. But, sir, once more I beg pardon; perhaps you are an
+official that I am detaining here?" And he glanced timidly at the
+count's blue coat.
+
+"Calm yourself, my friend," said the count, with that smile which at
+his will became so terrible or benevolent, and which this time beamed
+only with the latter expression; "I am not an inspector, but a
+traveler, conducted here by curiosity he half repents of, since he
+causes you to lose your time."
+
+"Ah! my time is not valuable," replied the man, with a melancholy
+smile. "Still, it belongs to the government, and I ought not to
+waste it; but having received the signal that I might rest for an
+hour" (here he glanced at a sun-dial, for there was everything in
+the inclosure of Montlhéry, even a sun-dial), "and having ten
+minutes before me, and my strawberries being ripe, when a day
+longer--by-the-by, sir, do you think dormice eat them?"
+
+"Indeed, I should think not," replied Monte Cristo: "dormice are bad
+neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved, as the Romans did."
+
+"What! did the Romans eat them?" said the gardener; "eat dormice?"
+
+"I have read so," said the count.
+
+"Really! They can't be nice, though they do say 'as fat as a
+dormouse.' It is not a wonder they are fat, sleeping all day, and only
+waking to eat all night. Listen: last year I had four apricots--they
+stole one; I had one nectarine, only one--well, sir, they ate half of
+it on the wall; a splendid nectarine--I never ate a better."
+
+"You ate it?"
+
+"That is to say, the half that was left--you understand; it was
+exquisite, sir. Ah, those gentlemen never choose the worst morsels;
+like Mother Simon's son, who has not chosen the worst strawberries.
+But this year," continued the horticulturist, "I'll take care it shall
+not happen, even if I should be forced to sit up the whole night to
+watch when the strawberries are ripe." Monte Cristo had seen enough.
+Every man has a devouring passion in his heart, as every fruit has its
+worm; that of the man at the telegraph was horticulture. He began
+gathering the vine-leaves which screened the sun from the grapes, and
+won the heart of the gardener. "Did you come here, sir, to see the
+telegraph?" he said.
+
+"Yes, if not contrary to the rules."
+
+"Oh no," said the gardener; "there are no orders against doing so,
+providing there is nothing dangerous, and that no one knows what we
+are saying."
+
+"I have been told," said the count, "that you do not always yourselves
+understand the signals you repeat."
+
+"Certainly, sir; and that is what I like best," said the man, smiling.
+
+"Why do you like that best?"
+
+"Because then I have no responsibility. I am a machine then, and
+nothing else; and so long as I work, nothing more is required of me."
+
+"Is it possible," said Monte Cristo to himself, "that I can have met
+with a man that has no ambition? That would spoil my plans."
+
+"Sir," said the gardener, glancing at the sun-dial, "the ten minutes
+are nearly expired; I must return to my post. Will you go up with me?"
+
+"I follow you." Monte Cristo entered the tower, which was divided into
+three stages. The lowest contained gardening implements, such as
+spades, rakes, watering-pots, hung against the wall; this was all the
+furniture. The second was the usual dwelling or rather sleeping-place
+of the man; it contained a few poor articles of household furniture, a
+bed, a table, two chairs, a stone pitcher, and some dry herbs hung up
+to the ceiling, which the count recognized as sweet-peas, and of which
+the good man was preserving the seeds, having labeled them with as
+much care as if he had been a botanist.
+
+"Does it require much study to learn the art of telegraphing, sir?"
+asked Monte Cristo.
+
+"The study does not take long; it was acting as a supernumerary that
+was so tedious."
+
+"And what is the pay?"
+
+"A thousand francs, sir."
+
+"It is nothing."
+
+"No; but then we are lodged, as you perceive."
+
+Monte Cristo looked at the room. They passed on to the third stage; it
+was the room of the telegraph. Monte Cristo looked in turns at the two
+iron handles by which the machine was worked. "It is very
+interesting," he said; "but it must be very tedious for a lifetime."
+
+"Yes. At first my neck was cramped with looking at it, but at the end
+of a year I became used to it; and then we have our hours of
+recreation, and our holidays when we have a fog."
+
+"Ah, to be sure."
+
+"Those are indeed holidays to me; I go into the garden, I plant,
+prune, trim, and kill the insects all day long."
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Ten years, and five as a supernumerary make fifteen."
+
+"You are--"
+
+"Fifty-five years old."
+
+"How long must you serve to claim the pension?"
+
+"Oh, sir, twenty-five years."
+
+"And how much is the pension?"
+
+"A hundred crowns."
+
+"Poor humanity!" murmured Monte Cristo.
+
+"What did you say, sir?" asked the man.
+
+"I was saying it was very interesting."
+
+"What was?"
+
+"All you were showing me. And you really understand none of these
+signals?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+"And have you never tried to understand them?"
+
+"Never. Why should I?"
+
+"But still there are some signals only addressed to you."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And do you understand them?"
+
+"They are always the same."
+
+"And they mean--"
+
+"_Nothing new_; _You have an hour_; or _To-morrow_."
+
+"This is simple enough," said the count; "but look! is not your
+correspondent putting himself in motion?"
+
+"Ah yes; thank you, sir."
+
+"And what is it saying--anything you understand?"
+
+"Yes; it asks if I am ready."
+
+"And you reply?"
+
+"By the same sign, which at the same time tells my right-hand
+correspondent that I am ready, while it gives notice to my left-hand
+correspondent to prepare in his turn."
+
+"It is very ingenious," said the count.
+
+"You will see," said the man, proudly; "in five minutes he will
+speak."
+
+"I have then five minutes," said Monte Cristo to himself; "it is more
+time than I require. My dear sir, will you allow me to ask you a
+question?"
+
+"What is it, sir?"
+
+"You are fond of gardening?"
+
+"Passionately."
+
+"And you would be pleased to have, instead of this terrace of twenty
+feet, an inclosure of two acres?"
+
+"Sir, I should make a terrestrial paradise of it."
+
+"You live badly on your thousand francs?"
+
+"Badly enough; but yet I do live."
+
+"Yes; but you have only a small garden."
+
+"True, the garden is not large."
+
+"And then, such as it is, it is filled with dormice, who eat
+everything."
+
+"Ah! they are my scourges."
+
+"Tell me, should you have the misfortune to turn your head while your
+right-hand correspondent was telegraphing--"
+
+"I should not see him."
+
+"Then what would happen?"
+
+"I could not repeat the signals."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Not having repeated them, through negligence, I should be fined."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A hundred francs."
+
+"The tenth of your income--that would be fine work."
+
+"Ah!" said the man.
+
+"Has it ever happened to you?" said Monte Cristo.
+
+"Once, sir, when I was grafting a rose-tree."
+
+"Well, suppose you were to alter a signal, and substitute another?"
+
+"Ah, that is another case; I should be turned off, and lose my
+pension."
+
+"Three hundred francs."
+
+"A hundred crowns; yes, sir; so you see that I am not likely to do any
+of these things."
+
+"Not even for fifteen years' wages? Come, it is worth thinking about?"
+
+"For fifteen thousand francs!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sir, you alarm me."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Sir, you are tempting me?"
+
+"Just so; fifteen thousand francs, do you understand?"
+
+"Sir, let me see my right-hand correspondent!"
+
+"On the contrary, do not look at him, but on this."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"What! do you not know these little papers?"
+
+"Bank-notes!"
+
+"Exactly; there are fifteen of them."
+
+"And whose are they?"
+
+"Yours, if you like."
+
+"Mine!" exclaimed the man, half suffocated.
+
+"Yes; yours--your own property."
+
+"Sir, my right-hand correspondent is signaling."
+
+"Let him."
+
+"Sir, you have distracted me; I shall be fined."
+
+"That will cost you a hundred francs; you see it is your interest to
+take my bank-notes."
+
+"Sir, my right-hand correspondent redoubles his signals; he is
+impatient."
+
+"Never mind--take these;" and the count placed the packet in the hands
+of the man. "Now, this is not all," he said; "you cannot live upon
+your fifteen thousand francs."
+
+"I shall still have my place."
+
+"No! you will lose it, for you are going to alter the sign of your
+correspondent."
+
+"Oh, sir, what are you proposing?"
+
+"A jest!"
+
+"Sir, unless you force me--"
+
+"I think I can effectually force you;" and Monte Cristo drew another
+packet from his pocket. "Here are ten thousand more francs," he said;
+"with the fifteen thousand already in your pocket, they will make
+twenty-five thousand. With five thousand you can buy a pretty little
+house with two acres of land; the remaining twenty thousand will bring
+you in a thousand francs a year."
+
+"A garden with two acres of land!"
+
+"And a thousand francs a year."
+
+"Oh heavens!"
+
+"Come, take them!" and Monte Cristo forced the bank-notes into his
+hand.
+
+"What am I to do?"
+
+"Nothing very difficult."
+
+"But what is it?"
+
+"To repeat these signs;" Monte Cristo took a paper from his pocket,
+upon which were drawn three signs, with numbers to indicate the order
+in which they were to be worked.
+
+"There, you see it will not take long."
+
+"Yes; but--"
+
+"Do this, and you will have nectarines and all the rest." The mark was
+hit: red with fever, while the large drops fell from his brow, the man
+executed, one after the other, the three signs given by the count;
+notwithstanding the frightful contortions of the right-hand
+correspondent, who, not understanding the change, began to think the
+gardener had become mad. As to the left-hand one, he conscientiously
+repeated the same signals, which were definitively carried to the
+Minister of the Interior. "Now you are rich," said Monte Cristo.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, "but at what a price!"
+
+"Listen, friend," said Monte Cristo. "I do not wish to cause you any
+remorse; believe me, then, when I swear to you that you have wronged
+no man, but on the contrary have benefited mankind." The man looked at
+the bank-notes, felt them, counted them; he turned pale, then red;
+then rushed into his room to drink a glass of water, but he had no
+time to reach the water-jug, and fainted in the midst of his dried
+herbs. Five minutes after the new telegram reached the minister,
+Debray had the horses put to his carriage, and drove to Danglars's.
+
+"Has your husband any Spanish bonds?" he asked of the baroness.
+
+"I think so, indeed! He has six millions' worth."
+
+"He must sell them at whatever price."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because Don Carlos has fled from Bourges, and has returned to Spain."
+
+"How do you know?"--Debray shrugged his shoulders. "The idea of asking
+how I hear the news!" he said. The baroness did not wait for a
+repetition; she ran to her husband, who immediately hastened to his
+agent and ordered him to sell at any price. When it was seen that
+Danglars sold, the Spanish funds fell directly. Danglars lost five
+hundred thousand francs; but he rid himself of all his Spanish shares.
+The same evening the following was read in Le Messager:--
+
+    "Telegraphic dispatch. The King, Don Carlos, has escaped the
+    vigilance exercised over him at Bourges, and has returned to
+    Spain by the Catalonian frontier. Barcelona has risen in his
+    favor."
+
+All that evening nothing was spoken of but the foresight of Danglars,
+who had sold his shares, and of the luck of the stock-jobber, who only
+lost five hundred thousand francs by such a blow. Those who had kept
+their shares, or bought those of Danglars, looked upon themselves as
+ruined, and passed a very bad night. Next morning Le Moniteur
+contained the following:
+
+    "It was without any foundation that Le Messager yesterday
+    announced the flight of Don Carlos and the revolt of
+    Barcelona. The King (Don Carlos) has not left Bourges, and
+    the peninsula is in the enjoyment of profound peace. A
+    telegraphic signal, improperly interpreted owing to the fog,
+    was the cause of this error."
+
+The funds rose one per cent, higher than before they had
+fallen. This, reckoning his loss, and what he had missed gaining,
+made the difference of a million to Danglars. "Good!" said
+Monte Cristo to Morrel, who was at his house when the news
+arrived of the strange reverse of fortune of which Danglars had
+been the victim. "I have just made a discovery for twenty-five
+thousand francs, for which I would have paid a hundred thousand."
+
+"What have you discovered?" asked Morrel.
+
+"I have just discovered the method of ridding a gardener of
+the dormice that eat his peaches."
+
+
+
+THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BELT OF PORTHOS, AND THE HANDKERCHIEF OF
+ARAMIS
+
+From 'The Three Musketeers'
+
+
+Furious with rage, D'Artagnan crossed the ante-room in three strides,
+and began to descend the stairs four steps at a time, without looking
+where he was going; when suddenly he was brought up short by knocking
+violently against the shoulder of a musketeer who was leaving the
+apartments of M. De Treville. The young man staggered backwards from
+the shock, uttering a cry, or rather a yell.
+
+"Excuse me," said D'Artagnan, trying to pass him, "but I am in a great
+hurry."
+
+He had hardly placed his foot on the next step, when he was stopped by
+the grasp of an iron wrist on his sash.
+
+"You are in a great hurry!" cried the musketeer, whose face was the
+color of a shroud; "and you think that is enough apology for nearly
+knocking me down? Not so fast, my young man. I suppose you imagine
+that because you heard M. De Treville speaking to us rather brusquely
+to-day, that everybody may treat us in the same way? But you are
+mistaken, and it is as well you should learn that you are not M. De
+Treville."
+
+"Upon my honor," replied D'Artagnan, recognizing Athos, who was
+returning to his room after having his wound dressed, "upon my honor,
+it was an accident, and therefore I begged your pardon. I should have
+thought that was all that was necessary. I repeat that I am in a very
+great hurry, and I should be much obliged if you would let me go my
+way."
+
+"Monsieur," said Athos, loosening his hold, "you are sadly lacking in
+courtesy, and one sees that you must have had a rustic upbringing."
+
+D'Artagnan was by this time half-way down another flight; but on
+hearing Athos's remark he stopped short.
+
+"My faith, monsieur!" exclaimed he, "however rustic I may be, I shall
+not come to you to teach me manners."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Athos.
+
+"Oh, if I was only not in such haste," cried D'Artagnan; "if only I
+was not pursuing somebody--"
+
+"Monsieur, you will find me without running after me. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"And where, if you please?"
+
+"Near Carmes-Deschaux."
+
+"At what hour?"
+
+"Twelve o'clock."
+
+"Very good. At twelve I will be there."
+
+"And don't be late, for at a quarter past twelve I will cut off your
+ears for you."
+
+"All right," called out D'Artagnan, dashing on down-stairs after his
+man; "you may expect me at ten minutes before the hour."
+
+But he was not to escape so easily. At the street door stood Porthos,
+talking to a sentry, and between the two men there was barely space
+for a man to pass. D'Artagnan took it for granted that he could get
+through, and darted on, swift as an arrow, but he had not reckoned on
+the gale that was blowing. As he passed, a sudden gust wrapped
+Porthos's mantle tight round him; and though the owner of the garment
+could easily have freed him had he so chosen, for reasons of his own
+he preferred to draw the folds still closer.
+
+D'Artagnan, hearing the volley of oaths let fall by the musketeers,
+feared he might have damaged the splendor of the belt, and struggled
+to unwind himself; but when he at length freed his head, he found that
+like most things in this world the belt had two sides, and while the
+front bristled with gold, the back was mere leather; which explains
+why Porthos always had a cold and could not part from his mantle.
+
+"Confound you!" cried Porthos, struggling in his turn, "have you gone
+mad, that you tumble over people like this?"
+
+"Excuse me," answered D'Artagnan, "but I am in a great hurry. I am
+pursuing some one, and--"
+
+"And I suppose that on such occasions you leave your eyes behind you?"
+asked Porthos.
+
+"No," replied D'Artagnan, rather nettled; "and thanks to my eyes, I
+often see things that other people don't."
+
+Possibly Porthos might have understood this allusion, but in any case
+he did not attempt to control his anger, and said sharply:--
+
+"Monsieur, we shall have to give you a lesson if you take to tumbling
+against the musketeers like this!"
+
+"A lesson, monsieur!" replied D'Artagnan; "that is rather a severe
+expression."
+
+"It is the expression of a man who is always accustomed to look his
+enemies in the face."
+
+"Oh, if that is all, there is no fear of _your_ turning your back on
+anybody," and enchanted at his own wit, the young man walked away in
+fits of laughter.
+
+Porthos foamed with rage, and rushed after D'Artagnan.
+
+"By-and-by, by-and-by," cried the latter; "when you have not got your
+mantle on."
+
+"At one o'clock then, behind the Luxembourg."
+
+"All right; at one o'clock," replied D'Artagnan as he vanished around
+the corner.
+
+But he could see no one either in the street he had passed through, or
+in the one his eager gaze was searching; however slowly the stranger
+might have walked, he had gone his way, or perhaps into some house.
+D'Artagnan inquired of everybody he met, but could find nothing at all
+about him. This chase however did him good in one way; for in
+proportion as the sweat started out on his forehead, his heart began
+to cool.
+
+He began to think over the many unlucky things which had happened. It
+was scarcely eleven in the morning, and yet this morning had already
+brought him into disgrace with M. Treville, who must think the way
+D'Artagnan had left him was rather boorish.
+
+Moreover, he had gotten himself into two fierce duels with two men,
+each able to kill three D'Artagnans; in a word, with two
+musketeers,--beings he set so high that he placed them above all other
+men.
+
+It was a sad lookout. To be sure, as the youth was certain to be
+killed by Athos, he was not much disturbed about Porthos. As hope is
+the last thing to die in a man's heart, however, he ended by hoping
+that he might come out alive from both duels, even if dreadfully
+injured; and on that supposition he scored himself in this way for his
+conduct:--
+
+"What a rattle-headed dunce I am! That brave and unfortunate Athos was
+wounded right on that shoulder I ran against head-foremost, like a
+ram. The only thing that surprises me is that he didn't strike me dead
+on the spot; he had provocation enough, for I must have hurt him
+savagely. As to Porthos--oh! as to Porthos--that's a funny affair!"
+
+And the youth began to laugh aloud in spite of himself; looking round
+carefully, however, to see if his laughing alone in public without
+apparent cause aroused any suspicion.
+
+"As to Porthos, it is funny enough, to be sure, but I am a crazy
+blockhead all the same. Are people to be run into without warning? No!
+And have I any right to peep under their cloaks to see what they
+haven't got? He would have forgiven me, I am sure, if I had said
+nothing to him about that cursed cloak,--with a double meaning, it is
+true, but too broad a joke in one of them! Ah! cursed Gascon that I
+am, I believe I should crack a joke if I was being roasted over a slow
+fire. Friend D'Artagnan," he went on, speaking to himself with the
+gentleness he thought fair, "if you get away, which there is not much
+chance of, I would advise you to practice entire politeness for the
+future. You must henceforth be admired and quoted as a model of it. To
+be obliging and civil does not necessarily make a man a coward. Look
+at Aramis, now: mildness and grace embodied; and did anybody ever
+dream of calling Aramis a coward? No indeed, and from this instant I
+will try to model myself after him. And luckily, here he is."
+
+D'Artagnan, walking and soliloquizing, had come within a few steps of
+the Aiguillon House, and in front of it saw Aramis chatting gayly with
+three of the King's Guards. Aramis also saw D'Artagnan; but not having
+forgotten that it was in his presence M. de Treville had got so angry
+in the morning, and as a witness of the rebuke was not at all
+pleasant, he pretended not to see him. D'Artagnan, on the other hand,
+full of his plans of conciliation and politeness, approached the young
+man with a profound bow accompanied by a most gracious smile. Aramis
+bowed slightly but did not smile. Moreover, all four immediately broke
+off their conversation.
+
+D'Artagnan was not so dull as not to see he was not wanted; but he was
+not yet used enough to social customs to know how to extricate himself
+dexterously from his false position, which his generally is who
+accosts people he is little acquainted with, and mingles in a
+conversation which does not concern him. He was mentally casting about
+for the least awkward manner of retreat, when he noticed that Aramis
+had let his handkerchief fall, and (doubtless by mistake) put his foot
+on it. This seemed a favorable chance to repair his mistake of
+intrusion: he stooped down, and with the most gracious air he could
+assume, drew the handkerchief from under the foot in spite of the
+efforts made to detain it, and holding it out to Aramis, said:--
+
+"I believe, sir, this is a handkerchief you would be sorry to lose?"
+
+The handkerchief was in truth richly embroidered, and had a cornet and
+a coat of arms at one corner. Aramis blushed excessively, and snatched
+rather than took the handkerchief.
+
+"Ha! ha!" exclaimed one of the guards, "will you go on saying now,
+most discreet Aramis, that you are not on good terms with Madame de
+Bois-Tracy, when that gracious lady does you the favor of lending you
+her handkerchief!"
+
+Aramis darted at D'Artagnan one of those looks which tell a man that
+he has made a mortal enemy; then assuming his mild air he said:--
+
+"You are mistaken, gentlemen: this handkerchief is not mine, and I
+cannot understand why this gentleman has taken it into his head to
+offer it to me rather than to one of you. And as a proof of what I
+say, here is mine in my pocket."
+
+So saying, he pulled out his handkerchief, which was also not only a
+very dainty one, and of fine linen (though linen was then costly), but
+was embroidered and without arms, bearing only a single cipher, the
+owner's.
+
+This time D'Artagnan saw his mistake; but Aramis's friends were by no
+means convinced, and one of them, addressing the young musketeer with
+pretended gravity, said:--
+
+"If things were as you make out, I should feel obliged, my dear
+Aramis, to reclaim it myself; for as you very well know, Bois-Tracy is
+an intimate friend of mine, and I cannot allow one of his wife's
+belongings to be exhibited as a trophy."
+
+"You make the demand clumsily," replied Aramis; "and while I
+acknowledge the justice of your reclamation, I refuse it on account of
+the form."
+
+"The fact is," D'Artagnan put in hesitatingly, "I did not actually see
+the handkerchief fall from M. Aramis's pocket. He had his foot on it,
+that's all, and I thought it was his."
+
+"And you were deceived, my dear sir," replied Aramis coldly, very
+little obliged for the explanation; then turning to the guard who had
+professed himself Bois-Tracy's friend--"Besides," he went on, "I have
+reflected, my dear intimate friend of Bois-Tracy, that I am not less
+devotedly his friend than you can possibly be, so that this
+handkerchief is quite as likely to have fallen from your pocket as
+from mine!"
+
+"On my honor, no!"
+
+"You are about to swear on your honor, and I on my word; and then it
+will be pretty evident that one of us will have lied. Now here,
+Montaran, we will do better than that: let each take a half."
+
+"Perfectly fair," cried the other two guardsmen; "the judgment of
+Solomon! Aramis, you are certainly full of wisdom!"
+
+They burst into a loud laugh, and as may be supposed, the incident
+bore no other fruit. In a minute or two the conversation stopped, and
+the three guards and the musketeer, after heartily shaking hands,
+separated, the guards going one way and Aramis another.
+
+"Now is the time to make my peace with this gentleman," said
+D'Artagnan to himself, having stood on one side during all the latter
+part of the conversation; and in this good spirit drawing near to
+Aramis, who was going off without paying any attention to him, he
+said:--
+
+"You will excuse me, I hope."
+
+"Ah!" interrupted Aramis, "permit me to observe to you, sir, that you
+have not acted in this affair as a man of good breeding ought."
+
+"What!" cried D'Artagnan, "do you suppose--"
+
+"I suppose that you are not a fool, and that you knew very well, even
+though you come from Gascony, that people do not stand on
+handkerchiefs for nothing. What the devil! Paris is not paved with
+linen!"
+
+"Sir, you do wrong in trying to humiliate me," said D'Artagnan, in
+whom his native pugnacity began to speak louder than his peaceful
+resolutions. "I come from Gascony, it is true; and since you know it,
+there is no need to tell you that Gascons are not very patient, so
+that when they have asked pardon once, even for a folly, they think
+they have done at least as much again as they ought to have done."
+
+"Sir, what I say to you about this matter," said Aramis, "is not for
+the sake of hunting a quarrel. Thank Heaven, I am not a swashbuckler,
+and being a musketeer only for a while, I only fight when I am forced
+to do so, and always with great reluctance; but this time the affair
+is serious, for here is a lady compromised by you."
+
+"By us, you mean," cried D'Artagnan.
+
+"Why did you give me back the handkerchief so awkwardly?"
+
+"Why did you let it fall so awkwardly?"
+
+"I have said that the handkerchief did not fall from my pocket."
+
+"Well, by saying that you have told two lies, sir; for I saw it fall."
+
+"Oh ho! you take it up that way, do you, Master Gascon? Well, I will
+teach you how to behave yourself."
+
+"And I will send you back to your pulpit, Master Priest. Draw, if you
+please, and instantly--"
+
+"Not so, if you please, my good friend; not here, at least. Do you not
+see that we are opposite Aiguillon House, full of the Cardinal's
+creatures? How do I know that it is not his Eminence who has honored
+you with the commission to bring him in my head? Now, I entertain an
+absurd partiality for my head, it seems to suit my shoulders so
+finely. I have no objection to killing you, you may be sure, but
+quietly, in a snug, distant spot, where you will not be able to boast
+of your death to anybody."
+
+"I agree, but don't be too confident; and take away your
+handkerchief--whether it belongs to you or somebody else, perhaps you
+may stand in need of it to bandage up a wound. As a Gascon, I don't
+put off engagements for prudence's sake."
+
+"Prudence is a virtue useless enough to musketeers, I know, but
+indispensable to churchmen; and as I am only a temporary musketeer, I
+hold it best to be prudent. At two o'clock I shall have the honor of
+expecting you at Treville's. There I will point out the best place and
+time to you."
+
+The two bowed and separated. Aramis went up the street which led to
+the Luxembourg; while D'Artagnan, seeing that the appointed hour was
+coming near, took the road to the Carmes-Deschaux, saying to himself,
+"I certainly cannot hope to come out of these scrapes alive; but if I
+am doomed to be killed, it will be by a royal musketeer."
+
+
+
+THE DEFENSE OF THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS
+
+From 'The Three Musketeers'
+
+
+When D'Artagnan arrived, he found his three friends all together.
+Athos was thinking deeply, Porthos was twirling his mustache, and
+Aramis was reading his prayers out of a beautiful little book bound in
+blue velvet.
+
+"My faith, gentlemen!" exclaimed he, "I hope that what you have to
+tell me is very important, or I shall owe you a grudge for dragging
+me here, out of my bed, after a whole night passed in taking and
+dismantling a bastion! Ah, it is a thousand pities you were not there!
+It was warm work!"
+
+"We were somewhere else, where it was not very cold either," replied
+Porthos, giving his mustache another twist....
+
+"Aramis," said Athos, "didn't you breakfast the other day at
+Parpaillot's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Were you comfortable there?"
+
+"No, I did not like it at all. It was a fast day, and they had nothing
+but meat."
+
+"What, no fish to be had in a seaport town?"
+
+"They say," replied Aramis, taking up his book, "that they have all
+taken to the deep sea, since the Cardinal built that dike."
+
+"That is not what I was asking," replied Athos. "Were you quite free
+and at your ease, or did any one pay attention to you?"
+
+"Oh, nobody paid any attention to me. And if _that_ is your object,
+Athos, Parpaillot's will suit us very well."
+
+"Let us go at once then," said Athos, "for these walls are like
+paper."
+
+On the way they met Grimaud [the valet of Athos], whom Athos beckoned
+silently to follow them. Grimaud, according to his custom, obeyed
+without a word. The poor fellow had almost forgotten how to speak!
+
+It did not take them long to reach Parpaillot's, but unluckily the
+hour was ill chosen for a private conference. The _réveille_ had just
+been sounded, and the sleepy soldiers were all pouring into the inn.
+This state of matters delighted the landlord, but was hardly so
+agreeable to the four friends, who merely nodded sulkily at the
+salutations of the crowd.
+
+"If we are not careful," said Athos, rousing himself, "we shall find
+ourselves landed in some quarrel, which would be highly inconvenient
+at this moment. D'Artagnan, tell us about your night's work, and then
+we will tell you about ours."
+
+"Ah yes," said a light-horse soldier, who was slowly sipping a glass
+of brandy, "you were down at the trenches last night, I think, and I
+believe you had a brush with the Rochellois."
+
+D'Artagnan looked at Athos, to see if he ought to answer or not.
+
+"My dear fellow," replied Athos, "I don't think you are aware that M.
+De Busigny did you the honor to address you! Since these gentlemen are
+interested in last night's affair, tell them about it."
+
+"Is it true that you captured a bastion?" asked a Swiss, who had
+filled his beer up with rum.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied D'Artagnan, "we had that honor. We also
+introduced a barrel of powder into a corner, which in exploding opened
+a really beautiful breach; and as the bastion was not built yesterday,
+the whole building was severely shaken."
+
+"What bastion was it?" said a dragoon, who was holding a goose on the
+point of his sword, and cooking it at the fire.
+
+"The Bastion Saint-Gervais," replied D'Artagnan; "the Rochellois
+behind it were always annoying our men."
+
+"And there was a good deal of sharp-shooting?"
+
+"A good deal. We lost five men, and the Rochellois eight or ten."
+
+"But this morning," went on the light-horseman, "they will probably
+send down some pioneers to rebuild the bastion."
+
+"Yes, probably," answered D'Artagnan.
+
+"Gentlemen," broke in Athos, "I want to propose a bet."
+
+"What bet?" asked the light-horseman.
+
+"I bet you, M. De Busigny, that I and my three friends Porthos,
+Aramis, and D'Artagnan, will breakfast in the Bastion Saint-Gervais,
+and will hold it an hour by the clock, against all comers."
+
+Porthos and Aramis looked at each other. They were beginning to
+understand what Athos had in his head.
+
+"But," objected D'Artagnan, leaning over to whisper to Athos, "we
+shall be killed without a chance of escape."
+
+"We shall be killed a great deal more certainly if we don't go,"
+replied Athos.
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated Porthos, twirling his mustache, "that is a grand
+bet."
+
+"I take it," said M. De Busigny; "let us fix the stakes."
+
+"That is easily done," replied Athos. "We are four and you are four.
+The loser shall give the whole eight a dinner."
+
+"Very well, let us agree to that," said M. De Busigny and the dragoon.
+
+"Your breakfast is ready, gentlemen," broke in the landlord at this
+instant.
+
+"Then bring it here," answered Athos.
+
+The landlord obeyed, and Athos, making a sign to Grimaud, pointed out
+a large basket standing in a corner, which he was to fill with wine
+and food.
+
+"But where are you going to eat it?" asked the landlord.
+
+"What does that matter to you as long as you are paid?" replied Athos,
+throwing two pistoles on the table. Then, turning to M. De Busigny, he
+observed:--
+
+"Will you have the kindness, monsieur, to set your watch by mine, or
+let me set mine by yours?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur," said the light-horseman, drawing out a
+beautiful watch incrusted with diamonds; "half-past seven."
+
+"Five-and-twenty minutes to eight. So I am five minutes faster than
+you;" and bowing to the rest of the company, the four young men took
+the road to the Bastion Saint-Gervais, followed by Grimaud carrying
+the basket. He had not the faintest idea where they were going, or
+what they were to do, but Athos had given his orders, and he always
+obeyed without questioning.
+
+As long as they were within the camp, the four friends remained
+silent; but once they had passed the wall of circumvallation,
+D'Artagnan, who was completely in the dark, thought it was time to ask
+for an explanation.
+
+"And now, my dear Athos," said he, "will you be good enough to tell me
+where we are bound for?"
+
+"Why, for the bastion, of course."
+
+"And what are we to do when we get there?"
+
+"I told you before. We are going to breakfast."
+
+"But why didn't we do that at Parpaillot's?"
+
+"Because we had some important matters to discuss, and it was
+impossible to talk for five minutes at that inn, with all those people
+coming and going, and perpetually bowing and speaking to you. Here at
+least," continued Athos, pointing to the bastion, "we shall not be
+interrupted."
+
+"It seems to me," said D'Artagnan, with the caution which was as much
+his characteristic as his foolhardy courage, "it seems to me that we
+might have found some secluded place among the sand-hills on the
+sea-shore."
+
+"Oh, somebody would have seen, and in a quarter of an hour spies would
+have informed the Cardinal that we were holding council."
+
+"Yes," said Aramis. "Athos is right. _Animadvertuntur in desertis._"
+
+"A desert would have done very well," replied Porthos; "but first we
+should have to find it."
+
+"There is no desert where a bird cannot fly overhead, or a fish jump
+out of the water, or a rabbit run out of his hole; and bird, fish, and
+rabbit have all become spies of the Cardinal. Much better to go on
+with our adventure, which we cannot now give up without dishonor. We
+have made a bet, and a bet on the spur of the moment; a bet of which I
+defy any one to guess the true meaning. To win it, we must hold the
+bastion for an hour. Either they will attack us, or they won't. If we
+are left unmolested, we shall have plenty of time to talk without any
+one overhearing us, for I will answer for the walls of this bastion
+having no ears. If they try to dislodge us, we can talk all the same,
+and in defending our position shall cover ourselves with glory. You
+see that from every point of view we have the whip hand."
+
+"Yes," said D'Artagnan, "but most certainly we shall attract some
+stray bullet."
+
+"My good fellow," remarked Athos, "do you really think that the
+enemy's bullets are those we have most cause to fear?"
+
+"But surely, if we were embarking on such an expedition, we ought to
+have brought our muskets?"
+
+"Porthos, you are a goose! What would be the good of burdening
+ourselves with anything so useless?"
+
+"I should hardly think that a heavy musket, a dozen cartridges, and a
+powder flask would be useless when one is in the presence of an
+enemy."
+
+"Dear me!" said Athos, "didn't you hear what D'Artagnan was saying?"
+
+"What did D'Artagnan say?" asked Porthos.
+
+"He said that during last night's attack eight or ten Frenchmen were
+killed, and as many Rochellois."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, hasn't everybody been too busy ever since to think of stripping
+the dead bodies?"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"What then? Why, we shall find their muskets, their flasks, and their
+cartridges, all waiting for us; and instead of four muskets and twelve
+charges, there will be fifteen pieces and a hundred bullets."
+
+"O Athos," exclaimed Aramis, "you are a great man!"
+
+Porthos nodded approval; only D'Artagnan did not seem to be convinced;
+and Grimaud appeared to have his doubts, for seeing they were still
+making for the bastion (which up to that moment he had declined to
+believe), he plucked his master by the coat.
+
+"Where are we going?" he asked by a sign.
+
+Athos pointed out the bastion.
+
+"But," objected Grimaud, speaking always in pantomime, "we shall leave
+our bodies there."
+
+Athos raised his hands and eyes to heaven. Grimaud placed his basket
+on the ground and sat down, shaking his head.
+
+Athos took a pistol from his belt, looked to see if it was well
+primed, cocked it, and approached the barrel to Grimaud's ear. Grimaud
+was on his legs again, as if by magic. Athos then signed to him to
+take up the basket and go on.
+
+Grimaud obeyed.
+
+When they reached the bastion, the four friends turned round and
+beheld over three hundred soldiers assembled at the gate of the camp;
+M. De Busigny, the dragoon, the Swiss, and their silent companion
+forming a group apart.
+
+Athos removed his hat, put it on the edge of his sword, and waved it
+in the air.
+
+The spectators returned his salute and gave a great hurrah, which
+penetrated to their ears even at that distance. Then all four
+disappeared inside the bastion, where Grimaud had preceded them.
+
+
+
+THE CONSULTATION OF THE MUSKETEERS
+
+From 'The Three Musketeers'
+
+
+As Athos had assumed, the bastion was only occupied by a dozen dead
+men, French and Rochellois.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Athos, to whom the command of the expedition
+naturally fell, "while Grimaud lays out breakfast, we will begin by
+picking up the muskets and cartridges, and of course there is nothing
+in this employment to prevent our talking. Our friends here," he
+added, pointing to the dead, "will pay no attention to us."
+
+"But after we have made sure they have nothing in their pockets, we
+had better throw them into the trench," said Porthos.
+
+"Yes," replied Athos, "that is Grimaud's business."
+
+"Well then," said D'Artagnan, "let Grimaud search them, and after he
+has done so, throw them over the wall."
+
+"He shall do nothing of the sort," replied Athos; "we may find them
+useful yet."
+
+"You are going mad, my good fellow! Of what use can these dead men
+be?"
+
+"Don't judge hastily, say the gospel and the Cardinal," replied Athos.
+"How many guns have we got?"
+
+"Twelve," said Aramis.
+
+"How many charges?"
+
+"A hundred."
+
+"That will do. Now let us load."
+
+They set to work; and as they finished loading the last gun, Grimaud
+made a sign that breakfast was ready.
+
+By a gesture Athos replied that they were ready also, and then pointed
+out a pepper-box turret, where Grimaud was to keep watch. To help him
+pass the time Athos allowed him to take some bread, two cutlets, and a
+bottle of wine....
+
+"Now," said D'Artagnan, "that there is no chance of our being
+overheard, I hope you will tell us your secret."
+
+"I trust, gentlemen, to give you both pleasure and glory at once,"
+replied Athos. "I have made you take a charming walk, and now here is
+an excellent breakfast; while below, as you may see through the
+loop-holes, are five hundred persons, who consider us to be either
+lunatics or heroes,--two classes of idiots who have much in
+common...."
+
+"What is the matter, Grimaud? As the circumstances are grave, I will
+allow you to speak, but be short, I beg. What is it?"
+
+"A troop."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"Twenty?"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Sixteen pioneers, four soldiers."
+
+"How far off?"
+
+"Five hundred paces."
+
+"Then we have just time to finish this fowl and drink your health,
+D'Artagnan."
+
+A few minutes later the troop hove in sight, marching along a narrow
+trench that connected the bastion and the town.
+
+"Bah!" said Athos. "It was scarcely worth while disturbing ourselves
+for a mere handful of rascals armed with pickaxes, hoes, and shovels.
+Grimaud had only got to make them a sign to return whence they came,
+and I am sure they would have left us in peace."
+
+"I doubt it," said D'Artagnan, "for they are advancing steadily. And
+besides the sappers, there are four soldiers and a brigadier, all
+armed with muskets."
+
+"It is only because they have not seen us," replied Athos.
+
+"Upon my honor," cried Aramis, "I feel quite ashamed to fire on poor
+devils like that."
+
+"False priest!" exclaimed Porthos, "to have pity on heretics."
+
+"Aramis is right," said Athos. "I will warn them."
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" said D'Artagnan. "You will get yourself
+shot, my good fellow."
+
+But Athos paid no attention to this remark, and mounting the breach,
+his hat in one hand and his musket in the other, he addressed the
+troop, who were so astonished at this unexpected apparition that they
+halted about fifty paces distant. "Gentlemen," he said, bowing
+courteously as he spoke, "I am at this moment breakfasting with some
+friends in the shelter of this bastion. As you know, there is nothing
+so unpleasant as to be disturbed during your meals; therefore we
+should be greatly obliged if you would postpone any business you may
+have here, till we have finished, or else call again. Unless, indeed,
+you have the happy inspiration to quit the side of rebellion, and to
+drink, with us, to the health of the King of France."
+
+"Do take care, Athos!" exclaimed D'Artagnan; "don't you see they are
+aiming at you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," said Athos; "but they are only civilians, who
+don't know how to shoot; and they will never touch me."
+
+He had scarcely uttered the words when four muskets fired
+simultaneously. The balls fell round Athos, but not one grazed him.
+
+Four muskets immediately answered, but these were better directed than
+the others. Three of the soldiers fell dead, and one of the sappers
+was wounded.
+
+"Grimaud, another musket," said Athos, who was still on the breach.
+Grimaud obeyed; a second volley was fired; the brigadier and two
+pioneers fell dead, and the rest of the troop took flight.
+
+"Now we must make a sortie," cried Athos; and the four comrades dashed
+out of the fort, picked up the muskets belonging to the dead soldiers,
+and retreated to the bastion, carrying the trophies of their
+victory....
+
+"To arms!" called Grimaud.
+
+The young men jumped up and ran for their muskets.
+
+This time the advancing troop was composed of twenty or twenty-five
+men, but they were no longer sappers, but soldiers of the garrison.
+
+"Hadn't we better return to the camp?" said Porthos. "The fight is not
+equal at all."
+
+"Impossible, for three reasons," said Athos. "First, because we
+haven't finished breakfast; second, because we have several important
+things to discuss; and third, because there are still ten minutes
+before the hour is up."
+
+"Well, anyway," remarked Aramis, "we had better have some plan of
+campaign."
+
+"It is very simple," replied Athos. "The moment the enemy is within
+reach, we fire. If they still come on, we fire again, and go on firing
+as long as our guns are loaded. If any of them are left, and they try
+to carry the place by assault, we will let them get well into the
+ditch, and then drop on their heads a piece of the wall, that only
+keeps poised by a kind of miracle."
+
+"Bravo," cried Porthos. "Athos, you were born to be a general; and the
+Cardinal, who thinks himself a great commander, is not to be compared
+to you."
+
+"Gentlemen," replied Athos, "remember, one thing at a time. Cover your
+man well."
+
+"I have mine," said D'Artagnan.
+
+"And I," said Porthos and Aramis.
+
+"Then fire;" and as Athos gave the word, the muskets rang out and four
+men fell. Then the drum beat, and the little army advanced to the
+charge, while all the while the fire was kept up, irregularly, but
+with a sure aim. The Rochellois however did not flinch, but came on
+steadily.
+
+When they reached the foot of the bastion, the enemy still numbered
+twelve or fifteen. A sharp fire received them, but they never
+faltered, and leaping the trench, prepared to scale the breach.
+
+"Now, comrades!" cried Athos. "Let us make an end of them. To the
+wall!"
+
+And all four, aided by Grimaud, began to push with their guns a huge
+block of wall, which swayed as if with the wind, and then rolled
+slowly down into the trench. A horrible cry was heard, a cloud of dust
+mounted upwards; and all was silent.
+
+"Have we crushed them all, do you think?" asked Athos.
+
+"It looks like it," answered D'Artagnan.
+
+"No," said Porthos, "for two or three are limping off."
+
+Athos looked at his watch.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "an hour has elapsed since we came here, and we
+have won our bet." ...
+
+"What is going on in the town?" asked Athos.
+
+"It is a call to arms."
+
+They listened, and the sound of a drum reached their ears.
+
+"They must be sending us an entire regiment," said Athos.
+
+"You don't mean to fight a whole regiment?" said Porthos.
+
+"Why not?" asked the musketeer. "If we had only had the sense to bring
+another dozen bottles, I could make head against an army!"
+
+"As I live, the drum is coming nearer," said D'Artagnan.
+
+"Let it," replied Athos. "It takes a quarter of an hour to get from
+here to the town, so it takes a quarter of an hour to get from the
+town here. That is more than enough time for us to arrange our plans.
+If we leave this, we shall never find such a good position.... But I
+must first give Grimaud his orders;" and Athos made a sign to his
+servant.
+
+"Grimaud," said he, pointing to the dead who were lying on the
+bastion, "you will take these gentlemen and prop them up against the
+wall, and put their hats on their heads and their guns in their
+hands."
+
+"Great man!" ejaculated D'Artagnan; "I begin to see."
+
+"You do?" asked Porthos.
+
+"Do _you_ understand, Grimaud?" said Aramis.
+
+Grimaud nodded.
+
+"Then we are all right," said Athos....
+
+"On guard!" cried D'Artagnan. "Look at those red and black points
+moving down there! A regiment, did you call it, Athos?--it is a
+perfect army!"
+
+"My word, yes!" said Athos, "there they come! How cunning to beat
+neither drums nor trumpets. Are you ready, Grimaud?"
+
+Grimaud silently nodded, and showed them a dozen dead men, arranged
+skillfully in various attitudes, some porting arms, some taking aim,
+others drawing their swords.
+
+"Well done!" exclaimed Athos, "it does honor to your imagination."
+
+"If it is all the same to you," said Porthos, "I should like to
+understand what is going on."
+
+"Let us get away first," replied D'Artagnan, "and you will understand
+after."
+
+"One moment, please! Give Grimaud time to clear away the breakfast."
+
+"Ah!" said Aramis; "the red and black specks are becoming more
+distinct, and I agree with D'Artagnan that we have no time to lose
+before we regain the camp."
+
+"Very well," rejoined Athos, "I have nothing to say against
+retreating. The wager was for an hour, and we have been here an hour
+and a half. Let us be off at once."
+
+The four comrades went out at the back, following Grimaud, who had
+already departed with the basket.
+
+"Oh!" cried Athos, stopping suddenly, "what the devil is to be done?"
+
+"Has anything been forgotten?" asked Aramis.
+
+"Our flag, man, our flag! We can't leave our flag in the enemy's
+hands, if it is nothing but a napkin." And Athos dashed again into the
+bastion, and bore away the flag unhurt, amid a volley of balls from
+the Rochellois.
+
+He waved his flag, while turning his back on the troops of the town,
+and saluting those of the camp. From both sides arose great cries, of
+anger on the one hand and enthusiasm on the other, and the napkin,
+pierced with three bullet-holes, was in truth transformed into a flag.
+"Come down, come down!" they shouted from the camp.
+
+Athos came down, and his friends, who had awaited him anxiously,
+received him with joy.
+
+"Be quick, Athos," said D'Artagnan; "now that we have got everything
+but money, it would be stupid to get killed."
+
+But Athos would not hurry himself, and they had to keep pace with him.
+
+By this time Grimaud and his basket were well beyond bullet range,
+while in the distance the sounds of rapid firing might be heard.
+
+"What are they doing?" asked Porthos; "what are they firing at?"
+
+"At our dead men," replied Athos.
+
+"But they don't fire back."
+
+"Exactly so; therefore the enemy will come to the conclusion that
+there is an ambuscade. They will hold a council, and send an envoy
+with a flag of truce, and when they at last find out the joke, we
+shall be out of reach. So it is no use getting apoplexy by racing."
+
+"Oh, I understand," said Porthos, full of astonishment.
+
+"That is a mercy!" replied Athos, shrugging his shoulders, as they
+approached the camp, which was watching their progress in a ferment of
+admiration.
+
+This time a new fusillade was begun, and the balls whistled close to
+the heads of the four victors and fell about their ears. The
+Rochellois had entered the bastion.
+
+"What bad shooting!" said D'Artagnan. "How many was it we killed?
+Twelve?"
+
+"Twelve or fifteen."
+
+"And how many did we crush?"
+
+"Eight or ten."
+
+"And not a scratch to show for it."
+
+"Ah, what is that on your hand, D'Artagnan? It looks to me like
+blood."
+
+"It's nothing," replied D'Artagnan.
+
+"A spent ball?"
+
+"Not even that."
+
+"But what is it, then?" As we have said, the silent and resolute Athos
+loved D'Artagnan like his own son, and showed every now and then all
+the anxiety of a father.
+
+"The skin is rubbed off, that is all," said D'Artagnan. "My fingers
+were caught between two stones--the stone of the wall and the stone of
+my ring."
+
+"That is what comes of having diamonds," remarked Athos
+disdainfully....
+
+"Here we are at the camp, and they are coming to meet us and bring us
+in triumphantly."
+
+And he only spoke the truth, for the whole camp was in a turmoil. More
+than two thousand people had gazed, as at a play, at the lucky bit of
+braggadocio of the four friends,--braggadocio of which they were far
+from suspecting the real motive. The cry of "Long live the
+musketeers," resounded on all sides, and M. De Busigny was the first
+to hold out his hand to Athos and to declare that he had lost his
+wager. The dragoon and the Swiss had followed him, and all the others
+had followed the dragoon and the Swiss. There was nothing but
+congratulations, hand-shakings, embraces; and the tumult became so
+great that the Cardinal thought there must be a revolt, and sent La
+Houdinière, his captain of guards, to find out what was the matter.
+
+"Well?" asked the Cardinal, as his messenger returned.
+
+"Well, monseigneur," replied La Houdinière, "it is about three
+musketeers and a guardsman who made a bet with M. De Busigny to go and
+breakfast at the Bastion Saint-Gervais, and while breakfasting, held
+it for two hours against the enemy, and killed I don't know how many
+Rochellois."
+
+"You asked the names of these gentlemen?"
+
+"Yes, monseigneur."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."
+
+"Always my three heroes," murmured the Cardinal. "And the guardsman?"
+
+"M. D'Artagnan."
+
+"Always my young rogue! I must gain over these men."
+
+And the same evening, the Cardinal had a conversation with M. De
+Treville about the morning's exploit, with which the whole camp was
+still ringing. M. De Treville, who had heard it all at first hand,
+gave his Eminence all the details, not forgetting the episode of the
+napkin.
+
+"Very good, M. De Treville," said the Cardinal; "but you must get me
+that napkin, and I will have three golden lilies embroidered on it,
+and give as a banner to your company."
+
+"Monseigneur," replied M. De Treville, "that would be an injustice to
+the guards. M. D'Artagnan does not belong to me, but to M. Des
+Essarts."
+
+"Then you must take him," said the Cardinal. "As these four brave
+soldiers love each other so much, they ought certainly to be in the
+same regiment."
+
+That evening M. De Treville announced the good news to the three
+musketeers and to D'Artagnan, and invited them all to breakfast the
+following day.
+
+D'Artagnan was nearly beside himself with joy. As we know, it had
+been the dream of his life to be a musketeer.
+
+
+
+THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
+
+From 'The Viscount of Bragelonne'
+
+
+     [Dumas adopts the theory that the Man in the Iron Mask was
+     the suppressed twin brother of Louis XIV.]
+
+"What is all this noise?" asked Philippe, turning towards the door of
+the concealed staircase. And as he spoke a voice was heard saying,
+"This way, this way. Still a few steps, sire."
+
+"It is M. Fouquet's voice," said D'Artagnan, who was standing near the
+Queen Mother.
+
+"Then M. D'Herblay will not be far off," added Philippe; but little
+did he expect to see the person who actually entered.
+
+All eyes were riveted on the door, from which the voice of M. Fouquet
+proceeded; but it was not he who came through.
+
+A cry of anguish rang through the room, breaking forth simultaneously
+from the King and the spectators, and surely never had been seen a
+stranger sight.
+
+The shutters were half closed, and only a feeble light struggled
+through the velvet curtains, with their thick silk linings, and the
+eyes of the courtiers had to get accustomed to the darkness before
+they could distinguish between the surrounding objects. But once
+discerned, they stood out as clear as day.
+
+So, looking up, they saw Louis XIV. in the doorway of the private
+stair, his face pale and his brows bent; and behind him stood Fouquet.
+
+The Queen Mother, whose hand held that of Philippe, uttered a shriek
+at the sight, thinking that she beheld a ghost.
+
+Monsieur staggered for a moment and turned away his head, looking from
+the King who was facing him to the King who was by his side.
+
+Madame on the contrary stepped forward, thinking it must be her
+brother-in-law reflected in a mirror. And indeed, this seemed the only
+rational explanation of the double image.
+
+Both young men, agitated and trembling, clenching their hands, darting
+flames of fury from their eyes, dumb, breathless, ready to spring at
+each other's throats, resembled each other so exactly in feature,
+figure, and even, by pure accident, in dress, that Anne of Austria
+herself stood confounded. For as yet the truth had not dawned on her.
+There are some torments that we all instinctively reject. It is
+easier far to accept the supernatural, the impossible.
+
+That he should encounter such obstacles had never for one moment
+occurred to Louis. He imagined he had only to show himself, for the
+world to fall at his feet. The Sun-king could have no rival; and where
+his rays did not fall, there must be darkness--
+
+As to Fouquet, who could describe his bewilderment at the sight of the
+living portrait of his master? Then he thought that Aramis was right,
+and that the new-comer was every whit as much a king as his double,
+and that after all, perhaps he had made a mistake when he had declined
+to share in the _coup d'état_ so cleverly plotted by the General of
+the Jesuits.
+
+And then, it was equally the blood royal of Louis XIII. that Fouquet
+had determined to sacrifice to blood in all respects identical; a
+noble ambition, to one that was selfish. And it was the mere aspect of
+the pretender which showed him all these things.
+
+D'Artagnan, leaning against the wall and facing Fouquet, was debating
+in his own mind the key to this wonderful riddle. He felt
+instinctively, though he could not have told why, that in the meeting
+of the two Louis XIV's lay the explanation of all that had seemed
+suspicious in the conduct of Aramis during the last few days.
+
+Suddenly Louis XIV., by nature the most impatient of the two young
+men, and with the habit of command that was the result of training,
+strode across the room and flung open one of the shutters. The flood
+of light that streamed through the window caused Philippe
+involuntarily to recoil, and to step back into the shelter of an
+alcove.
+
+The movement struck Louis, and turning to the Queen he said:
+
+"Mother, do you not know your own son, although every one else has
+denied his King?"
+
+Anne trembled at his voice and raised her arms to heaven, but could
+not utter a single word.
+
+"Mother," retorted Philippe in his quietest tones, "do you not know
+your own son?"
+
+And this time it was Louis who stepped back.
+
+As for Anne, pierced to the heart with grief and remorse, she could
+bear it no longer. She staggered where she stood, and unaided by her
+attendants, who seemed turned into stone, she sank down on a sofa with
+a sigh.
+
+This spectacle was too much for Louis. He rushed to D'Artagnan, whose
+brain was going round with bewilderment, and who clung to the door as
+his last hope.
+
+"To me, musketeer! Look us both in the face, and see which is the
+paler, he or I."
+
+The cry awoke D'Artagnan from his stupor, and struck the chord of
+obedience strong in the bosom of every soldier. He lifted his head,
+and striding straight up to Philippe laid his hand on his shoulder,
+saying quietly:--
+
+"Monsieur, you are my prisoner."
+
+Philippe remained absolutely still, as if nailed to the floor, his
+eyes fixed despairingly on the King who was his brother. His silence
+reproached him as no words could have done, with the bitterness of the
+past and the tortures of the future.
+
+And the King understood, and his soul sank within him. His eyes fell,
+and drawing his brother and sister-in-law with him, he hastily quitted
+the room; forgetting in his agitation even his mother, lying
+motionless on the couch beside him, not three paces from the son whom
+for the second time she was allowing to be condemned to a death in
+life.
+
+Philippe drew near to her, and said softly:--
+
+"If you had not been my mother, madame, I must have cursed you for the
+misery you have caused me."
+
+D'Artagnan overheard, and a shiver of pity passed through him. He
+bowed respectfully to the young prince, and said:--
+
+"Forgive me, monseigneur; I am only a soldier, and my faith is due to
+him who has left us."
+
+"Thank you, M. D'Artagnan. But what has become of M. D'Herblay?"
+
+"M. D'Herblay is safe, monseigneur," answered a voice behind them;
+"and while I am alive and free, not a hair of his head shall be hurt."
+
+"M. Fouquet!" said the prince, smiling sadly.
+
+"Forgive me, monseigneur," cried Fouquet, falling on his knees; "but
+he who has left the room was my guest."
+
+"Ah!" murmured Philippe to himself with a sigh, "you are loyal friends
+and true hearts. You make me regret the world I am leaving. M.
+D'Artagnan, I will follow you."
+
+As he spoke, Colbert entered and handed to the captain of the
+musketeers an order from the King; then bowed, and went out.
+
+D'Artagnan glanced at the paper, and in a sudden burst of wrath
+crumpled it in his hand.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the prince.
+
+"Read it, monseigneur," answered the musketeer.
+
+And Philippe read these words, written hastily by the King himself:--
+
+"M. D'Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the Îles
+Sainte-Marguerite. He will see that his face is covered with an iron
+mask, which must never be lifted on pain of death."
+
+"It is just," said Philippe; "I am ready."
+
+"Aramis was right," whispered Fouquet to D'Artagnan, "this is as good
+a king as the other."
+
+"Better," replied D'Artagnan; "he only needed you and me."
+
+
+
+A TRICK IS PLAYED ON HENRY III. BY AID OF CHICOT
+
+From 'The Lady of Monsoreau'
+
+
+The King and Chicot remained quiet and silent for the next ten
+minutes. Then suddenly the King sat up, and the noise he made roused
+Chicot, who was just dropping off to sleep.
+
+The two looked at each other with sparkling eyes.
+
+"What is it?" asked Chicot in a low voice.
+
+"Do you hear that sighing sound?" replied the King in a lower voice
+still. "Listen!"
+
+As he spoke, one of the wax candles in the hand of the golden satyr
+went out; then a second, then a third. After a moment, the fourth went
+out also.
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried Chicot, "that is more than a sighing sound." But he
+had hardly uttered the last word when in its turn the lamp was
+extinguished, and the room was in darkness, save for the flickering
+glow of the dying embers.
+
+"Look out!" exclaimed Chicot, jumping up.
+
+"He is going to speak," said the King, shrinking back into his bed.
+
+"Then listen and let us hear what he says," replied Chicot, and at the
+same instant a voice which sounded at once both piercing and hollow,
+proceeded from the space between the bed and the wall.
+
+"Hardened sinner, are you there?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Lord." gasped Henri with chattering teeth.
+
+"Dear me!" remarked Chicot, "that is a very hoarse voice to have come
+from heaven! I feel dreadfully frightened; but never mind!"
+
+"Do you hear me?" asked the voice.
+
+"Yes, Lord," stammered Henri; "and I bow before your anger."
+
+"Do you think you are carrying out my will by performing all the
+mummeries you have taken part in to-day, while your heart is full of
+the things of this world?"
+
+"Well said!" cried Chicot; "you touched him there!"
+
+The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went up to him.
+
+"Well," murmured Henri, "are you convinced now?"
+
+"Wait a bit," answered Chicot.
+
+"What do you want more?"
+
+"Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me take your
+place."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me."
+
+"And do you think I shall escape?"
+
+"We will try, anyway;" and with affectionate persistence he pushed the
+King out of bed, and took his place.
+
+"Now, Henri," he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all to me."
+
+Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.
+
+"You are silent," continued the voice, "which proves that your heart
+is hardened."
+
+"Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord!" exclaimed Chicot, imitating the King's
+nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, he whispered to the
+King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice does not seem to know
+that it is Chicot who is speaking."
+
+"Oh!" replied Henri, "what do you suppose is the meaning of that?"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen yet!"
+
+"Miserable creature that you are!" went on the voice.
+
+"Yes, Lord, yes!" answered Chicot. "I am a horrible sinner, hardened
+in crime."
+
+"Then confess your sins, and repent."
+
+"I acknowledge," said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my cousin
+Condé, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly."
+
+"What is that you are saying?" cried the King. "There is no good in
+mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long ago."
+
+"Oh, has it?" replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to something
+else."
+
+"Answer," said the voice.
+
+"I acknowledge," said the false Henri, "that I behaved like a thief
+toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in stealing away to
+France one fine night, carrying with me all the crown jewels; and I
+repent bitterly."
+
+"Idiot!" exclaimed Henri, "what are you talking about now? Nobody
+remembers anything about that."
+
+"Let me alone," answered Chicot, "I must go on pretending to be the
+King."
+
+"Speak," said the voice.
+
+"I acknowledge," continued Chicot, "that I snatched the throne from my
+brother D'Alençon, who was the rightful heir, since I had formally
+renounced my claims when I was elected King of Poland; I repent
+bitterly."
+
+"Rascal!" cried the King.
+
+"There is yet something more," said the voice.
+
+"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother, Catherine de'
+Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law the King of Navarre,
+after first destroying all his friends, and my sister Queen
+Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers; and I repent
+bitterly."
+
+"Scoundrel! Cease!" muttered the King, his teeth clenched in anger.
+
+"Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as well as we
+do."
+
+"There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with politics,"
+said the voice.
+
+"Ah, now we are getting to it," observed Chicot dolefully; "it is
+about my conduct, I suppose?"
+
+"It is," answered the voice.
+
+"I cannot deny," continued Chicot, always speaking in the name of the
+King, "that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a hopeless trifler, an
+incorrigible hypocrite."
+
+"It is true," said the voice.
+
+"I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in particular; and
+such a good wife too."
+
+"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the world,"
+cried the voice angrily.
+
+"Oh dear!" wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I certainly have
+sinned terribly."
+
+"And by your example you have caused others to sin."
+
+"That is true, sadly true."
+
+"You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition."
+
+"Bah!" said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there quite?"
+
+"No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not let him go
+back to his family at break of day."
+
+"Dear me!" said Chicot to the King, "the voice seems to take a great
+interest in the house of Cossé."
+
+"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as Sardanapalus,
+Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz."
+
+Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more frightened
+than ever.
+
+"I am lost," he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice from on high
+will be my death-warrant."
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
+
+(1824-1895)
+
+BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
+
+
+We shall not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the younger.
+The history of a great writer is the history of his works. He was born
+in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name on the register of births
+appears as "Alexandre, son of Marie Catherine Lebay, seamstress." He
+was not acknowledged by his father until he had reached his sixth
+year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize this particular because it had
+great influence on the bent of his genius. During all his life Dumas
+was haunted by a desire of rehabilitating illegitimate children, of
+creating a reaction against their treatment by the Civil Code and the
+prejudice which makes of them something little better than outcasts in
+society.
+
+"When seven years old," he himself says, "I entered as a boarder the
+school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Geneviève. Thence I
+passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School; the
+principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with whom he
+collaborated under the _nom de plume_ of Dinaux. This school, which
+numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and with the rather
+strange habits which I tried to depict in 'The Clémenceau Case,'
+occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino de Paris and the
+'Pôle-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left the Saint-Victor
+School for Monsieur Hénon's school, which was situated in the Rue de
+Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the Collêge Bourbon (now
+the Lycée Condorcet) that I received all my instruction, as the pupils
+of the two schools where I lived attended the college classes. I never
+belonged to any of the higher State schools,--I have not even the
+degree of bachelor."
+
+At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He did not
+stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life which he
+saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled with serious
+yearnings.
+
+"You have debts," his father said to him. "Do as I do: work, and you
+will pay them."
+
+Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a
+one-act play in verse, 'The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly,
+would mention to-day but for his signature. The date was 1845, and the
+author was then twenty-one. Other works by him were published at
+various times in the Journal des Demoiselles.
+
+"I was," he has said, "the careless, lazy, and spoilt child of all my
+father's friends. I believed in the eternity of youth, of strength, of
+joy. I spent the whole day laughing, the whole night sleeping, unless
+I had some reason for writing verses."
+
+About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing,
+which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the
+public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic
+composition. Only two of his novels have survived: 'La Dame aux
+Camélias' ('Camille': 1848), because from this book came the immortal
+drama by the same title; and 'The Clémenceau Case,' because the author
+wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent, and because
+moreover it is a first-rate work.
+
+It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first performance
+of 'Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary. For two
+or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to theatre.
+Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed simply shocking,
+and the play was still forbidden in London after its performances in
+France were numbered by the hundreds.
+
+There is this special trait in 'Camille'--it was a work all instinct
+with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said: "I
+might perhaps make another 'Demi-Monde'; I could not make another
+'Camille.'" There existed, indeed, other works which have all the
+fire and charm of the twentieth year. 'Polyeucte' is Corneille's
+masterpiece; his 'Cid' breathes the spirit of youth: Corneille at
+forty could not have written the 'Cid.' Racine's first play is
+'Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the 'Barber of Seville'; Rossini, when
+young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen years
+later he himself wrote his 'William Tell,' a higher work, but a work
+which was not young.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR.]
+
+If the theatrical managers had recoiled from 'Camille' in spite of the
+great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after a
+pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it is
+because it contained the germ of a whole dramatic revolution. Now, the
+author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said to himself,
+"I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama, and erect a new
+one on its ruins." To tell the truth, he had no idea of what he was
+doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He had thrown it still throbbing
+upon the stage, without any regard for the dramatic conventions which
+were then imposed upon playwrights, and which were almost accepted as
+laws. He had simply depicted what he had seen. All the managers,
+attached as they were to the old customs, and respectful of the
+traditions, had trembled with horror when they saw moving around
+Camille the ignoble Prudence, the idiotic Due de Varville, the silly
+Saint-Gaudens. But the public--though the fact was suspected neither
+by them nor by the public itself--yearned for more truth upon the
+boards. When 'Camille' was presented to them, the play-goers uttered a
+cry of astonishment and joy: that was the thing! that was just what
+they wanted! From that day, which will remain as a date in the history
+of the French stage, the part of Camille has been performed by all the
+celebrated actresses. The part has two sides: one may see in it a
+degraded woman who has fallen profoundly in love, rather late in life;
+one may also see in it a woman, already poetical in her own nature,
+suddenly carried away by a great passion into the sacred regions of
+the Ideal.
+
+Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head after
+so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temptation of
+at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the theatre after
+the first performance, the author had all the managers at his feet,
+and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only had his
+signature. But he had learned, by the side of "a prodigal father," the
+art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the footlights
+again, save with a work upon which he had been able to bestow all the
+care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before he gave, at the
+Gymnase theatre, 'Diane de Lys.'
+
+'Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was not
+exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly
+conceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing
+to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy. It
+is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which
+the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works.
+It will leave no great trace in his career.
+
+Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre--I do not dare to say
+his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most enjoyable
+play he ever wrote, 'Le Demi-Monde' (The Other Half-World). In this
+play he discovered and defined the very peculiar world of those women
+who live on the margin of regular "society," and try to preserve its
+tone and demeanor. What scientific and strong construction are here!
+What an admirable disposition of the scenes, both flexible and
+logical! And through the action, which moves on with wonderful
+straightforwardness and breadth, how many portraits, drawn with a
+steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive features that you would
+know them if you met them on the street! Olivier de Jalin, the refined
+Parisian, the dialectician of the play, who is no other than Dumas
+himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome and honest, but not keen or
+Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de Sanctis, whose head turns with
+the wind, whose tongue cannot rest one moment; and especially Suzanne
+d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so devious in her motions, so
+_roublarde_, as a Parisian of to-day would say.
+
+Between 'The Demi-Monde,' and 'La Question d'Argent' (The Money
+Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work. 'La Question
+d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but its reception
+by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy fact that plays
+turning upon money have never been successful. Le Sage's 'Turcaret' is
+a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the luck to please the crowd.
+Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very curiously studied character.
+The author has represented in him the commonest type of the shady
+money-man, the unconscious rascal. And very skillfully he made an
+individual out of that general type, by giving to Jean Giraud a
+certain rough good-nature; the appearance of a good fellow, with a
+certain degree of fineness; a mixture of humility and self-conceit, of
+awkwardness and impudence, and even some ideas as to the power of
+money that do not lack dignity, and some real liberality of sentiment
+and act,--for wealth alone, though acquired by ignominious means,
+suggests and dictates to the great robbers some advantageous movements
+which the small rascal cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of
+the Second Empire how many pictures of honest people, every one of
+whom, in his or her way, is good and fine!
+
+One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre, 'Le
+Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year 'Un Père Prodigue'
+(A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free adaptation as
+'My Awful Dad').
+
+In 'Le Fils Naturel' Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play, a
+kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we have seen
+him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosophical
+considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the play
+has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis. It does
+not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our worldly
+prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. 'Le Fils
+Naturel' is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or
+rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.
+
+'Un Père Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped no
+one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonnière, Dumas had shown us
+some traits of his illustrious father, who _had_ been a prodigal
+father; and that he had depicted himself in Viscount André. Every one
+made comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial
+disrespect. The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer
+it. He had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into
+such different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them
+their true prototypes. Then--and this is no small praise--if Count de
+la Rivonnière is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his
+fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and
+generous sentiments,--has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the
+father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic
+in the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of
+animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more
+vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much
+as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not
+one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together,
+drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered, so
+charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin as
+gayly as he can.
+
+For four years after the production of 'Un Père Prodigue' Dumas wrote
+nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a strange play,
+'L'Ami des Femmes' (A Friend of the Sex), which completely failed.
+After 'L'Ami des Femmes' there was another interruption, not of
+Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production. Perhaps he was sick of
+an art which had caused him a cruel disappointment. He turned again to
+novel-writing, and published (1866) 'L'Affaire Clémenceau' (The
+Clémenceau Case), the success of which was not as great as he had
+hoped. In France, when a man is superior in one specialty people will
+not let him leave it. He is not allowed to be at once an unequaled
+novelist and a first-rate dramatist.
+
+At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident which
+created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the stage, and
+towards a new form of comedy.
+
+M. Émile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Second
+Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and
+knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been a
+great friend of Dumas père, and had kept up the most affectionate
+intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the
+stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to
+oblige his father's friend, made out of it 'Le Supplice d'une Femme'
+(A Woman's Torture). Émile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and
+somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that
+Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: "Neither shall I,"
+Dumas retorted.
+
+'A Woman's Torture' was acted at the Comédie Française with
+extraordinary success. This success was for Dumas a warning and a
+lesson. 'A Woman's Torture' was a three-act play, short, concise,
+panting, which hurried to the _coup de théâtre_ of the second act,
+upon which the drama revolved, and rushed to its conclusion. The time
+of five-act comedies, with ample expositions, copious developments,
+philosophical disquisitions, curious and fanciful episodes, was gone.
+Henceforth the dramatist had to deal with a hurried and _blasé_
+public, which, taking dinner at eight, could give to the theatre but a
+short time, and an attention disturbed by the labor of digestion. 'A
+Woman's Torture,' which lasted only an hour and a half, and proceeded
+only by rapid strokes, was exactly what that public wanted. After that
+time Dumas wrote only three-act and one-act plays; using four acts
+only for 'Les Idées de Madame Aubray' (Madame Aubray's Ideas); and
+these four acts are very short. In 1867 this play announced Dumas's
+return to the stage; and Dumas is here more paradoxical than he had
+ever been. His theme looked like a wager not simply against bourgeois
+prejudices, but even against good sense, and, I dare to say, against
+justice. This wager was won by Dumas, thanks to an incredible display
+of skill. He took up the thesis a second time in 'Denise,' and won his
+wager again, but with less difficulty. In 'Denise' the lover struggles
+only against social prejudices, and allows himself to be carried away
+by one of those emotional fits which disturb and confound human
+reason. In 'Madame Aubray's Ideas' the triumph is one of pure logic.
+
+'Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse Georges'
+followed rather closely on 'Madame Aubray's Ideas.' 'A Wedding
+Call'!--what a thunderbolt then! It was of but one act, _but_ one act
+the effect of which was prodigious, the echo of which is still heard.
+Time and familiarity have now softened for us the too sharp outlines
+of this bitter play. It has been acknowledged a masterpiece. It is
+certainly one of the boldest works of this extraordinary magician,
+who, thanks to his unerring skill and to the dazzling wit of his
+dialogue, brought the public to listen to whatever he chose to put
+upon the stage. It seemed that, like a lion tamer in the arena, Dumas
+took pleasure in belaboring and exasperating this many-headed monster,
+in order to prove to his own satisfaction that he could subdue its
+revolts.
+
+'La Princesse Georges' is a work of violent and furious passion. We
+find in it Madame de Terremonde, the good woman who adores her
+husband, but who adores him with fury, who wants him all to herself,
+and who, when sure that she is betrayed, passes from the most
+exasperated rage to tears and despair. There is in the first act a
+scene of exposition which has become celebrated. No one ever so
+rapidly mastered the public; no one ever from the first stroke so
+painfully twisted the heart of the spectators.
+
+Let us pass rapidly over 'La Femme de Claude' (Claude's Wife: 1873).
+Of all his plays it is the one Dumas said he liked best, the one he
+most passionately defended with all sorts of commentaries, letters,
+prefaces, etc.; the one which he insisted on having revived, a long
+time after it had failed. To my mind that play was a mistake; and the
+public, in spite of Dumas's arguments, in spite of the protests of the
+critics, who are often very glad to distinguish themselves by not
+yielding to the common voice,--the public insisted on agreeing with
+me.
+
+Only a few months later, Dumas brilliantly retrieved himself with
+'Monsieur Alphonse.' His Madame Guichard is the most cheerfully vulgar
+type of the _parvenue_ which any one ever dared to put upon the stage.
+She can hardly read and write; she is no longer young, and she is "to
+boot" very proud of her money; she has no tact and no taste; but at
+heart she is a good sort of woman. Her morality is as primitive as her
+education. But deceit disgusts her; she hates but one thing, she
+says,--lying. She is not troubled by conventionalities; and her speech
+has all the color and energy of popular speech. But see! Dumas in
+depicting this woman preserved exquisite measure. Madame Guichard says
+many pert and droll things; she never utters a coarse word. Her
+language is picturesque; it is free from slang. Hers is a vulgar
+nature, but she does not offend delicate ears by the grossness of her
+utterance. Dumas never drew a more living picture; she is the joy of
+this rather sad play.
+
+All that remain to be reviewed are 'L'Étrangère,' 'La Princesse de
+Bagdad,' and 'Françillon'; all of which were given at the Comédie
+Française. 'L'Étrangère' is indeed a melodrama, with an admixture of
+comedy. Had he gone further in that direction, Dumas might have made a
+new sort of play, which would perhaps have reigned a long time on the
+stage. But after this trial, successful though it was, he stopped. 'La
+Princesse de Bagdad' entirely failed. 'Françillon' was Dumas's last
+success at the Comédie Française.
+
+After 1887 Dumas gave nothing to the stage. He had completed a great
+five-act play, 'The Road to Thebes,' which the manager of the Comédie
+Française hoped every year to put on the boards. Dumas kept promising
+it; but either from distrust of himself or of the public, or from
+fatigue, or fear of meeting with failure, he asked for new delays,
+until the day when he declared that not only the play would not be
+acted during his life, but that he would not even allow it to be acted
+after his death.
+
+This death he saw coming, with sad but calm eyes. It was a sorrow for
+us to see this man, whom we had known so quick and alert, grow weaker
+every day, showing the progress of disease in his shriveled features
+and body. The complexion had lost all color, the cheeks had become
+flaccid, the eye had no life left.
+
+On October 1st, 1895, he wrote to his friend Jules Claretie:--"Do not
+depend upon me any more; I am vanquished. There are moments when I
+mourn my loss, as Madame D'Houdetot said when dying." He was at Puys,
+by the seaside, when he wrote that despairing letter. He returned to
+Marly, there to die, surrounded by his family, on November 28th, 1895,
+in a house which he loved and which had been bequeathed to him years
+before by an intimate friend.
+
+His loss threw into mourning the world of letters, and the whole of
+Paris. People discovered then--for death loosens every tongue and
+every pen--how kind and generous in reality was Dumas, who had often
+been accused of avarice by those who contrasted him with his father;
+how many services he had discreetly rendered, how open his hand always
+was. His constant cheerfulness and good-nature had finally caused him
+to be forgiven for his wit, which was sarcastic and cutting, and for
+his success, which had thrown so many rivals into the shade. This
+witty man, who was always obliging and even tender-hearted, had no
+envy, and gave his applause without a shadow of reserve to the
+successes of others. Every young author found in him advice and
+support; he did not expect gratitude, and therefore was soured by no
+disappointment. He was a good man, partly from nature, partly from
+determination; for he deemed that, after all, the best way to live
+happy in this world is to make happy as many people as possible.
+
+If in this long essay I have not spoken of Dumas as a moralist, it is
+because, in my opinion, in spite of all that has been said, Dumas was
+a dramatist a great deal more than a philosopher. In his comedies he
+discussed a great many moral and social questions, without giving a
+solution for any; or rather, the solutions that he gave were due not
+to any set of fixed principles, but to the conclusion which he was
+preparing for this play or that. He said, indifferently, "Kill her" or
+"Forgive her," according to the requirements of the subject which he
+had selected; and he would afterwards write a sensational preface with
+a view to demonstrate that the solution this time given by him was the
+only legitimate one. These prefaces are very amusing reading; for he
+wrote them with all the fire of his nature, and he had the gift of
+movement. But they were a strange medley of incongruous and
+contradictory statements. Every idea that he expresses can be grasped
+and understood; but it is impossible to see how it agrees with those
+that precede and follow. It is a chaos of clear ideas.
+
+Dumas was not a philosopher, but an agitator. He stirred up a great
+many questions; he drew upon them our distracted attention; he
+compelled us to think of them. Therein he did his duty as a dramatist.
+
+He gave much thought to the fate of woman in our civilization. We may
+say, however, that though loving her much, he still more feared her,
+and I shall even add, despised her. All his characters who have the
+mission of defending morality and good sense are very attentive to
+her, but keep her at arm's-length. They are affectionate counselors,
+not lovers. They hold her to be a frail being, who must be controlled
+and guided. Some one has said that there was in Dumas something of the
+Catholic priest. It is true. He was to women a lay director of
+conscience.
+
+He was a great connoisseur of pictures and a great art lover. Music, I
+think, is the only art that did not affect him much. He was a dazzling
+talker; his plays teem with bright sayings; his conversation sparkled
+with them. I did not know him in his prime, when he delighted his
+friends and companions by his unceasing flow of spirits. I became
+intimate with him only later. If you knew how to start him, he simply
+coruscated. I never knew any one, save Edmond About, who was as witty,
+and who, like About, always paid you back in good sounding coin.
+
+Dumas was a member of the French Academy. He had not wished for that
+honor, because it had been denied to his father. He desired, in his
+reception speech, to call up the great spirit of this illustrious
+father and make it share his academician's chair. He had this joy; the
+two Dumas were received on the same day. Their two names will never
+perish.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Francisque Sarcey)]
+
+[The editors have been compelled, for lack of space, to leave out that
+part of M. Sarcey's valuable essay which is a professional analysis of
+several of Dumas's plays, and which would be of interest, chiefly, to
+special students of the French drama and stage.]
+
+
+
+THE PLAYWRIGHT IS BORN--AND MADE
+
+From the Preface to 'A Prodigal Father'
+
+
+Of all the various forms of thought, the stage is that which nearest
+approaches the plastic arts--inasmuch as we cannot work in it unless
+we know its material processes; but with this difference: that in the
+other arts one learns these processes, while in play-writing one
+guesses them; or to speak more accurately, they are in us to begin
+with.
+
+One can become a painter, a sculptor, a musician, by sheer study: one
+does not become a dramatic author in this fashion. A caprice of
+nature makes your eye in such a way that you can see a thing after a
+particular manner, not absolutely correct, but which must nevertheless
+appear, to any other persons that you wish to have so think, the only
+correct point of view. The man really called to write for the stage
+reveals what is an extremely rare faculty, in his very first
+attempts,--say in a farce in school, or a drawing-room charade. There
+is a sort of science of optics and of perspective that enables one to
+draw a personage, a character, a passion, an impulse of the soul, with
+a single stroke of the pen. Dramatic _cheating of the eye_ is so
+complete that often the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the
+play, desiring to give himself once more the same emotion that he has
+felt as one of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in
+the written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the
+passage where the emotion lies hid. It was a word, a look, a silence,
+a gesture, a purely atmospheric combination, that held him spellbound.
+So comes in the genius of the playwright's trade, if those two words
+can be associated. One may compare writing for the stage in relation
+to other phases of literature, as we compare ceiling painters with
+[painters of] pictures for the wall or the easel. Woe to the painter
+if he forget that his composition is to be looked at from a distance,
+with a light below it!
+
+A man without merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher, an
+author, may turn out to be a dramatic author of the first class; that
+is to say, in the work of setting in motion before you the purely
+external movements of mankind; and on the other hand, to become in the
+theatre the thinker, the moralist, the philosopher, or the author to
+whom one listens, one must indispensably be furnished with the
+particular and natural qualities of a man of much lower grade. In
+short, to be a master in the art of writing for the stage, you must be
+a poor hand in the superior art....
+
+That dramatic author who shall know mankind like Balzac, and who shall
+know the theatre like Scribe, will be the greatest dramatic author
+that has ever existed.
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
+    by E. Irenæus Stevenson
+
+
+
+AN ARMED TRUCE
+
+From 'A Friend of the Sex'
+
+
+    [The following conversation in the first act of the play
+    takes place in the pleasant morning-room of a country-house
+    near Paris, the home of M. and Madame Leverdet. M. Leverdet
+    is asleep in his chair. The speakers are Madame Leverdet, a
+    coquettish, sprightly lady approaching middle age, and young
+    M. De Ryons, a friend and neighbor. Madame Leverdet is
+    determined to marry off De Ryons advantageously, and as soon
+    as possible. Unfortunately he is a confirmed bachelor, not to
+    say woman-hater, whose cynicism is the result of severely
+    disappointing experiences. Under that cynicism there is
+    however genuine respect and even chivalry as to the right
+    sort of woman,--the superior and sincere type, which he does
+    not happen often to encounter.]
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Let us come to serious topics while we are alone,
+my friend.
+
+_De Ryons_--And apropos of them?
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Are you willing to be married off yet?
+
+_De Ryons_ [_with a start of terror_]--Pardon me, my dear lady! At
+what hour can I take the first train for Paris?
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Now listen to me, at least.
+
+_De Ryons_--What! Here it is two years since I have called on you; I
+come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all good friendship,
+with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am totally unsuspecting; all
+I ask is to have a little lively chat with a clever woman--and see how
+you receive me.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_continuing_]--A simple, charming young girl--
+
+_De Ryons_ [_interrupting her, and in the same tone_]-- --musical,
+speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society woman, a
+domestic woman,--all at the choice of the applicant.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_laughing_]--Yes, and pretty and graceful and rich;
+and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.
+
+_De Ryons_--She is quite right there. I shall make a charming
+husband--I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old; all my teeth,
+all my hair (no such very common detail, the way young men are
+nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income as a landed
+proprietor--oh, I am an excellent match: only unfortunately I am not a
+marrying man.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--And why not, if you please?
+
+_De Ryons_ [_smiling_]--It would interfere severely with my studies.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--What sort of studies?
+
+_De Ryons_--My studies of--woman.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Really! I don't understand you.
+
+_De Ryons_--What! Do you not know that I am making women my
+particular, my incessant study, and that I am reckoning on leaving
+some new and very interesting documents dealing with that branch of
+natural history?--a branch very little understood just at present, in
+spite of all that has been written on the topic. My friend, I cannot
+sacrifice the species to the individual; I belong to science. It is
+quite impossible for me to give myself wholly and completely--as one
+certainly should do when he marries--to one of those charming and
+terrible little carnivora for whose sake men dishonor themselves, ruin
+themselves, kill themselves; whose sole preoccupation, in the midst of
+the universal carnage that they make, is to dress themselves now like
+umbrellas and now like table bells.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_scornfully_]--So you really think you understand
+women, do you?
+
+_De Ryons_--I rather think I do. Why, just as you see me this instant,
+at the end of five minutes' study or conversation I can tell you to
+what class a woman belongs,--whether to the middle class, to women of
+rank, artists, or whatever you please; what are her tastes, her
+characteristics, her antecedents, the state of her heart,--in a word,
+everything that concerns my special science.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Really! Will you have a glass of water?
+
+_De Ryons_--Not yet, thank you.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--I suppose, then, you are under the impression that
+you know me too.
+
+_De Ryons_--As if I did not!
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Well, and I am--what?
+
+_De Ryons_--Oh, you are a clever woman. It is for that reason that I
+call on you [_aside:_ every two years].
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Will you kindly give me the sum of your
+observations in general? You can tell me so much, since I am a clever
+woman.
+
+_De Ryons_--The true, the true, the true sum?
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Yes.
+
+_De Ryons_--Simply that woman of our day is an illogical, subordinate,
+and mischief-making creature. [_In saying this De Ryons draws back and
+crouches down as if expecting to be struck._]
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--So then, you detest women?
+
+_De Ryons_--I? I detest women? On the contrary, I adore them; but I
+hold myself in such a position toward them that they cannot bite me. I
+keep on the outside of the cage.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Meaning by that--what?
+
+_De Ryons_--Meaning by that, that I am a friend of the sex; for I have
+long perceived that just as truly as women are dangerous in love, just
+so much are they adorable in friendship, with men;--that is to say,
+with no obligations, and therefore no treasons; no rights, and in
+consequence no tyrannies. One assists, too, as a spectator, often as a
+collaborator, in the comedy of love. A man under such conditions sees
+before his nose the stage tricks, the machinery, the changes of
+scenes, all that stage mounting so dazzling at a distance and so
+simple when one is near by. As a friend of the sex and on a basis of
+friendship, one estimates the causes, the contradictions, the
+incoherences, of that phantasmagoric changeableness that belongs to
+the heart of a woman. So you have something that is interesting and
+instructive. Under such circumstances a man is the consoler, and gives
+his advice; he wipes away tears; he brings quarrelsome lovers
+together; he asks for the letters that must be returned; he hands back
+the photographs (for you know that in love affairs photographs are
+taken only in order to be returned, and it is nearly always the same
+photograph that serves as many times as may be necessary. I know one
+photograph that I have had handed back by three different men, and it
+ended its usefulness by being given for good and all to a fourth one,
+who was--not single).... In short, you see, my dear madam, I am above
+all the friend of those women--who have known what it is to be in
+love. And moreover inasmuch, just as Rochefoucauld says, as women do
+not think a great deal of their first experience,--why, one fine day
+or another--
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--You prove to be the second one.
+
+_De Ryons_--No, no; I have no number, I! A well-brought-up woman never
+goes from one experience of the heart to another one, without a decent
+interval of time, more or less long. Two railroad accidents never come
+together on the same railway. During the _intervals_ a woman really
+needs a friend, a good confidant; and it is then that I turn up. I let
+her tell me all the melancholy affairs in question; I see the unhappy
+victim in tears after the traitor has called; I lament with her, I
+weep with her, I make her laugh with me: and little by little I
+replace the delinquent without her seeing that I am doing so. But then
+I know very well that I am without importance, that I am a mere
+politician of the moment, a cabinet minister without a portfolio, a
+sentimental distraction without any consequences; and some fine day,
+after having been the confidential friend as to past events, I become
+the confidential friend as to future ones,--for the lady falls in love
+for the second time with somebody who knows nothing of the first
+experience, who will never know anything about it, and who of course
+must be made to suppose he represents the first one. Then I go away
+for a little time and leave them to themselves, and then I come back
+like a new friend to the family. By-and-by, when the dear creature is
+reckoning up the balance-sheet of her past, when her conscience pours
+into her ear the names that she would rather not remember, and my name
+comes with the others, she reflects an instant,--and then she says
+resolutely and sincerely to herself, "Oh, _he_ does not count!" My
+friend, I am always the one that does not count, and I like it
+extremely.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_indignantly_]--You are simply a monster!
+
+_De Ryons_--Oh no, oh no, oh no, I am not!
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--According to your own account, you have no faith in
+women.... Wretch! Ungrateful creature! And yet it is woman who
+inspires all the great things in this life.
+
+_De Ryons_--But somehow forbids us to accomplish them.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Go out from here, my dear De Ryons, and never let
+me see you again.
+
+_De Ryons_ [_rising promptly and making a mocking bow_]--My dear
+lady--
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--No, I will _not_ shake hands with you.
+
+_De Ryons_--Then I shall die of chagrin--that's all about it.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Do you know how you will end, you incorrigible
+creature? When you are fifty years old you will have rheumatism.
+
+_De Ryons_--Yes, or sciatica. But I shall find some one who will
+embroider me warm slippers.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Indeed you will not! You will marry your cook.
+
+_De Ryons_--That depends on how well she cooks. Again farewell, dear
+madam.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--No, stay one moment.
+
+_De Ryons_--It is you who are keeping me; so look out.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Let me have really your last word on the whole
+matter.
+
+_De Ryons_--It is very easily given. There are just two kinds of
+women: those who are good women, and those who are not.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Without fine distinctions?
+
+_De Ryons_--Without fine distinctions.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--What is one to do in the case of those who are
+not--good women?
+
+_De Ryons_--They must be consoled.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--And those who are?
+
+_De Ryons_--They must be guaranteed against being anything else; and
+as to that process of guarantee I have taken a patent.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Come now, if you are playing in parlor theatricals,
+say so. What are you trying to be,--Lovelace or Don Quixote?
+
+_De Ryons_--I am neither the one nor the other. I am a man who, having
+nothing else to do, took to studying women just as another man studies
+beetles and minerals, only I am under the impression that my
+scientific study is more interesting and more useful than that of the
+other savant--because we meet your sex everywhere. We meet the mother,
+the sister, the daughter, the wife, the woman who is in love; and it
+is important to be well informed upon such an eternal associate in
+our lives. Now I am a man of my time, exercised over one theory
+or another, hardly knowing what he must believe, good or bad, but
+inclined to believe in good when occasion presents itself. I respect
+women who respect themselves.... It is not I who created the world; I
+take it as I find it.... And as to marriage, the day when I shall find
+a young girl with the four qualities of goodness of heart, sound
+health, thorough self-respect, and cheerfulness,--the squaring of the
+conjugal hypothenuse,--then I count for nothing all my long term of
+waiting; like the great Doctor Faust, I become young again, and such
+as I am, I give myself to her. My friend, if this same young girl of
+whom you have been speaking (and by the way, I know her just as well
+as you do) really unites these conditions,--I do not believe she does
+so, though I shall see very soon,--why then, I will marry her
+to-morrow--I will marry her to-night. But in the mean time, as I have
+positively nothing to do,--if you happen to know a self-respecting
+woman who needs to be kept from a bit of folly ... why, I am wholly at
+your service.
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
+    by E. Irenæus Stevenson
+
+
+
+TWO VIEWS OF MONEY
+
+From 'The Money Question'
+
+
+    [The following passage occurs in the first act of Dumas's
+    play. The characters include the young parvenu Jean Giraud,
+    the aristocratic M. De Cayolle, and several others, all
+    guests in the drawing-room of the country-house of Madame
+    Durieu. In course of the conversation Giraud refers to his
+    father, at one time a gardener on the estate of M. De
+    Charzay.]
+
+_Jean Giraud_--Oh, yes, yes, I have got along in the world, as people
+say. There are people who blush for their fathers; I make a brag of
+mine--that's the difference.
+
+_René de Charsay_--And what is Father Giraud nowadays? Oh, I beg your
+pardon--
+
+_Jean_--Don't be embarrassed--we keep on calling him Father Giraud all
+the same. He is a gardener still, only he gardens on his own account.
+He owns the house that your father was obliged to sell a while ago. My
+father has never had but one idea,--our Father Giraud,--and that is to
+be a land-owner; I bought that piece of property for him, and so he is
+as happy as a fish in the water. If you like, we will go and take
+breakfast with him to-morrow morning. He will be delighted to see you.
+How things change, eh? There, where a while ago we were the servants,
+now we are the masters; though we are not so very proud, for all that.
+
+_Countess Savelli_ [_aside_]--He has passed the Rubicon of parvenus!
+He has confessed his father! Now nothing can stop his way!
+
+_Jean_ [_to De Charsay_]--I have wanted to see you for a long time,
+but I have not been sure how you would meet me.
+
+_René_--I would have met you with pleasure, as my uncle would have met
+you. One cannot utter reproaches to a man who has made his own
+fortune, except when he has made it by dishonest means; a man who owes
+it to his intelligence and his probity, who uses it worthily,
+everybody is ready to meet kindly, as you are met here.
+
+_Jean_--Sir, it is not necessary that a man should use his fortune
+nobly, provided it is made--that is the main thing!
+
+_Madame Durieu_--Oh, oh, M. Giraud! there you spoil everything that
+you have said.
+
+_Jean_--I don't say that of my own case, madam, but I say just what I
+say,--money is money, whatever may be the kind of hands where it
+sticks. It is the sole power that one never disputes. You may dispute
+virtue, beauty, courage, genius; but you can't dispute money. There is
+not one civilized being, rising in the morning, who does not recognize
+the sovereignty of money, without which he would have neither the roof
+which shelters, him, nor the bed in which he sleeps, nor the bread
+that he eats. Whither are bound these masses of people crowding in the
+streets?--from the employé sweating under his too heavy burden, to the
+millionaire hurrying down to the Bourse behind his two trotters? The
+one is running after fifteen sous, the other after one hundred
+thousand francs. Why do we all have these shops, these railroads,
+these factories, these theatres, these museums, these lawsuits between
+brothers and sisters, between fathers and sons, these revelations,
+these divisions in families, these murders? All for pieces, more or
+less numerous, of that white or yellow metal which people call silver
+or gold. And pray who will be the most thought of at the end of this
+grand race after money? The man who brings back the most of it. Ah,
+nowadays a man has no business to have more than one object in
+life--and that is to become as rich as possible! For my part, that has
+always been my idea; I have carried it out: I congratulate myself on
+it. Once upon a time everybody found me homely, stupid, a bore; to-day
+everybody finds me handsome, witty, amiable,--and the Lord knows if
+_I_ am witty, amiable, handsome! On the day when I might be stupid
+enough to let myself be ruined, to become plain "Jean" as before,
+there would not be enough stones in the Montmartre quarries to throw
+at my head. But there, that day is a good way off, and meantime many
+of my business acquaintances have been ruined for the sake of keeping
+me from ruin. The last word, too, the greatest praise that I could
+give to wealth, certainly is, that such a circle as I find myself in
+at present has had the patience to listen so long to the son of a
+gardener, who has no other right to their attention than the poor
+little millions that he has made.
+
+_Durieu_ [_aside_]--It is all absolutely true, every word that he has
+been saying--gardener's son that he is! He sees our epoch just as it
+really is.
+
+_Madame Durieu_--Come now, my dear M. De Cayolle, what do you think of
+what M. Giraud has been telling us?
+
+_Cayolle_--I think, madam, that the theories of M. Giraud are sound,
+but sound only as to that society in which M. Giraud has lived until
+now: a world of speculation, whose one object naturally ought to be to
+make money. As to wealth itself, it brings about infamous things, but
+it also brings about great and noble things. In that respect it is
+like human speech: a bad thing for some people, a good thing for
+others, according to the use they make of it. This obligation of our
+state of society that makes a man wake up each morning with taking
+thought of the necessary sum for his personal wants, lest he take what
+does not belong to him, has created the finest intelligence of all the
+ages! It is simply to this need of money every day that we owe
+Franklin, who began the world by being a printer's apprentice;
+Shakespeare, who used to hold horses at the door of the theatre which
+later he was going to immortalize; Machiavelli, who was secretary to
+the Florentine republic at fifteen crowns a month; Raphael, the son of
+a mere dauber; Jean Jacques Rousseau, a notary's clerk and an
+engraver,--one who did not have a dinner every day; Fulton, once upon
+a time a mechanic, who gave us steam: and so many others. Had these
+same people been born with an income of half a million livres apiece,
+there would have been a good many chances that not one of them would
+ever have become what he did become. [_To M. Giraud._] This race after
+wealth, of which you speak, M. Giraud, has good in it: even if it
+enriches some silly people or some rascals, if it procures for them
+the consideration of those in a humble station of life,--of the lower
+classes, of those who have cash relations with society, on the other
+hand there is a great deal of good in the spur given to faculties
+which would otherwise remain stationary; enough good to pardon some
+errors in the distribution of wealth. Just in proportion as you enter
+into the true world of society--a world which is almost unknown to
+you, M. Giraud--you will find that a man who is received there is
+received only in proportion to his personal value. Look around here
+where we are, without taking the trouble to go any further, and you
+will see that money has not the influence you ascribe to it. For
+proof, here is Countess Savelli, with half a million francs income,
+who in place of dining out with millionaires besieging her house every
+day, comes quietly here to dine with our friends the Durieus, people
+without title, poor people measured by her fortune; and she comes here
+for the pleasure of meeting M. De Charzay, who has not more than a
+thousand crowns income, but who, for all the millionaires in the
+world, would never do a thing a man ought not to do; and she meets
+here M. De Roncourt, who has a business of fifteen hundred francs
+because he gave up his fortune to creditors who were not his own
+creditors. There is Mademoiselle De Roncourt, who sacrificed her dowry
+to the same sentiment of honor; yonder is Mademoiselle Durieu, who
+would never be willing to become the wife of any other than an honest
+man, even if he had for his rivals all the Croesuses present and to
+come; and last of all, one meets me here,--a man who has for money (in
+the acceptation that you give the word) the most profound contempt.
+Now, M. Giraud, if we listened to you for so long a time, it is
+because we are well-bred people, and besides, you talk very well; but
+there has been no flattery for your millions in our attention, and the
+proof is that everybody has been listening to me a longer time than to
+you,--listening to me, who have not like you a thousand-franc note to
+put along with every one of my phrases!
+
+_Jean_--Who is that gentleman who has just been speaking?
+
+_Durieu_--That is M. De Cayolle.
+
+_Jean_--The railway director?
+
+_Durieu_--Yes.
+
+_Jean_ [_going to M. De Cayolle_]--M. De Cayolle, I hope you will
+believe that I am very glad to meet you.
+
+_Cayolle_--I dare say you are, monsieur. [_M. De Cayolle as he utters
+the words turns his back upon Giraud and steps aside_.]
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    E. Irenæus Stevenson
+
+
+
+M. DE RÉMONIN'S PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE
+
+From 'L'Étrangère'
+
+
+_Madame de Rumières_--See here, now, Rémonin, you who claim to explain
+everything as a learned man--can you solve this proposition? Why is it
+that with all the quantity of love in this world, there are so many
+unhappy marriages?
+
+_M. Rémonin_--I could give you a perfect explanation, my dear lady, if
+you were not a woman.
+
+_Madame de Rumières_--You mean that the explanation is not decent?
+
+_M. Rémonin_--No, I mean that it is a matter based on the abstract....
+It is this. The reason why marriages are rarely happy, in spite of the
+"quantity of love" in question, is because love and marriage,
+scientifically considered, have no relationship. They belong to two
+sorts of things, completely differing. Love is of the physical.
+Marriage is a matter of chemistry.
+
+_Madame de Rumières_--Explain yourself.
+
+_Rémonin_--Certainly. Love is an element of the natural evolution of
+our being; it comes to us of itself in course of our life, at one time
+or another, independent of all our will, and even without a definite
+object. The human creature can wish to be in love before really loving
+any one!... But marriage is a social combination, an adjustment, that
+refers itself to chemistry, as I have said; since chemistry concerns
+itself with the action of one element on another and the phenomena
+resulting: ... to the end of bringing about family life, morality, and
+labor, and in consequence the welfare of man, as involved in all
+three. Now, so often as you really can conform to the theory of such a
+blending of things, so long as you happen to have effected in marriage
+such a combination of the physical _and_ chemical, all goes well; the
+experiment is happy, it results well. But if you are ignorant or
+maladroit enough to seek and to make a combination of two refractory
+chemical forces in the matrimonial experiment, then in the place of a
+fusion you will find you have only inert forces; and the two elements
+remain there, together but unfused, eternally opposed to each other,
+never able to be united!... Or else there is not merely inertia--there
+are shocks, explosions, catastrophes, accidents, dramas....
+
+_Madame de Rumières_--Have you ever been in love?
+
+_M. Rémonin_--I? My dear marquise, I am a scientist--I have never had
+time! And you?
+
+_Madame de Rumières_--I have loved my children. M. de Rumières was a
+charming man all his life; but he didn't expect me really to love him.
+My son tells me his affairs of the heart; ... my daughter has already
+made me a grandmother ... I have little to reproach myself as to my
+past life, and now I look on at the lives of others, sometimes much
+interested. I am like the subscribers to the Opéra, who know the whole
+repertory by heart, but who can always hear some passages with
+pleasure and who encourage the débutants.
+
+    Condensed and translated for 'A Library of the World's Best
+    Literature,' by E. Irenæus Stevenson.
+
+
+
+REFORMING A FATHER
+
+From 'A Prodigal Father'
+
+
+    [The ensuing dialogue occurs in the first act of the play.
+    The Count de Ravonnieres and his son Andre reside together in
+    their comfortable bachelor's establishment in Paris, and are
+    devotedly attached to one another. The count, unfortunately,
+    has only grown more careless of money, more a gay man of the
+    world, as he has grown older; and blessed with a youthfulness
+    of physique and temperament that nothing impairs, he is as
+    thriftless as he is fascinating. His son, accordingly, has
+    had to be the economist of their resources, which are at a
+    dangerous ebb. As the scene opens, the count is preparing to
+    take luncheon, with Joseph, the confidential servant of the
+    house, in attendance.]
+
+_Joseph_--Monsieur is served.
+
+_Count de Ravonnieres_--Very well. You will please go to my florist
+Lemoine, the Opera florist,--you know who I mean,--and tell him to
+send, to-day, with my card,--he has a lot of cards of mine in
+advance,--to Mademoiselle Albertine de la Borde, 26 or 28 Rue de la
+Paix--I don't exactly remember the number that the lady gave me--
+
+_Joseph_--No. 26.
+
+_Count_--Ah! You know her address, do you?
+
+_Joseph_--Yes, sir.
+
+_Count_--To send her a bouquet of white lilacs and roses. And I don't
+need you any more: go at once. [_Joseph bows, and hands the Count a
+large envelope._] What's all this?
+
+_Joseph_--Some law papers that have come in your absence, sir, which I
+did not think ought to be forwarded to Dieppe.
+
+_Count_ [_without taking the papers_]--Quite right. Has my son seen
+them?
+
+_Joseph_--No, sir.
+
+_Count_--Very well; don't let him see them. Put them away with the
+others.
+
+_Joseph_--May I beg monsieur to say a good word for me to his son?
+
+_Count_--As to what, Joseph?
+
+_Joseph_--Your son, sir, has just told me to look out for another
+situation; and I am so attached to the family--
+
+_Count_--Oh, I will straighten all that out; if my son sends you away
+I will take you into our service again. Come now, get off to my
+florist; be quick about it.
+
+    _As_ Joseph _goes out,_ André _enters. He does not at first
+    perceive his father, but on turning toward the table
+    discovers him._
+
+_André_--Ah! you are here, are you?
+
+_Count_--Yes, I have been here during an hour; and moreover, a very
+agreeable person has been doing the honors of your establishment on my
+behalf.
+
+_André_--It is a fine time to talk about agreeable persons! You are a
+very agreeable person--
+
+_Count_--What in the world is the matter with you?
+
+_André_--I am perfectly furious.
+
+_Count_--Against whom?
+
+_André_--Against you.
+
+_Count_--Why? What have I been doing?
+
+_André_--You have drawn on me at sight this draft here.
+
+_Count_--Oh yes, I know very well what that means. It comes from
+London; it is to pay for the boat, you know.
+
+_André_--Oh yes, it comes from London, and it is to pay for the boat!
+That is no excuse for it. And what about the boat, if you please?
+
+_Count_--But my dear fellow, they had no business to present it until
+the 15th.
+
+_André_--Well?
+
+_Count_--Why, to-day _is_ the 15th!
+
+_André_--You ought to know it.
+
+_Count_--I thought that to-day was only the 14th! Have you paid it?
+
+_André_--Of course.
+
+_Count_--Ah! then I owe you six thousand francs. That's all there is
+to the matter.
+
+_André_--Yes, that's all! But you never said a word to me about it; I
+had no money in the house: I had to send to our man of business. May I
+beg of you in the future to be so good as to--
+
+_Count_--Poor boy! poor boy! Really, between ourselves, you would have
+done a great deal better (as it is a month since you have seen me, and
+since you are really very fond of me) to embrace me in meeting me
+again, rather than to say all these things to me that you have been
+saying!
+
+_André_ [_embracing his father heartily_]--Oh, of course they make no
+difference, when it comes to _that_!
+
+_Count_--Your second impulse is a very good one; but you ought to have
+begun with it. All the same, I do not in the less ask pardon for the
+inconvenience that I have caused you, my boy. [_Takes some bank-notes
+from his pocket._] Here are your six thousand francs, and [_holding
+out the remainder of the notes to André_] since you need money, help
+yourself.
+
+_André_--Where in the world does that money come from?
+
+_Count_--Oh, it is some money that I have received.
+
+_André_--There was none coming to you from anywhere!
+
+_Count_--There is always something to come to one, if he looks around
+carefully. And now let us speak of serious things.
+
+_André_--Yes, by all means. Father, are you not disposed to settle
+down?
+
+_Count_--What do you mean by "settle down"?
+
+_André_--To save money, for one thing.
+
+_Count_--Save money! I should be charmed to do so; but I really do not
+see how we can do it. We certainly live as modestly as possible. This
+house belongs to us; we have only four saddle horses, four carriage
+horses, a couple of extra horses for evening service (we could not get
+along with less), two coachmen, two valets, two grooms, one cook. Why,
+we haven't even a housekeeper.
+
+_André_--No, we only want that!
+
+_Count_--We never receive any except masculine society; we certainly
+are not extravagant as to the table. Look at me here: I am
+breakfasting this minute on two eggs and a glass of water. It seems to
+me that with our fortune--
+
+_André_--Our fortune? Would you like to know in what condition our
+fortune is?
+
+_Count_--You ought to know better than I, since it is you who have had
+the running of affairs since your majority.
+
+_André_--Well then, I _do_ know the expenses; and let me tell you that
+you have counted up only those that are part of our life in Paris, and
+you have not said a syllable of those that belong to our country one.
+
+_Count_--Those that belong to our country one! Those are all just so
+much economy.
+
+_André_--So then the place at Vilsac is just so much economy?
+
+_Count_--Of course. We get everything from it, from eggs up to oxen.
+
+_André_--Yes, and even to wild boars, when it suits you to shoot one.
+Now be so good as to consider the place at Vilsac, which you call a
+matter of economy. First of all, it brings us in absolutely nothing.
+
+_Count_--It never has brought us in anything.
+
+_André_--It is mortgaged for two hundred thousand francs.
+
+_Count_--That happened when I was young.
+
+_André_--Are you under the impression that there comes a time when
+mortgages wear themselves out? I wish they did. But I am afraid that
+you deceive yourself; and in the mean time, you are paying every year
+a mortgagor's interest. Furthermore, at Vilsac--
+
+_Count_--Where, remember, we spend September, October, November, all
+of which is positively an economy--
+
+_André_--Furthermore, as to Vilsac, this summer place where we pass
+September, October, and November,--all of which is positively an
+economy,--the proof of its being an economy is that here we are in the
+middle of September, and we are just setting out for Dieppe.
+
+_Count_--For one time only, by chance! And moreover, we will have to
+go down to Vilsac by the end of the month, for I have asked those
+fellows to come down there for the shooting.
+
+_André_--Yes, in this economical country place, where you have asked
+all those gentlemen to come down for the shooting, at the end of the
+month--
+
+_Count_--Really, one would be bored to death without that!
+
+_André_--In this same economical establishment, I say, you have twelve
+keepers.
+
+_Count_--Quite true; but it is one of the best preserves in France,
+and really, there are so many poachers--
+
+_André_--You have two masters of hounds, you have ten horses,--in
+short, a whole hunting equipage; and I don't speak of the indemnities
+that you pay year by year, if only for the rabbits that you kill.
+
+_Count_--The fact is, there _are_ thousands of rabbits; but shooting
+rabbits is such fun!
+
+_André_--Add to that the entertainments that it occurs to you to give
+every now and then, with fireworks and so on, during the evening.
+
+_Count_--Oh, yes, but that pleases all the peasants of the
+neighborhood, who adore me; between ourselves it _is_ rather--Oh, my
+dear boy! if I had only been rich, what fine things I would have done!
+In France, people do not know how to spend money. In Russia it is
+quite another matter! Now, there you have people who understand how to
+give an entertainment. But then what can anybody do with two hundred
+thousand livres for an income?
+
+_André_--Father, one can do exactly what you have done,--one can ruin
+himself.
+
+_Count_--What! ruin himself?
+
+_André_--Yes. When my mother died your personal fortune brought you,
+as you say, an income of two hundred thousand livres; and the money
+which my mother left to me, of which you have had the use until I came
+of age, amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand livres.
+
+_Count_--I certainly have made an accounting to you in the matter.
+
+_André_--A perfectly exact one, only--
+
+_Count_--Only--?
+
+_André_--Only in doing so you have seriously impaired your own
+capital.
+
+_Count_--Why did you not say that to me at the time?
+
+_André_--Because I too--I was thinking of nothing but spending money.
+
+_Count_--You ought to have warned me about this before now.
+
+_André_--But I--I was doing then just what I see you doing; I was
+taking life exactly as you had taught me to take it.
+
+_Count_--André, I hope that is not a reproach.
+
+_André_--God bless me, no. I am only saying to you why I have not
+looked after your interests better than you have ever done so
+yourself.
+
+_Count_--Very good, Then I am going to explain to you why I brought
+you up--
+
+_André_--Not worth while, my dear father. There is no good in going
+back to that, and I know quite well--
+
+_Count_--On the contrary, you know nothing at all about the matter,
+and you will please allow me to speak. It will be a consolation. You
+are perfectly right as to things that have no common-sense in them;
+and if I have brought you up after a certain manner, it is just
+because I myself suffer from a different kind of education. _I_ was
+brought up very severely; at twenty-two years I knew nothing of life.
+I was born, I was kept hanging on at Vilsac, with my father and my
+mother, who were saints on earth, with my great-uncle, who had the
+gout, and with my tutor, who was an abbé. I was born with a
+constitution like iron. I went hunting day by day for whole months, on
+foot or on horseback. I ate my meals like an ogre. I rode every sort
+of a horse, and I was a swordsman like St. George himself. As for
+other things, my dear fellow, there was no use dreaming about them: I
+had not a crown in my pocket. The other sex--well, I had heard it said
+that there was a world of women somewhere, but I certainly did not
+know where it was. One day my father asked me if I was willing to
+marry, and I cried out, "Oh yes, yes!" with such an explosion that my
+father himself could not help laughing--he who never laughed. I was
+presented to a young girl, virtuous and beautiful; and I fell in love
+with her with a passion which at first fairly frightened the delicate
+and timid creature. Such was your mother, my dear André, and to her I
+owe the two happiest years of my life; it is true that I owe to her
+also my greatest grief, for at the end of those two years she died.
+But it must be said, either to the blame or to the praise of nature,
+that organizations such as mine are proof against the severest shocks.
+At twenty-four years I found myself rich, a widower, free to do what I
+pleased, and thrown--with a child a year old--into the midst of this
+world called Paris, of which I knew nothing whatever. Ought I to have
+condemned you to this sort of life that I had led at Vilsac, and which
+had been for me so often an intolerable bore? No, I obeyed my real
+nature. I gave you my qualities and my shortcomings, without reckoning
+closely in the matter; I have sought in your case your affection
+rather than your obedience or your respect. I have never taught you
+economy, it is true, but then I did not know anything about that
+myself; and besides, I had not a business and a business name to leave
+you. To have everything in common between us, one heart and one purse,
+to be able to give each other everything and say everything to each
+other,--that has been our motto. The puritans will think that they
+have a right to blame this intimacy as too close: let them say so if
+they choose. We have lost, it seems, some hundreds of thousands of
+francs; but we have gained this,--that we can always count upon each
+other, you upon me and I upon you. Either of us will be ready at any
+moment to kill himself for the other, and that is the most important
+matter between a father and a son; all the rest is not worth the
+trouble that one takes to reason about it. Don't you think I am right?
+
+_André_--All that is true, my dear father! and I am just as much
+attached to you as you are to me. Far be it from me to reproach you;
+but now in my turn I want to make a confession to you. You are an
+exception in our society; your fettered youth, your precocious
+widowerhood, are your excuses, if you need any. You were born at a
+time when all France was in a fever, and when the individual, as well
+as the great mass of people, seemed to be striving to spend by every
+possible means a superabundance of vitality. Urged toward active life
+by nature, by curiosity, by temperament, you have cared for things
+that were worth caring for,--for them only; for entertaining yourself,
+for hunting, for fine horses, for the artist world, for people of rank
+and distinction. In such an environment as this you have paid your
+tribute to your country, you have paid the debt of your rank in life
+and of your name. But I, on the other hand, like almost all my
+generation, brought in contact with a fashionable world from the time
+that I began life,--I, born in an epoch of lassitude and
+transition,--I led for a while this life by mere imitation in
+laziness.... It is a kind of existence that no longer amuses me; and
+moreover, I can tell you that it never did amuse me. To sit up all
+night turning over cards; to get up at two o'clock in the afternoon,
+to have horses put to the carriage and go for the drive around the
+Lake, or to ride horseback; to live by day with idlers and to pass my
+evenings with such parasites as your friend M. De Tournas--all that
+seems to me the height of foolishness. And at the bottom of your own
+thoughts you think just as I do. So now, now that you really have got
+to a serious explanation of affairs, let us reach a real irrevocable
+determination of them. Are you willing to let me arrange your life for
+you in the future exactly as I would wish to arrange my own life? Are
+you willing to have confidence in me, and after having brought me up
+in your way, are you willing that in turn, while there is still time
+for it, I should--bring you up in mine?
+
+_Count_--Yes, go on.
+
+_André_--Very well,--to severe diseases strong remedies. You think a
+great deal of our Vilsac estate?
+
+_Count_--I was born there. I should not be sorry to end my days
+there.
+
+_André_--Very well. We will keep Vilsac for you, and find money in
+some other way to pay off the mortgage.
+
+_Count_--How?
+
+_André_--That's my business; only you must send away the two piqueurs,
+and six of the keepers.
+
+_Count_--Poor fellows!
+
+_André_--And only four horses are to be kept. No more entertainments
+are to be given, no more fireworks. You will entertain only two or
+three intimate friends now and then,--if we find as many friends as
+that among all those that are about us nowadays here.--and you will
+stay at Vilsac seven or eight months of the year.
+
+_Count_--Alone!
+
+_André_--Wait a little. I have not finished yet. This house where we
+are must be sold. We must put out of doors these servants, who are
+just so many thieves; and we will keep at Paris only a very modest
+stopping-place.
+
+_Count_--Will you kindly allow me to get my breath?
+
+_André_--Don't stir, or my surgical operation will not be successful.
+Now that your debts are paid there will be left to you--
+
+_Count_--There will be left to me--
+
+_André_--Forty thousand livres income, and as much for me,--no more;
+and with all that, during three or four years you will not have the
+capital at your disposition.
+
+_Count_--Heavens, what a smash!
+
+_André_--Are you willing to accept my scheme?
+
+_Count_--I must.
+
+_André_--Very well, then: sign these papers!
+
+_Count_--What are they?
+
+_André_--They are papers which I have just got from the notary, and
+which I have been expecting to make you sign while at Dieppe and send
+to me; but since you are here--
+
+_Count_ [_signs_]--Since I am here, I may as well sign at once: you
+are quite right,--there you are.
+
+_André_--Very well; now as, according to my notions, just as much as
+you are left to yourself you will slip back into the same errors as in
+the past--
+
+_Count_--What are you going to do further?
+
+_André_--Guess.
+
+_Count_--You are going to forbid--
+
+_André_--Are you out of your senses? I am going to marry you off.
+
+_Count_--Marry me off!
+
+_André_--Without permission.
+
+_Count_--And how about yourself?
+
+_André_--I am going to marry myself off--afterwards. You must begin as
+an example.
+
+_Count_--André, do you know something?
+
+_André_--What?
+
+_Count_--Some one has told you the very thing I have had in mind.
+
+_André_--Nobody has told me anything.
+
+_Count_--Your word on it?
+
+_André_--My word on it.
+
+_Count_--Explain yourself. You, all by yourself, have had this idea of
+marriage?
+
+_André_--I myself.
+
+_Count_--Deny now the sympathy between us!
+
+_André_--Well?
+
+_Count_--It exists [_putting his arms around his son_]. There, embrace
+me!
+
+_André_--And you accept?
+
+_Count_--As if I would do anything else!
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    E. Irenæus Stevenson
+
+
+
+MR. AND MRS. CLARKSON
+
+From 'L'Étrangère'
+
+
+    [These scenes, the final ones of the drama, occur in the
+    private drawing-room of Catherine, the young Duchess of
+    Septmonts. Mr. Clarkson, a wealthy American man of business,
+    a Californian, has just received a note from the Duke of
+    Septmonts, a blasé young roué of high family, requesting him
+    to call at once. He has come, in some bewilderment, to find
+    the duke. Mr. Clarkson has only a formal acquaintance with
+    the duke, but Mrs. Clarkson, who resides much of the time in
+    Paris, acting as Mr. Clarkson's business representative,
+    knows the duke confidentially. The Duchess of Septmonts
+    receives Clarkson.]
+
+_Mr. Clarkson_--I beg your pardon, madam, for having insisted on
+making my way in here; but a few moments ago I found on returning to
+my house, a letter from your husband. It asked me for a rendezvous as
+soon as possible, without giving me a reason for it. I find M. de
+Septmonts not at home. May I ask you if you know how I can be of
+service to him?
+
+_Catherine_--I was under the impression that in his letter, M. de
+Septmonts explained to you the matter in which he wishes your
+assistance.
+
+_Clarkson_--No.
+
+_Catherine_--Did not his letter contain another letter, sealed, which
+he purposed leaving in your hands?
+
+_Clarkson_--No.
+
+_Catherine_--Are you really telling me the truth?
+
+_Clarkson_--I never lie, madam: I have too much business on my hands;
+it would mix me up quite too much in my affairs.
+
+_Catherine_--Then perhaps it is to Mrs. Clarkson that my husband has
+intrusted that letter.
+
+_Clarkson_--No. She would have mentioned it; for I told her that I had
+received a line from the Duke, and was on my way to this house.
+
+_Catherine_--Perhaps your wife did not tell you--all.
+
+_Clarkson_--She has no earthly reason to conceal anything from me!
+
+_Catherine_--True! I know very well that she is your wife only in
+name; she told me as much when I was at her house yesterday.
+
+_Clarkson_--Really! She must be very much pleased with you, for she
+does not talk readily about her personal affairs.
+
+_Catherine_--Unfortunately, it is quite otherwise as far as I am
+concerned; she has not hidden from me the fact that she detests me,
+and that she will do me all the injury she possibly can.
+
+_Clarkson_--You? Injury? For what reason? Pray, what have you done to
+her?
+
+_Catherine_--Nothing! I have known her only two days. Nevertheless--
+
+_Clarkson_--Nevertheless--
+
+_Catherine_--What I was going to say is not my secret, sir, it is
+hers, and she alone has the right to tell it to you. But as to this
+letter that my husband has told my father he has sent to you--it is I
+who wrote that letter. You may as well know, too, that it was
+abstracted from my possession; and moreover, that with that letter any
+one can indeed do me all the mischief with which your wife, Mrs.
+Clarkson, has threatened me.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_very gravely_]--Then we must know at once if my wife has
+that letter. I will write her to come here immediately and join
+us--that I have something very important to communicate to her--here.
+Are you willing to have her come? [_He writes while he speaks._]
+
+_Catherine_--Certainly.
+
+_Clarkson_--Then we can have a general explanation. You may be sure,
+madam, that I shall never lend my hand to anything that means harm to
+you, or to any woman: I come from the country where we respect women.
+
+_Catherine_ [_rings the bell, and says to a servant who answers
+it_]--See that this letter is sent immediately. Be careful that it
+does not go astray. It is not my letter. This gentleman has written
+it. [_Exit servant._]
+
+_Clarkson_--And now, madam, do you know why M. de Septmonts wishes to
+have an interview with me?
+
+_Catherine_--Yes, I can guess. It concerns me, perhaps; but I have no
+right to discuss the matter. It is something which belongs to the
+Duke, and he alone has the right to impart it to you. All I can do is
+to beg of you to have all details thoroughly explained to you, and to
+look into them very carefully.
+
+    _A_ Servant _enters_
+
+_Servant_--M. le Duc has come in; he will be glad to have Mr. Clarkson
+come to him.
+
+_Clarkson_--Very good. [_Going_.] I bid you good evening, madam.
+
+_Catherine_ [_to the servant_]--Wait a moment. [_Going to Clarkson and
+speaking in a low voice._] Suppose I were to ask you a very great
+service.
+
+_Clarkson_--Ask it, madam.
+
+_Catherine_--Suppose I were to ask you to say to my husband that you
+are waiting for him here in this drawing-room--that you will be glad
+to speak with him _here_.
+
+_Clarkson_--Nothing but that? With great pleasure. [_To the servant._]
+Say to M. de Septmonts that I shall be obliged if he will join
+me--here. [_Servant goes out._]
+
+_Catherine_--I shall leave you; for if I know what is going to be
+discussed in this interview, I neither could nor should take part in
+it; but whatever may come of it, I shall never forget that you have
+done everything that you could do as a courtesy to me,--and that you
+are a gentleman. [_Exit Catherine._]
+
+_Clarkson_ [_alone_]--Charming! She is charming, that little woman;
+but may I be hanged if I understand one word of what is going on here.
+
+    The Duke of Septmonts _comes in hastily, and advances to_
+    Clarkson.
+
+_Septmonts_--I have just come from your house, Mr. Clarkson. Mrs.
+Clarkson told me you were here. I returned at once. Pardon me for
+troubling you. If when I came in I asked you to come to my own
+drawing-room, and have thus troubled you once more, it is because I
+was told you were expecting me here, with the duchess. This is her
+private parlor; and as what we have to say is a matter for men--
+
+_Clarkson_--Therefore the duchess went to her own room when your
+return here was announced.
+
+_Septmonts_--Mr. Clarkson, did _she_ tell the servant that you would
+prefer to hold our conversation here?
+
+_Clarkson_--No, I told him.
+
+    [_Septmonts goes to the door of the room by which Catherine
+    went out, and closes the portière._]
+
+_Clarkson_ [_in a scornful aside_]--What an amount of mystery and
+precaution!
+
+_Septmonts_--The matter is this, Mr. Clarkson. I must fight a duel
+to-morrow morning. This duel can terminate only in the death of one or
+other of the contestants. I am the insulted one, therefore I have the
+choice of weapons. I choose the sword.
+
+_Clarkson_--Do you fence well?
+
+_Septmonts_--I believe I am one of the best fencers in Paris. But
+another friend on whom I could count is one of those men of the world
+who discuss all the details of an affair, and with whom the
+preliminaries of such a meeting might last several days. I want to get
+through with the matter at once.
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! The fact is, you _do_ give an importance and a
+solemnity to such things in France that we don't understand, we
+Americans, who settle the question in five minutes on the first corner
+of the street, in the sight of everybody.
+
+_Septmonts_--That is just the reason that I allowed myself to apply to
+you, Mr. Clarkson. Now, are you disposed to be present as my second?
+
+_Clarkson_--Bless me, with all my heart! Besides, when I mentioned
+your letter to Mrs. Clarkson she told me to do all I could to serve
+you. Have you and my wife known each other long?
+
+_Septmonts_--About four years; and I owe your wife a great deal,
+morally speaking. I have no desire to conceal the fact. I was not yet
+married when I met Mrs. Clarkson. One day I had lost a large sum at
+play,--a hundred and fifty thousand francs,--which I did not have, and
+tried in vain to procure; for at that time I was completely ruined.
+Mrs. Clarkson very generously lent me the sum, and I repaid it, with
+interest equivalent to the capital.
+
+_Clarkson_--But as you were ruined, duke, how could you pay this large
+capital and this large interest? Did your father or mother die? In
+France the death of parents is a great resource, I know.
+
+_Septmonts_--No. I was an orphan, and I had no expectations. I
+married.
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah, true! You French people make much of marriages for
+money! It's a great advantage over us Americans, who only marry for
+love. Now with us, in such a case as yours, a man goes into some
+business or other; he goes to mining; he works. But every country has
+its own customs. I beg your pardon for interrupting you. After all, it
+doesn't concern me. Come back to our duel.
+
+_Septmonts_--I have a letter here in my hands--
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! You have a letter in your hands--
+
+_Septmonts_--A letter which compromises my wife--
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! I am completely at your service. I belong to the sort
+of men who do not admit any compromises in matters of that kind.
+
+_Septmonts_--I may be killed--one has to look ahead. If I lose my
+life, I lose it by having been so injured by my wife that I intend to
+be revenged on her.
+
+_Clarkson_--And how?
+
+_Septmonts_--I wish that the contents of this letter, which I have in
+my possession, shall become public property if I am killed.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_coldly_]--Ah! And how can I serve you as to that?
+
+_Septmonts_--I will intrust this sealed letter to you. [_He takes the
+letter from his pocket._] Here it is.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_still more coldly_]--Very well.
+
+_Septmonts_--Now, if I survive, you will restore it to me as it is. If
+not, then in the trial which will follow, you will read it in a court.
+I wish the letters to become public. Then it will be known that I
+avenged my honor under a feigned pretext; and M. Gérard and the
+duchess will be so situated that they will never be able to see each
+other again.
+
+_Clarkson_--Nonsense! Once dead, what does it matter to you?
+
+_Septmonts_--I am firm there. Will you kindly accept the commission?
+
+_Clarkson_ [_in a formal tone_]--Surely.
+
+_Septmonts_--Here is the letter.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_takes it and holds it as he speaks_]--But, duke, now that
+I think about it, when this trial occurs it is probable, even certain,
+that I shall not be in France. I was expecting to leave Paris on
+business to-morrow morning at the latest. I can wait until to-morrow
+evening to please you, and to help you with this duel of yours; but
+that is really all the time I can spare.
+
+_Septmonts_--Very well; then you will have the goodness to give this
+letter to Mrs. Clarkson with the instructions I have just given you,
+and it will be in equally good hands.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_looking at the letter_]--All right. A blank envelope.
+What is there to indicate that this letter was addressed to M. Gérard?
+
+_Septmonts_--The envelope with his name on it is inside.
+
+_Clarkson_--You found this letter?
+
+_Septmonts_--I found it--before it was mailed.
+
+_Clarkson_--And as you had your suspicions you--opened it?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes.
+
+_Clarkson_--I beg your pardon for questioning you so, but you yourself
+did me the honor to say that you wished me to be _fully_ informed. Do
+you know whether the sentiments between M. Gérard and the duchess were
+of long standing?
+
+_Septmonts_--They date from before my marriage.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_looking toward the apartment of the duchess_]--Oh, I see.
+That is serious!
+
+_Septmonts_--They loved each other, they wanted to marry each other,
+but my wife's father would not consent.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_reflectively_]--M. Gérard wanted to marry her, did he?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes; but when he learned that Mademoiselle Mauriceau was
+a millionaire, as he had nothing and had no title other than his plain
+name Gérard, he withdrew his pretensions.
+
+_Clarkson_--That was a very proper thing for the young man to do. It
+doesn't surprise me!
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes; but now, Mr. Clarkson, this young gentleman has come
+back--
+
+_Clarkson_--And is too intimate a friend to your wife?
+
+_Septmonts_--Ah, I do not say that!
+
+_Clarkson_--What do you say, then?
+
+_Septmonts_--That as the letter in question gives that impression, the
+situation amounts to the same thing as far as a legal process is
+concerned.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_thoughtfully and coldly_]--Oh-h-h!
+
+_Septmonts_--Don't you agree with me, Mr. Clarkson?
+
+_Clarkson_--No, not at all. I can understand revenge on those who have
+injured us, but not on those who haven't done so. And I don't like
+vengeance on a woman anyway, even when she is guilty; and certainly
+not when she is innocent; and you owe your wife a great deal--between
+ourselves, you owe your wife a great deal, duke. I understand now why,
+for once, your father-in-law M. Mauriceau sides with his daughter and
+M. Gérard against you. He is sure they both are innocent. By-the-by,
+does M. Mauriceau also know of this letter?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes. He even tried to take it from me by force.
+
+_Clarkson_--Why did he not take it?
+
+_Septmonts_--Ah, because you see, I had the presence of mind to tell
+him that I did not have it any longer--that I had sent it to you!
+
+_Clarkson_ [_ironically_]--That _was_ very clever!
+
+_Septmonts_--And then when M. Gérard had challenged me, M. Mauriceau
+thought he would make an impression by saying to him before me, "I
+will be your second."
+
+_Clarkson_--Well, is that the whole story?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes.
+
+_Clarkson_--Very well, my dear sir: to speak frankly, all those people
+whom you characterize so slightingly seem to me the right kind of
+people--excellent people. Your little wife seems to be the victim of
+prejudices, of morals, and of combinations about which we mere
+American savages don't know anything at all. In our American society,
+which of course I can't compare with yours, as we only date from
+yesterday,--if Mademoiselle Mauriceau had loved a fine young fellow
+like M. Gérard, her father would have given her to the man she loved;
+or if he had refused that, why she would have gone quite simply and
+been married before the justice of the peace! Perhaps her father
+wouldn't have portioned her; but then the husband would have worked,
+gone into business, and the two young people would have been happy all
+the same. As to your M. Gérard here, he is an honest man and a clever
+one. We like people who work, we Americans, and to whatever country
+they belong, we hold them as compatriots--because we are such savages,
+I suppose. So you understand that I don't at all share your opinion of
+this question.
+
+_Septmonts_--And so speaking, you mean--?
+
+_Clarkson_--That if I give you this explanation, it is because I think
+I understand that in paying me the honor of choosing me as a second,
+you thought that the men of my country were less clear-sighted, less
+scrupulous than the men of yours. In short, duke, you thought I would
+lend my hand to all these social pettinesses, these little vilenesses
+which you have just recounted with a candor that honors you.
+
+_Septmonts_--Do you happen to remember, Mr. Clarkson, that you are
+talking to _me_--in this way?
+
+_Clarkson_--To you. Because there are only two of us here! But if you
+like, we will call in other people to listen.
+
+_Septmonts_--Then, sir, you tell me to my face--
+
+_Clarkson_--I tell you to your face that to squander your
+inheritance--to have gambled away money you did not have--to borrow it
+from a woman without knowing when or how you could return it--to marry
+in order to pay your debts and continue your dissipations--to revenge
+yourself now on an innocent woman--to steal letters--to misapply your
+skill in arms by killing a brave man--why, I tell you to your face
+that all that is the work of a rascal, and that therefore a rascal you
+are. Oh, what astonishes me is that fifty people haven't told you so
+already, and that I have had to travel three thousand leagues to
+inform you on the subject! For you don't seem to have ever suspected
+it, and you don't look thoroughly convinced even now.
+
+_Septmonts_ [_controlling himself with the greatest difficulty_]--Mr.
+Clarkson, you know that I cannot call you to account until I have
+settled with your friend M. Gérard. You take a strange advantage of
+the fact, sir. But we shall meet again. Please return me the paper you
+have had from me.
+
+_Clarkson_--Your wife's letter? Never in the world! As it was
+addressed to M. Gérard, it belongs to M. Gérard. I intend to give it
+to M. Gérard. If _he_ wants to return it to you, I won't stand in the
+way; but I doubt whether he will return it.
+
+_Septmonts_--You will fight me, then, you mean?
+
+_Clarkson_--Oh! as for that; yes, fight as much as you like.
+
+_Septmonts_--Very well; when I have finished with the other, you and I
+will have our business together.
+
+_Clarkson_--Say the day after to-morrow, then?
+
+_Septmonts_--The day after to-morrow.
+
+_Clarkson_--Stop; I must start off by to-morrow night, at the latest.
+
+_Septmonts_--You can wait. And while waiting, leave me!
+
+_Clarkson_--Duke, do I look like a man to whom to say "leave" in that
+tone, and who goes? Now look at me; it isn't hard to see what I have
+decided. I don't mean you to fight with Gérard before you have fought
+with me. If Gérard kills you, I shan't have the pleasure of crossing
+swords with "one of the first fencers in Paris," which it will amuse
+me to do. If you kill him, you cause irreparable misfortunes. If you
+think I'm going to let you kill a man who has saved me twenty-five per
+cent. in the cost of washing gold, you are mistaken! Come, prove you
+are brave, even when you aren't sure of being the stronger! Go and get
+a good pair of swords from your room (since the sword is your favorite
+weapon--mine, too, for the matter of that), and follow me to those
+great bare grounds back of your house. On my way here I was wondering
+why in goodness's name they were not utilized. In the heart of the
+city they must be worth a good deal! We will prove it. As for seconds,
+umpires of the point of honor, we'll have the people who pass by in
+the street--if any do pass.
+
+    [_Septmonts rushes in a fury toward the door, but when there
+    stretches his hand toward the bell. Clarkson throws himself
+    between him and the bell._]
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! no ringing, please! Don't play the Louis XV.
+gentleman, and order your servants to cudgel a poor beggar! or as sure
+as my name is Clarkson, I'll slap your face, sir, before all your
+lackeys!
+
+_Septmonts_--Very well, so be it! I _will_ begin with you. [_Angrily
+hastens from the room for the weapons._]
+
+_Clarkson_--Quite right! [_Looking coolly at his watch._] Let me see;
+why, perhaps I _can_ get away from Paris this evening after all. [_He
+goes calmly out at the back toward the darkened garden._]
+
+    [_The Duchess of Septmonts has pulled aside the portière and
+    looks toward the door by which her husband and Mr. Clarkson
+    have gone out. She is very much agitated, and can hardly
+    walk. She rings the bell, and then makes an effort to appear
+    calm. The servant comes in._]
+
+_Catherine_ [_tremulously, to the servant_]--Ask my father to come
+here, immediately. [_The servant goes out. Catherine looks toward the
+window and makes a movement to go to it._] No, I will not look out! I
+will not know anything! I do not know anything; I have _heard_
+nothing; the minutes that that hand marks upon the clock, no one knows
+what they say to me. One of them will decide my life! Even if I had
+heard nothing, things would take the turn that they have, and I should
+merely be amazed in knowing of them. Instead of knowing nothing, I
+have merely to remember nothing. But no, no,--I am trying in vain to
+smother the voice of my own conscience! What I am doing is wicked.
+From the moment that I have known anything about this, I am an
+accomplice; and if one of these two men is killed he has been killed
+with my consent. No, I cannot and I will not. [_She runs toward the
+door. As she does so Mrs. Clarkson enters hastily._] You, you, madam!
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Were you not really expecting me to-day, madam? My
+husband sends me a note to say that you--and he--wish to speak to me
+immediately.
+
+_Catherine_--Madam, since Mr. Clarkson has written you, there has
+occurred a thing which neither your husband, nor I, nor you yourself
+could foresee.
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--What do you mean?
+
+_Catherine_--While my husband the duke has been explaining to Mr.
+Clarkson the reasons of the duel,--which you, you, madam, have
+provoked,--your husband, who did not find these reasons either
+sufficient or honorable, has undertaken to defend us--Gérard, yes,
+Gérard, and me,--and so very forcibly, that at this instant--
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--They are fighting?
+
+_Catherine_--Yes, yes, only a few steps away from here!
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Ah! That sounds like Clarkson! [_She takes a step
+toward the door._]
+
+_Catherine_--Madam, that duel must not go on.
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Why not?
+
+_Catherine_--I will not permit these two men to lose their lives on my
+account.
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--You? What difference does it make to you? They are
+not doing anything but what they chose to do. "Hands off," as the
+officials at the gaming-tables say when the ball has stopped rolling.
+You have wished to be free, haven't you? and you are perfectly right;
+you never said so to anybody, but you begged it all the same of One
+who can do anything. He has heard your prayer, and he has made use of
+me to save you; of me, who have been anxious to destroy you! That is
+justice; and do you think that I object--I who am to be the loser? In
+the game that I play with Destiny, every time I make up my mind that
+God is against me, I bow my head and throw up the game. I don't fear
+any one except God. He is on your side. Let us talk no more about it.
+
+    [_Just as she is speaking the last words, Clarkson comes in.
+    He is very grave._]
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--See there. You are a widow.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_to Mrs. Clarkson_]--My dear Noémi, will you be so kind as
+to hand that paper to our friend the duchess. She will perhaps feel
+some embarrassment in taking it directly from my hand--and it is a
+thing that must be returned to her. Such was the last wish of her
+husband; he really did not have time to tell me as much, but I fancy
+that I guess it right.
+
+    [_Mrs. Clarkson calmly takes the letter and goes to
+    Catherine._]
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--I once said to your friend M. Rémonin that if I lost
+my game I would lose like one who plays fair. Madam, it was through me
+that your marriage came to pass; and now it is through me that your
+marriage--is dissolved. [_Turning to Clarkson._] And now, Clarkson, my
+dear, let us get out of this. You are a good and a brave fellow. I
+will go anywhere with you. I have had enough of Europe--things here
+are too small. Do you know, I really believe I am going to find myself
+in love with you! Come, let us go! I am positively smothering.
+
+_Clarkson_--Yes, let us go.
+
+    [_At the moment that Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson are going out,
+    servants and police officials, accompanied by a commissioner
+    of the police service, appear in the door. Clarkson is
+    pointed out._]
+
+_Commissioner_--I beg your pardon, monsieur,--there seems to have
+been--a murder here.
+
+_Clarkson_--Oh no, monsieur, not at all a murder--only a duel.
+
+_Commissioner_--And am I to understand, monsieur, that it is you who--
+
+_Clarkson_--Oh yes, monsieur, it is I. You have come to take me into
+custody?
+
+_Commissioner_--Yes, monsieur.
+
+_Clarkson_--What a ridiculous country! I am ready to follow you,
+monsieur. But I am an American citizen. I shall give you bail--but of
+course, the law before anything....
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Reckon on me, Clarkson. _I_ shall take charge of this
+matter.
+
+_Clarkson_--How are you going to do that?
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Oh, that's my affair.
+
+    [_Mrs. Clarkson crosses the stage and whispers a word to the
+    commissioner. The commissioner bows very respectfully. Mrs.
+    Clarkson goes out._]
+
+_Commissioner_ [_to Dr. Rémonin_]--You are a doctor, monsieur?
+
+_Rémonin_--Yes, monsieur.
+
+_Commissioner_--Will you have the goodness to give a certificate of
+death?
+
+_Rémonin_ [_significantly_]--With great pleasure!
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    E. Irenæus Stevenson
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE DU MAURIER
+
+(1834-1896)
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER]
+
+
+George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was born in Paris on March
+6th, 1834, and his early life was passed there. His father was a
+Frenchman, who had married an Englishwoman in Paris. The Du Mauriers
+came of an old family in Brittany, Du Maurier's grandfather having
+been a small _rentier_, who derived his living from glass-works.
+During Du Maurier's childhood his parents removed to Belgium and
+thence to London. At seventeen years of age he tried for a degree at
+the Sorbonne in Paris, but was not successful; and he was put, much
+against his will, to study chemistry under Dr. Williamson at
+University College, London. Du Maurier's father, whose characteristics
+are described in 'Peter Ibbetson,' was an amateur of science. It has
+been hinted by the son that certain unlucky experiments, which were
+the result of the elder Du Maurier's fancy for the natural sciences,
+considerably impaired the family fortunes. The father had bent his
+heart on the son's being a man of science, but the son's tastes were
+all for art. He did therefore little good in his chemical studies.
+
+Du Maurier's father died in 1856, and he then devoted himself
+definitely to art. He worked at the British Museum, and made
+considerable progress there. He next went to Paris, and lived the life
+which he has described in 'Trilby.' In 1857 he attended the Academy at
+Antwerp, and studied under De Kaiser and Van Lerius. His severe
+studies at Antwerp had the result that his sight was seriously
+impaired, and he lost the use of his left eye. After two years of
+enforced idleness he went to London to seek his fortune. An old
+acquaintance of his student life in Paris introduced him to Charles
+Reade, who in turn introduced him to Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch.
+Through these acquaintances he obtained employment in drawing for Once
+a Week, Punch, and the Cornhill Magazine. On the death of Leech in
+1864 he was regularly attached to the staff of Punch, and till the
+time of his death continued to work for that periodical with
+ever-increasing success. It is not too much to say that for many years
+Punch was chiefly and mainly Du Maurier. He early marked out for
+himself an entirely new path, which was not in the direction of
+caricature or broad comedy; grace, sentiment, and wit, rather than
+fun, were the characteristics of his work. He confined himself almost
+entirely to society, so that his field was a narrower one than that of
+some of his coadjutors. He had not, for instance, the masculine
+breadth of Leech, who represented with great strength and humor the
+chief characters of English life,--the parson, the soldier, the
+merchant, the farmer, etc.
+
+Du Maurier was almost entirely a carpet knight. He drew London
+society, and a certain phase of London society. The particular society
+which he represented is of very recent existence. Thirty years ago
+there was but one society in London. This was simply the ancient
+aristocratic society of England, which gathered in London in the
+season. It is true that there was an artistic society in London at
+that time, but it was quite apart and of little general recognition or
+influence. But since then there has come up in London a society made
+up chiefly of artists, professional people, and successful merchants
+(having moreover its points of contact with the old society), which is
+very strong and influential. It is this which Du Maurier knew, and
+which he represented. Even here, however, the types he has selected
+for description were very special. But they were presented with so
+much grace and charm that the public never tired of them. To his type
+of woman he was especially faithful: the tall woman with long throat
+and well-defined chin, much resembling the figures of Burne-Jones and
+Rossetti, only somewhat more mundane. We have the same woman in the
+heroine of 'Trilby.'
+
+Though Du Maurier, before beginning 'Peter Ibbetson,' had never
+written a book, he had had considerable literary experience, for he is
+said to have spent as much time upon the construction of the dialogues
+which accompanied his pictures as upon the pictures themselves. The
+story of 'Peter Ibbetson' he had often related to his friends, who had
+urged him to write it down. This he finally did,--at the special
+instance, it is said, of Henry James. It appeared in Harper's Magazine
+in 1891. 'Trilby' was published in 1894 in Harper's Magazine, and at
+once attained a great popular success. The publishers estimate that
+about 250,000 copies of the book have been sold. Du Maurier had sold
+the book outright for £2,000, but when it became apparent that the
+work was to be a success, the publishers admitted the author to a
+royalty, paying at one time $40,000. They also shared with him the
+large sums paid for the dramatization of the work. For 'The Martian,'
+his last novel, he received £10,000 outright. This also was published
+in Harper's Magazine.
+
+It is perhaps too early to pass judgment upon the merits of these
+works. They have, no doubt, grave faults. The story of 'Peter
+Ibbetson' has been completed when it is but two-thirds told. The
+remaining portion of the book is a dream. This is of course a
+dangerous reversal of the usual method of the story-teller, which is
+to make dreams seem like facts. The hypnotic part of 'Trilby' is said
+by the professional authorities on the subject to be bad science. The
+hypnotism in 'Trilby' was perhaps a journalist's idea, that subject
+being much talked of at the time the book was written. Du Maurier, it
+need hardly be said, was by training a journalist, although the
+training had been of the pencil rather than of the pen. The literary
+style of the novels is curious. It makes no pretensions to finish; the
+grammar even is sometimes at fault. But on the other hand, it has
+decided merits. It is particularly easy, flowing, and simple. These
+are not the qualities we should have expected from the nature of Du
+Maurier's literary training. The brief dialogues which he has for so
+many years appended to his sketches in 'Punch' would have educated, we
+should have thought, the qualities of brevity and point rather than
+those of ease and fullness. Certain peculiarities of the style cannot
+be defended, but the author produces his effects in spite of such
+solecisms. This is true of the matter of his stories as well as of the
+style. They are at many points inartistically constructed; but the
+stuff is good, and the works therefore hold their own in spite of
+these drawbacks. They certainly have one virtue, which is most
+necessary to the success of any work of the imagination: they have
+reality. We believe as we read, and continue to believe after we have
+ceased reading, that the Major and Mimsey and Taffy and Trilby are
+real persons. They are real to us because they have in the first case
+been real to their creator. It is possible, however, that the pictures
+which accompany the text may increase the strength of the illusion.
+
+No book, in recent years at any rate, has had so instantaneous and
+prodigious a popular success as 'Trilby.' Popularity is always hard to
+explain with any certainty. It seems to be a quality in the warp and
+woof of the mind of the man that has it. One condition appears to be
+that he shall be in sympathy with the minds of the mass of his
+fellow-beings. There was such a sympathy in Du Maurier's case; and to
+be more particular, his kindly and friendly enthusiasm was a quality
+to commend him to men. He had a power of enjoying beauty in his
+fellow-beings. Then he had had a long education in the qualities that
+make popularity. He had long studied the art of pleasing. It is not
+improbable that in these novels, which were intended for the American
+public, he may have played upon certain of our national
+susceptibilities. We in this country like to have our literature
+taken seriously by the European. It may be that Du Maurier may have
+had an inkling of this, for it is curious to note how much of our
+poetry appears in these novels. Du Maurier had a very nice taste in
+poetry, a genuine enthusiasm for it which it is heartily to be wished
+were shared by all college professors of English literature. Thus, he
+could not have chosen better lines than those which Peter Ibbetson was
+in the habit of reciting to Mimsey, 'The Water-fowl' of
+Bryant,--perhaps the most perfect poem ever produced in this
+country,--a poem so "beautifully carried," as Matthew Arnold once
+described it to the present writer. Poe's beautiful and musical lines,
+written by him at fourteen,--'Helen, thy beauty is to me,'--are also
+made use of. We have a good deal of Longfellow and other American
+writers. 'Ben Bolt' is of course an American song. These appeals to
+our national predilections may have influenced us. But the interest
+and curiosity of our practical and hard-working American public in the
+Bohemian art life of the Latin Quarter was also, no doubt, a chief
+cause of the popularity of 'Trilby.'
+
+Du Maurier did not live long to enjoy his success. He had always been
+known to his friends as a sensitive man, this quality being ascribed
+to ill health. Ill health was no doubt a chief cause of the vexation
+with which he received certain comments upon his books, in some cases
+inspired by envy of his success. Many of his recent contributions to
+Punch have been at the expense of the unsuccessful author, and have
+supported the thesis that ill success was not an indubitable proof of
+genius. When Lord Wolseley asked him what would be the title of his
+next novel, he said 'Soured by Success.' He died in London on October
+8th, 1896.
+
+
+
+AT THE HEART OF BOHEMIA
+
+From 'Trilby' Copyright 1894, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+And then--well, I happen to forget what sort of a day this particular
+day turned into, about six of the clock.
+
+If it was decently fine, the most of them went off to dine at the
+Restaurant de la Couronne, kept by the Père Trin, in the Rue de
+Monsieur, who gave you of his best to eat and drink for twenty sols
+Parisis, or one franc in the coin of the empire. Good distending
+soups, omelets that were only too savory, lentils, red and white
+beans, meat so dressed and sauced and seasoned that you didn't know
+whether it was beef or mutton, flesh, fowl, or good red herring,--or
+even bad, for that matter,--nor very greatly care.
+
+And just the same lettuce, radishes, and cheese of Gruyère or Brie as
+you got at the Trois Frères Provençaux (but not the same butter!). And
+to wash it all down, generous wine in wooden "brocs," that stained a
+lovely aesthetic blue everything it was spilled over.
+
+And you hobnobbed with models, male and female, students of law and
+medicine, painters and sculptors, workmen and blanchisseuses and
+grisettes, and found them very good company, and most improving to
+your French, if your French was of the usual British kind, and even to
+some of your manners, if these were very British indeed. And the
+evening was innocently wound up with billiards, cards, or dominoes at
+the Café du Luxembourg opposite; or at the Théâtre du Luxembourg, in
+the Rue de Madame, to see funny farces with screamingly droll
+Englishmen in them; or still better, at the Jardin Bullier (la
+Closerie des Lilas), to see the students dance the cancan, or try and
+dance it yourself, which is not so easy as it seems; or best of all,
+at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, to see Fechter and Madame Doche in the
+'Dame aux Camélias.'
+
+Or if it were not only fine, but a Saturday afternoon into the
+bargain, the Laird would put on a necktie and a few other necessary
+things, and the three friends would walk arm-in-arm to Taffy's hotel
+in the Rue de Seine, and wait outside till he had made himself as
+presentable as the Laird, which did not take very long. And then
+(Little Billee was always presentable) they would, arm-in-arm, the
+huge Taffy in the middle, descend the Rue de Seine and cross a bridge
+to the Cité, and have a look in at the Morgue. Then back again to the
+quays on the Rive Gauche by the Pont Neuf, to wend their way westward;
+now on one side to look at the print and picture shops and the
+magasins of bric-à-brac, and haply sometimes buy thereof, now on the
+other to finger and cheapen the second-hand books for sale on the
+parapet, and even pick one or two utterly unwanted bargains, never to
+be read or opened again.
+
+When they reached the Pont des Arts they would cross it, stopping in
+the middle to look up the river towards the old Cité and Notre Dame,
+eastward, and dream unutterable things and try to utter them. Then
+turning westward, they would gaze at the glowing sky and all it glowed
+upon--the corner of the Tuileries and the Louvre, the many bridges,
+the Chamber of Deputies, the golden river narrowing its perspective
+and broadening its bed, as it went flowing and winding on its way
+between Passy and Grenelle to St. Cloud, to Rouen, to the Havre, to
+England perhaps--where _they_ didn't want to be just then; and they
+would try and express themselves to the effect that life was
+uncommonly well worth living in that particular city at that
+particular time of the day and year and century, at that particular
+epoch of their own mortal and uncertain lives.
+
+Then, still arm-in-arm and chatting gayly, across the court-yard of
+the Louvre, through gilded gates well guarded by reckless imperial
+Zouaves, up the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as far as the Rue Castiglione,
+where they would stare with greedy eyes at the window of the great
+corner pastry-cook, and marvel at the beautiful assortment of bonbons,
+pralines, dragées, marrons glacés--saccharine, crystalline substances
+of all kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an illumination;
+precious stones, delicately frosted sweets, pearls and diamonds so
+arranged as to melt in the mouth; especially, at this particular time
+of the year, the monstrous Easter eggs of enchanting hue, enshrined
+like costly jewels in caskets of satin and gold; and the Laird, who
+was well read in his English classics and liked to show it, would
+opine that "they managed these things better in France."
+
+Then across the street by a great gate into the Allée des Feuillants,
+and up to the Place de la Concorde--to gaze, but quite without base
+envy, at the smart people coming back from the Bois de Boulogne. For
+even in Paris "carriage people" have a way of looking bored, of taking
+their pleasure sadly, of having nothing to say to each other, as
+though the vibration of so many wheels all rolling home the same way
+every afternoon had hypnotized them into silence, idiocy, and
+melancholia.
+
+And our three musketeers of the brush would speculate on the vanity of
+wealth and rank and fashion; on the satiety that follows in the wake
+of self-indulgence and overtakes it; on the weariness of the pleasures
+that become a toil--as if they knew all about it, had found it all out
+for themselves, and nobody else had ever found it out before!
+
+Then they found out something else--namely, that the sting of healthy
+appetite was becoming intolerable; so they would betake themselves to
+an English eating-house in the Rue de la Madeleine (on the left-hand
+side near the top), where they would renovate their strength and their
+patriotism on British beef and beer, and household bread, and bracing,
+biting, stinging yellow mustard, and horseradish, and noble
+apple-pie, and Cheshire cheese; and get through as much of these in an
+hour or so as they could for talking, talking, talking; such happy
+talk! as full of sanguine hope and enthusiasm, of cocksure
+commendation or condemnation of all painters, dead or alive, of modest
+but firm belief in themselves and each other, as a Paris Easter egg is
+full of sweets and pleasantness (for the young).
+
+And then a stroll on the crowded, well-lighted boulevards, and a bock
+at the café there, at a little three-legged marble table right out on
+the genial asphalt pavement, still talking nineteen to the dozen.
+
+Then home by dark old silent streets and some deserted bridge to their
+beloved Latin Quarter, the Morgue gleaming cold and still and fatal in
+the pale lamplight, and Notre Dame pricking up its watchful twin
+towers, which have looked down for so many centuries on so many happy,
+sanguine, expansive youths walking arm-in-arm by twos and threes, and
+forever talking, talking, talking....
+
+The Laird and Little Billee would see Taffy safe to the door of his
+_hôtel garni_ in the Rue de Seine, where they would find much to say
+to each other before they said good-night--so much that Taffy and
+Little Billee would see the Laird safe to _his_ door, in the Place St.
+Anatole des Arts. And then a discussion would arise between Taffy and
+the Laird on the immortality of the soul, let us say, or the exact
+meaning of the word "gentleman," or the relative merits of Dickens and
+Thackeray, or some such recondite and quite unhackneyed theme, and
+Taffy and the Laird would escort Little Billee to _his_ door, in the
+Place de l'Odéon, and he would re-escort them both back again, and so
+on till any hour you please.
+
+Or again, if it rained, and Paris through the studio window loomed
+lead-colored, with its shiny slate roofs under skies that were ashen
+and sober, and the wild west wind made woeful music among the
+chimney-pots, and little gray waves ran up the river the wrong way,
+and the Morgue looked chill and dark and wet, and almost uninviting
+(even to three healthy-minded young Britons), they would resolve to
+dine and spend a happy evening at home.
+
+Little Billee, taking with him three francs (or even four), would dive
+into back streets and buy a yard or so of crusty new bread, well
+burned on the flat side, a fillet of beef, a litre of wine, potatoes
+and onions, butter, a little cylindrical cheese called "bondon de
+Neufchâtel," tender curly lettuce, with chervil, parsley, spring
+onions, and other fine herbs, and a pod of garlic, which would be
+rubbed on a crust of bread to flavor things with.
+
+Taffy would lay the cloth English-wise, and also make the salad, for
+which, like everybody else I ever met, he had a special receipt of his
+own (putting in the oil first and the vinegar after); and indeed, his
+salads were quite as good as everybody else's.
+
+The Laird, bending over the stove, would cook the onions and beef into
+a savory Scotch mess so cunningly that you could not taste the beef
+for the onions--nor always the onions for the garlic!
+
+And they would dine far better than at le Père Trin's, far better than
+at the English Restaurant in the Rue de la Madeleine--better than
+anywhere else on earth!
+
+And after dinner, what coffee, roasted and ground on the spot, what
+pipes and cigarettes of "caporal," by the light of the three shaded
+lamps, while the rain beat against the big north window, and the wind
+went howling round the quaint old medieval tower at the corner of the
+Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres (the old street of the bad lepers),
+and the damp logs hissed and crackled in the stove!
+
+What jolly talk into the small hours! Thackeray and Dickens again, and
+Tennyson and Byron (who was "not dead yet" in those days); and Titian
+and Velasquez, and young Millais and Holman Hunt (just out); and
+Monsieur Ingres and Monsieur Delacroix, and Balzac and Stendhal and
+George Sand; and the good Dumas! and Edgar Allan Poe; and the glory
+that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome....
+
+Good, honest, innocent, artless prattle--not of the wisest, perhaps,
+nor redolent of the very highest culture (which by the way can mar as
+well as make), nor leading to any very practical result; but quite
+pathetically sweet from the sincerity and fervor of its convictions, a
+profound belief in their importance, and a proud trust in their
+lifelong immutability.
+
+Oh happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and friendship! oh happy
+times of careless impecuniosity, and youth and hope and health and
+strength and freedom--with all Paris for a playground, and its dear
+old unregenerate Latin Quarter for a workshop and a home!
+
+
+
+CHRISTMAS IN THE LATIN QUARTER
+
+From 'Trilby.' Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+Christmas was drawing near.
+
+There were days when the whole Quartier Latin would veil its
+iniquities under fogs almost worthy of the Thames Valley between
+London Bridge and Westminster, and out of the studio window the
+prospect was a dreary blank. No Morgue! no towers of Notre Dame! not
+even the chimney-pots over the way--not even the little mediæval toy
+turret at the corner of the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, Little
+Billee's delight!
+
+The stove had to be crammed till its sides grew a dull deep red,
+before one's fingers could hold a brush or squeeze a bladder; one had
+to box or fence at nine in the morning, that one might recover from
+the cold bath and get warm for the rest of the day!
+
+Taffy and the Laird grew pensive and dreamy, childlike and bland; and
+when they talked, it was generally about Christmas at home in merry
+England and the distant land of cakes, and how good it was to be there
+at such a time--hunting, shooting, curling, and endless carouse!
+
+It was Ho! for the jolly West Riding, and Hey! for the bonnets of
+Bonnie Dundee, till they grew quite homesick, and wanted to start by
+the very next train.
+
+They didn't do anything so foolish. They wrote over to friends in
+London for the biggest turkey, the biggest plum-pudding, that could be
+got for love or money, with mince-pies, and holly and mistletoe, and
+sturdy, short, thick English sausages, half a Stilton cheese, and a
+sirloin of beef--two sirloins, in case one should not be enough.
+
+For they meant to have a Homeric feast in the studio on Christmas
+Day--Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee--and invite all the
+delightful chums I have been trying to describe; and that is just why
+I tried to describe them--Durien, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Carnegie,
+Petrolicoconose, l'Zouzou, and Dodor!
+
+The cooking and waiting should be done by Trilby, her friend Angèle
+Boisse, M. et Mme. Vinard, and such little Vinards as could be trusted
+with glass and crockery and mince-pies; and if that was not enough,
+they would also cook themselves and wait upon each other.
+
+When dinner should be over, supper was to follow, with scarcely any
+interval to speak of; and to partake of this, other guests should be
+bidden--Svengali and Gecko, and perhaps one or two more. No ladies!
+
+For as the unsusceptible Laird expressed it, in the language of a
+gillie he had once met at a servants' dance in a Highland
+country-house, "Them wimmen spiles the ball!"
+
+Elaborate cards of invitation were sent out, in the designing and
+ornamentation of which the Laird and Taffy exhausted all their fancy
+(Little Billee had no time).
+
+Wines and spirits and English beers were procured at great cost from
+M. E. Delevigne's, in the Rue St. Honoré, and liqueurs of every
+description--chartreuse, curaçoa, ratafia de cassis, and anisette; no
+expense was spared.
+
+Also truffled galantines of turkey, tongues, hams, rillettes de Tours,
+pâtés de foie gras, "fromage d'Italie" (which has nothing to do with
+cheese), saucissons d'Arles et de Lyon, with and without garlic, cold
+jellies, peppery and salt--everything that French charcutiers and
+their wives can make out of French pigs, or any other animal whatever,
+beast, bird, or fowl (even cats and rats), for the supper; and sweet
+jellies and cakes, and sweetmeats, and confections of all kinds, from
+the famous pastry-cook at the corner of the Rue Castiglione.
+
+Mouths went watering all day long in joyful anticipation. They water
+somewhat sadly now at the mere remembrance of these delicious
+things--the mere immediate sight or scent of which in these degenerate
+latter days would no longer avail to promote any such delectable
+secretion. Hélas! ahimè! ach weh! ay de mi! eheu! [Greek: oimot]--in
+point of fact, _alas_!
+
+That is the very exclamation I wanted.
+
+Christmas eve came round. The pieces of resistance and plum-pudding
+and mince-pies had not yet arrived from London--but there was plenty
+of time.
+
+_Les trois Angliches_ dined at le Père Trin's, as usual, and played
+billiards and dominoes at the Café du Luxembourg, and possessed their
+souls in patience till it was time to go and hear the midnight mass at
+the Madeleine, where Roucouly, the great baritone of the Opéra
+Comique, was retained to sing Adam's famous Noël.
+
+The whole Quarter seemed alive with the réveillon. It was a clear
+frosty night, with a splendid moon just past the full, and most
+exhilarating was the walk along the quays on the Rive Gauche, over the
+Pont de la Concorde and across the Place thereof, and up the thronged
+Rue de la Madeleine to the massive Parthenaic place of worship that
+always has such a pagan, worldly look of smug and prosperous
+modernity.
+
+They struggled manfully, and found standing and kneeling room among
+that fervent crowd, and heard the impressive service with mixed
+feelings, as became true Britons of very advanced liberal and
+religious opinions; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper
+British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one may be sure).
+
+But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beautiful music, and
+in mere sensuous _attendrissement_ they were quickly in unison with
+all the rest.
+
+For as the clock struck twelve, out pealed the organ, and up rose the
+finest voice in France:
+
+  "Minuit, Chrétiens! c'est l'heure solennelle
+  Où l'Homme-Dieu descendit parmi nous!"
+
+And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little Billee and
+submerged him; swept him off his little legs, swept him out of his
+little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love--love of
+his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that
+is and ever was and ever will be--a very large order indeed, even for
+Little Billee.
+
+And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love to one
+figure especially beloved beyond all the rest--one figure erect on
+high, with arms outstretched to him, in more than common fellowship of
+need: not the sorrowful Figure crowned with thorns, for it was in the
+likeness of a woman; but never that of the Virgin Mother of our Lord.
+
+It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif, all but
+lost amid the scum of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby, weak and
+mortal like himself, and in woeful want of pardon! and in her gray
+dove-like eyes he saw the shining of so great a love that he was
+abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his
+forever, come what would or could.
+
+  "Peuple, debout! Chante ta délivrance!
+  _Noël! Noël! Voici le Rédempteur!_"
+
+So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big deep metallic baritone
+bass--above the organ, above the incense, above everything else in the
+world--till the very universe seemed to shake with the rolling thunder
+of that great message of love and forgiveness!
+
+Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to magnify and
+exaggerate all things under the subtle stimulus of sound, and the
+singing human voice had especially strange power to penetrate into his
+inmost depths--even the voice of man!
+
+And what voice but the deepest and gravest and grandest there is, can
+give worthy utterance to such a message as that,--the epitome, the
+abstract, the very essence of all collective humanity's wisdom at its
+best!
+
+
+
+"DREAMING TRUE"
+
+From 'Peter Ibbetson.' Copyright 1891, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+As I sat down on a bench by the old willow (where the rat lived), and
+gazed and gazed, it almost surprised me that the very intensity of my
+desire did not of itself suffice to call up the old familiar faces and
+forms, and conjure away these modern intruders. The power to do this
+seemed almost within my reach: I willed and willed and willed with all
+my might, but in vain; I could not cheat my sight or hearing for a
+moment. There they remained, unconscious and undisturbed, those happy,
+well-mannered, well-appointed little French people, and fed the gold
+and silver fish; and there with an aching heart I left them.
+
+Oh, surely, surely, I cried to myself, we ought to find some means of
+possessing the past more fully and completely than we do. Life is not
+worth living for many of us, if a want so desperate and yet so natural
+can never be satisfied. Memory is but a poor rudimentary thing that we
+had better be without, if it can only lead us to the verge of
+consummation like this, and madden us with a desire it cannot slake.
+The touch of a vanished hand, the sound of a voice that is still, the
+tender grace of a day that is dead, should be ours forever at our beck
+and call, by some exquisite and quite conceivable illusion of the
+senses.
+
+Alas! alas! I have hardly the hope of ever meeting my beloved ones
+again in another life. Oh, to meet their too dimly remembered forms in
+this, just as they once were, by some trick of my own brain! To see
+them with the eye, and hear them with the ear, and tread with them the
+old obliterated ways as in a waking dream! It would be well worth
+going mad, to become such a self-conjurer as that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la Michodière.
+
+Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still jingling in
+my ears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its ineffable smile,
+still printed on the retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep.
+
+And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real, inner life
+began!
+
+All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbled
+together after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kind
+of nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode;
+everything that I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now
+the strange, vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the
+distressing sense of change and desolation.
+
+As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left
+there was a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three
+feet high and much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger
+than himself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their
+eyes, and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz together
+to an old familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their
+sides; and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon
+I perceived that their crooked faces were not really funny; indeed,
+they were fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious
+that these deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the
+avenue gate for which I was bound--to cut me off, that they might run
+me into the prison, where it was their custom to hang people of a
+Monday morning.
+
+In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue gate, and there
+stood the Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes and a kind
+smile--a heavenly vision of strength and reality.
+
+"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid--those little
+people don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here."
+
+And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; and
+I felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else--some
+strange thing that had happened to me, some new life that I had woke
+up to.
+
+For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my sense of being I,
+myself, which hitherto in my dream (as in all previous dreams up to
+then) had been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazed
+into full, consistent, practical activity--just as it is in life, when
+one is well awake and much interested in what is going on; only with
+perceptions far keener and more alert.
+
+I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and remembered all the
+events of the previous day. I was conscious that my real body,
+undressed and in bed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the
+fourth floor of an _hôtel garni_ in the Rue de la Michodière. I knew
+this perfectly; and yet here was my body too, just as substantial,
+with all my clothes on; my boots rather dusty, my shirt collar damp
+with the heat, for it was hot. With my disengaged hand I felt in my
+trousers pocket; there were my London latch-key, my purse, my
+penknife; my handkerchief in the breast pocket of my coat, and in its
+tail pockets my gloves and pipe-case, and the little water-color box I
+had bought that morning. I looked at my watch; it was going, and
+marked eleven. I pinched myself, I coughed, I did all one usually does
+under the pressure of some immense surprise, to assure myself that I
+was awake; and I _was_, and yet here I stood, actually hand in hand
+with a lady to whom I had never been introduced (and who seemed much
+tickled at my confusion); and staring now at her, now at my old
+school.
+
+The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards, and lo! in its
+place was M. Saindou's _maison d'éducation_, just as it had been of
+old. I even recognized on the yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry
+mud, made fifteen years ago by a day boy called Parisot, who had
+fallen down in the gutter close by, and thus left his mark on getting
+up again; and it had remained there for months, till it had been
+whitewashed away in the holidays. Here it was anew, after fifteen
+years.
+
+The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus was drawn up
+to the gates of the school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit
+each other, as French horses always did in those days. The driver
+swore at them perfunctorily.
+
+A crowd was looking on--le Père et la Mère François, Madame Liard the
+grocer's wife, and other people, whom I remembered at once with
+delight. Just in front of us a small boy and girl were looking on,
+like the rest, and I recognized the back and the cropped head and thin
+legs of Mimsey Seraskier.
+
+A barrel organ was playing a pretty tune I knew quite well, and had
+forgotten.
+
+The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and full of
+self-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen boys whose faces
+and names were quite familiar to me, in smart white trousers and
+shining boots, and silken white bands round their left arms, got into
+the omnibus, and were driven away in a glorified manner--as it
+seemed--to heaven in a golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and
+hear.
+
+I was still holding the duchess's hand, and felt the warmth of it
+through her glove; it stole up my arm like a magnetic current. I was
+in Elysium; a heavenly sense had come over me that at last my
+periphery had been victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine--a
+most powerful and beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault in my
+impenetrable armor of self, after all, and the genius of strength and
+charity and loving-kindness had found it out.
+
+"Now you're dreaming true," she said. "Where are those boys going?"
+
+"To church, to make their _première communion_," I replied.
+
+"That's right. You're dreaming true because I've got you by the hand.
+Do you know that tune?"
+
+I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of the past, and I
+said them to her, and she laughed again, with her eyes screwed up
+deliciously.
+
+"Quite right--quite!" she exclaimed. "How odd that you should know
+them! How well you pronounce French for an Englishman! For you are Mr.
+Ibbetson, Lady Cray's architect?"
+
+I assented, and she let go my hand.
+
+The street was full of people--familiar forms and faces and voices,
+chatting together and looking down the road after the yellow omnibus;
+old attitudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old forgotten French
+ways of speech--all as it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we
+walked up the now deserted avenue.
+
+The happiness, the enchantment of it all! Could it be that I was dead,
+that I had died suddenly in my sleep, at the hotel in the Rue de la
+Michodière? Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead too--had
+been killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to Paris? and
+that, both having died, so near each other, we had begun our eternal
+after-life in this heavenly fashion?
+
+That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told me that
+this was not death, but transcendent earthly life--and also, alas!
+that it would not endure forever!
+
+I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every movement of
+her body, every detail of her dress,--more so than I could have been
+in actual life,--and said to myself, "Whatever this is, it is no
+dream." But I felt there was about me the unspeakable elation which
+can come to us only in our waking moments when we are at our very
+best; and then only feebly, in comparison with this, and to many of us
+never. It never had to me, since that morning when I had found the
+little wheelbarrow.
+
+I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a slight
+touch of the dream in it. It was no longer quite right, and was
+getting out of drawing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my
+stay--the touch of her hand.
+
+"Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson?"
+
+"I am afraid not quite," I replied.
+
+"You must try by yourself a little--try hard. Look at this house; what
+is written on the portico?"
+
+I saw written in gold letters the words "Tête Noire," and said so.
+
+She rippled with laughter, and said, "No, try again;" and just touched
+me with the tip of her finger for a moment.
+
+I tried again, and said "Parvis Notre Dame."
+
+"That's rather better," she said, and touched me again; and I read,
+"Parva sed Apta," as I had so often read there before in old days.
+
+"And now look at that old house over there," pointing to my old home;
+"how many windows are there in the top story?"
+
+I said seven.
+
+"No; there are five. Look again!" and there were five; and the whole
+house was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it had been once
+upon a time. I could see Thérèse through one of the windows, making my
+bed.
+
+"That's better," said the duchess; "you will soon do it--it's very
+easy--_ce n'est que le premier pas_! My father taught me; you must
+always sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your hands
+clasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left,
+unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment cease
+thinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep and
+get there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what you
+were when awake. You must join the dream on to reality. Don't forget.
+And now I will say good-by; but before I go, give me both your hands,
+and look round everywhere as far as your eye can see."
+
+It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes, and through
+them all my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in the whole
+familiar scene, even to the distant woods of Ville d'Avray, a glimpse
+of which was visible through an opening in the trees; even to the
+smoke of a train making its way to Versailles, miles off; and the old
+telegraph, working its black arms on the top of Mont Valérien.
+
+"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward, whenever you
+come here, you will be safe as far as your sight can reach,--from this
+spot,--all through my introduction. See what it is to have a friend at
+court! No more little dancing jailers! And then you can gradually get
+farther by yourself.
+
+"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne--there's
+a gap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything
+plain in front of you--_true_, before you go a step farther, or else
+you'll have to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will
+it, and think yourself as awake, and it will come--on condition, of
+course, that you have been there before. And mind, also, you must take
+care how you touch things or people--you may hear, see, and smell; but
+you mustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about.
+It blurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why,
+but it does. You must remember that everything here is dead and gone
+by. With you and me it is different; we're alive and real--that is,
+_I_ am; and there would seem to be no mistake about your being real
+too, Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you're _not_; and
+why you are here, and what business you have in this my particular
+dream, I cannot understand; no living person has ever come into it
+before. I can't make it out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality
+this afternoon, looking out of the window at the Tête Noire, and you
+are just a stray figment of my over-tired brain--a very agreeable
+figment, I admit; but you don't exist here just now--you can't
+possibly; you are somewhere else, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille,
+perhaps, or fast asleep somewhere, and dreaming of French churches and
+palaces, and public fountains, like a good young British
+architect--otherwise I shouldn't talk to you like this, you may be
+sure!
+
+"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you,
+and you are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come--especially as
+you are only a false dream of mine, for what else _can_ you be? And
+now I must leave you: so good-by."
+
+She disengaged her hands and laughed her angelic laugh, and then
+turned towards the park. I watched her tall straight figure and
+blowing skirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a
+thicket that I remembered well, and she was soon out of sight.
+
+I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had taken
+flight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from my
+possession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.
+
+Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she had
+disappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered this
+would not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream
+of mine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a stray
+figment of my over-tired and excited brain--a _more_ than agreeable
+figment (what else _could_ she be!)--she was also a great lady, and
+had treated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singular
+courtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep
+and strong that my very life was hers to do what she liked with, and
+always had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long as
+there was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an
+acquaintance without a proper introduction, even in France--even in a
+dream. Even in dreams one must be polite, even to stray figments of
+one's tired, sleeping brain.
+
+And then what business had _she_ in _this_, _my_ particular dream--as
+she herself had asked of me?
+
+But _was_ it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville, that I
+had left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was--why I came to
+Paris; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I was
+now fast asleep, its loudly ticking clock, and all the meagre
+furniture. And here was I, broad awake and conscious in the middle of
+an old avenue that had long ceased to exist--that had been built over
+by a huge brick edifice covered with newly painted trellis-work. I saw
+it,--this edifice,--myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was
+everything as it had been when I was a child; and all through the
+agency of this solid phantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose
+warm gloved hands I had only this minute been holding in mine! The
+scent of her gloves was still in my palm. I looked at my watch; it
+marked twenty-three minutes to twelve. All this had happened in less
+than three-quarters of an hour!
+
+Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my steps
+towards my old home, and to my surprise, was just able to look over
+the garden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high.
+
+Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning small
+socks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them)
+half concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. My
+heart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breath was
+short.
+
+At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, rather
+quaintly dressed in a bygone fashion, with a frill round his wide
+shirt collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and
+rather long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a
+very nice little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and
+a gilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it
+was 'Elegant Extracts.' The dog Médor lay asleep in the shade. The
+bees were droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.
+
+A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed the
+garden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into the
+garden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did the
+others. It was Mimsey Seraskier.
+
+I went and sat at my mother's feet, and looked long in her face.
+
+I must not speak to her nor touch her--not even touch her busy hand
+with my lips, or I should "blur the dream."
+
+I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was translating
+Gray's Elegy into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to be
+stumped by the line--
+
+  "And leaves the world to darkness and to me."
+
+Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in her
+mouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She seemed to be stumped
+also; it was an awkward line to translate.
+
+I stooped and put my hand to Médor's nose, and felt his warm breath.
+He wagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey
+said:--
+
+"Regarde Médor, comme il remue la queue! _C'est le Prince Charmant qui
+lui chatouille le bout du nez._"
+
+Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto:--
+
+"Do speak English, Mimsey, please."
+
+O my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar, so
+unutterably dear! I rushed to her and threw myself on my knees at her
+feet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"
+
+A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost.
+All became as a dream--a beautiful dream, but only a dream; and I
+woke.
+
+
+
+BARTY JOSSELIN AT SCHOOL
+
+From 'The Martian'
+
+From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+Indeed, even from his early boyhood, he was the most extraordinarily
+gifted creature I have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of
+spontaneous humorous Crichton to whom all things came easily--and life
+itself as an uncommonly good joke. During that summer term of 1847 I
+did not see very much of him. He was in the class below mine, and took
+up with Laferté and little Bussy-Rabutin, who were first-rate boys,
+and laughed at everything he said, and worshiped him. So did everybody
+else, sooner or later; indeed, it soon became evident that he was a
+most exceptional little person.
+
+In the first place, his beauty was absolutely angelic, as will be
+readily believed by all who have known him since. The mere sight of
+him as a boy made people pity his father and mother for being dead!
+
+Then he had a charming gift of singing little French and English
+ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe, and
+accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar without
+really knowing a note of music. Then he could draw caricatures that
+we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than Cham's or Bertall's or
+Gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. I have dozens of them
+now--they make me laugh still, and bring back memories of which the
+charm is indescribable; and their pathos to me!
+
+And then how funny he was himself, without effort, and with a fun that
+never failed! He was a born buffoon of the graceful kind,--more whelp
+or kitten than monkey--ever playing the fool, in and out of season,
+but somehow always apropos; and French boys love a boy for that more
+than anything else; or did in those days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring
+Norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well-fed,
+well-bred Yorkshire squires), was magnificent. His spirits never
+failed. He could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye;
+this was often tested by M. Dumollard, maître de mathématiques (et de
+cosmographie), who had a telescope, which, with a little good-will on
+the gazer's part, made Jupiter look as big as the moon, and its moons
+like stars of the first magnitude.
+
+His sense of hearing was also exceptionally keen. He could hear a
+watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which
+ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we
+played blindman's buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell
+every boy he caught hold of--not by feeling him all over like the rest
+of us, but by the mere smell of his hair, or his hands, or his blouse!
+No wonder he was so much more alive than the rest of us! According to
+the amiable, modest, polite, delicately humorous, and ever tolerant
+and considerate Professor Max Nordau, this perfection of the olfactory
+sense proclaims poor Barty a degenerate! I only wish there were a few
+more like him, and that I were a little more like him myself!
+
+By the way, how proud young Germany must feel of its enlightened Max,
+and how fond of him, to be sure! _Mes compliments!_
+
+But the most astounding thing of all (it seems incredible, but all the
+world knows it by this time, and it will be accounted for later on) is
+that at certain times and seasons Barty knew by an infallible instinct
+_where the north was_, to a point. Most of my readers will remember
+his extraordinary evidence as a witness in the "Rangoon" trial, and
+how this power was tested in open court, and how important were the
+issues involved, and how he refused to give any explanation of a gift
+so extraordinary.
+
+It was often tried at school by blindfolding him, and turning him
+round and round till he was giddy, and asking him to point out where
+the North Pole was, or the North Star, and seven or eight times out of
+ten the answer was unerringly right. When he failed, he knew
+beforehand that for the time being he had lost the power, but could
+never say why. Little Doctor Larcher could never get over his surprise
+at this strange phenomenon, nor explain it; and often brought some
+scientific friend from Paris to test it, who was equally nonplussed.
+
+When cross-examined, Barty would merely say:--
+
+"Quelquefois je sais--quelquefois je ne sais pas--mais quand je sais,
+je sais, et il n'y pas à s'y tromper!"
+
+Indeed, on one occasion that I remember well a very strange thing
+happened; he not only pointed out the north with absolute accuracy, as
+he stood carefully blindfolded in the gymnastic ground, after having
+been turned and twisted again and again--but still blindfolded, he
+vaulted the wire fence and ran round to the refectory door, which
+served as the home at rounders, all of us following; and there he
+danced a surprising dance of his own invention, that he called 'La
+Paladine,' the most humorously graceful and grotesque exhibition I
+ever saw; and then, taking a ball out of his pocket, he shouted, "À
+l'amandier!" and threw the ball. Straight and swift it flew, and hit
+the almond tree, which was quite twenty yards off; and after this he
+ran round the yard from base to base, as at "la balle au camp," till
+he reached the camp again.
+
+"If ever he goes blind," said the wondering M. Mérovée, "he'll never
+need a dog to lead him about."
+
+"He must have some special friend above!" said Madame Germain
+(Mérovée's sister, who was looking on).
+
+_Prophetic words!_ I have never forgotten them, nor the tear that
+glistened in each of her kind eyes as she spoke. She was a deeply
+religious and very emotional person, and loved Barty almost as if he
+were a child of her own.
+
+Such women have strange intuitions.
+
+Barty was often asked to repeat this astonishing performance before
+skeptical people--parents of boys, visitors, etc.--who had been told
+of it, and who believed he could not have been properly blindfolded;
+but he could never be induced to do so.
+
+There was no mistake about the blindfolding--I helped in it myself;
+and he afterwards told me the whole thing was "aussi simple que
+bonjour" if once he felt the north--for then, with his back to the
+refectory door, he knew exactly the position and distance of every
+tree from where he was.
+
+"It's all nonsense about my going blind and being able to do without a
+dog," he added; "I should be just as helpless as any other blind man,
+unless I was in a place I knew as well as my own pocket--like this
+play-ground! Besides, _I_ shan't go blind; nothing will ever happen to
+_my_ eyes--they're the strongest and best in the whole school!"
+
+He said this exultingly, dilating his nostrils and chest; and looked
+proudly up and around, like Ajax defying the lightning.
+
+"But what _do_ you feel when you feel the north, Barty--a kind of
+tingling?" I asked.
+
+"Oh--I feel where it is--as if I'd got a mariner's compass trembling
+inside my stomach--and as if I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything in
+the world--as if I could go and have my head chopped off and not care
+a fig."
+
+"Ah, well--I can't make it out--I give it up," I exclaimed.
+
+"So do I," exclaims Barty.
+
+"But tell me, Barty," I whispered--"_have_ you--have you _really_ got
+a--a--_special friend above_?"
+
+"Ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said Barty, and winked at
+me one eye after the other--and went about his business, and I about
+mine.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM DUNBAR
+
+(1465?-1530?)
+
+
+A picturesque figure in a picturesque age is that of William Dunbar,
+court minstrel to James IV., and as Sir Walter Scott declared, "a poet
+unrivaled by any that Scotland has ever produced." Little of his
+personal history is known. Probably he was a native of East Lothian,
+a member of the family of the Earl of March, and a graduate of St.
+Andrews University about the year 1479. After his college days he
+joined the order of Franciscans and became a mendicant friar,
+preaching the queer sermons of his time, and begging his way through
+England and France. Yet in these pilgrimages the young scholar learned
+useful habits of self-denial, saw new phases of human character, and
+above all enjoyed that close communion with nature which is the need
+of the poet. Over and over there is a reflection of this life in that
+fanciful verse, which has caught the color of the morning hours when
+the hedgerows are wet and the grass dewy, when the wild roses scent
+the roadside and the lark is at matins--verse full of the joy of life
+and the hope of youth.
+
+After some years of this vagabond life, Dunbar left the Franciscans
+and attached himself to the court, where he speedily became a
+favorite. His day was one of pageant and show, of masque and
+spectacle, and into its gay assemblage of knights and courtiers,
+ladies and great nobles, Dunbar fitted perfectly. When an embassy was
+sent to England to negotiate the royal marriage with Margaret Tudor,
+Dunbar went along, being specially accredited by the king. He became a
+favorite with the young Princess, and a poem written in honor of the
+city of London, and one descriptive of the Queen's Progress, afford a
+faithful and valuable memorial of this mission. History is fortunate
+when she secures a poet as her scribe. Dunbar is principally known by
+his three poems 'The Thistle and the Rose,' 'The Golden Targe,' and
+'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins.'
+
+The first of these is an allegory celebrating the nuptials of the
+king. It suggests of course the allegories of Chaucer; but Dunbar's
+muse is his own, and the poem springs fresh and clear from native
+fonts. The poet represents himself as awakened by Aurora on a spring
+morning and told to do homage to May. Through the symbolism of the
+court of Nature, who crowns the Lion and Eagle, commissions the
+Thistle and Rose as her handmaidens, and orders their praises sung by
+the assembled birds of earth, the political significance of the
+allegory appears. But 'The Thistle and the Rose,' which is thus made
+to illustrate the union between the two great houses of Scotland and
+England, is far more than the poem of an occasion. It is full of the
+melody and fragrance of spring, saturated with that sensuous delight
+which at this bountiful season fills the veins of Nature. Here Dunbar
+is no longer the court laureate, but the begging friar, wandering
+through the green lanes and finding bed and board under the free
+skies.
+
+'The Golden Targe' is more artificial in construction. It is another
+allegory, descriptive of an encounter between Cupid and Reason, who is
+defended by a golden targe or shield from the attacks of love. Here
+again the rural landscape forms a background to his mimic action.
+Amazons dressed in green fight the battle of Cupid, and vanquish
+Reason, then magically vanish and leave the poet to awake from his
+dream. 'The Golden Targe' was a poem to be read in the royal presence,
+when the court assembled after a day's hunting or an afternoon of
+archery; but it is filled with the ethereal loveliness which only the
+true poet beholds.
+
+It is in 'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins' that Dunbar touches the
+note of seriousness, which characterizes his race and his individual
+genius. This satire is not so unsparing an indictment as the vision of
+Piers Ploughman, and yet it provokes inevitable comparison with the
+older poem. In a dream the poet sees heaven and hell opened. It is the
+eve of Ash Wednesday, and the Devil has commanded a dance to be
+performed by those spirits that had never received absolution. In
+obedience to this command the Seven Deadly Sins present a masque
+before his Satanic Majesty, and it is in the description of this
+grisly performance that Dunbar reveals a new aspect of power. The
+comedy here is not comic, but grotesque and horrid. The vision of the
+Scot is the vision that came to the poets of the 'Inferno' and
+'Paradise Lost,' and it shows that his imagination was capable of the
+loftiest flights.
+
+After the melancholy day of Flodden Field, the Scottish laureateship
+ceased to exist, but it is remarkable that so prominent a man as
+Dunbar should so completely have disappeared from contemporary view
+that his subsequent career and the time of his death are matters of
+doubt. His period is given as between the years 1465 and 1530, but
+these dates are only approximate.
+
+Had Dunbar held his genius in hand as completely as did Chaucer, his
+accomplishment would doubtless have been greater than it was. Yet his
+place in literature is that of one of the most important poets of the
+fifteenth century, the age of Caxton and bookmaking, the time of that
+first flush of radiance which ushered in the full day of Spenser and
+Shakespeare.
+
+
+
+THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE
+
+
+  Quhen Merche wes with variand windis past,
+    And Appryle had, with her silver schouris,
+  Tane leif at Nature with ane orient blast,
+    And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris,
+    Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris
+  Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt,
+  Quhois armony to heir it wes delyt:
+
+  In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay,
+    Me thocht Aurora with hir cristall ene
+  In at the window lukit by the day,
+    And halsit me, with visage paill and grene;
+    On quhois hand a lark sang fro the splene:--
+  Awalk, luvaris, out of you slomering;
+  Sé hou the lusty morrow dois up spring.
+
+  Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed up stude,
+    In weid depaynt of mony diverss hew,
+  Sobir, benyng, and full of mansuetude,
+    In brycht atteir of flouris forgit new,
+    Hevinly of color, quhyt, reid, broun and blew,
+  Balmit in dew, and gilt with Phebus bemys;
+  Quhyll all the house illumynit of her lemys.
+
+  Slugird, sche said, awalk annone for schame,
+    And in my honour sum thing thou go wryt;
+  The lark hes done the mirry day proclame,
+    To raise up luvaris with confort and delyt;
+    Yit nocht incressis thy curage to indyt,
+  Quhois hairt sum tyme hes glaid and blisfull bene,
+  Sangis to mak undir the levis grene.
+
+  Than callit sche all flouris that grew on feild,
+    Discirnyng all thair fassionis and effeiris,
+  Upone the awfull Thrissil sche beheld,
+    And saw him kepit with a busche of speiris;
+    Considering him so able for the weiris,
+  A radius croun of rubeis sche him gaif,
+  And said, In feild go furth and fend the laif:
+
+  And sen thou art a King, thou be discreit;
+    Herb without vertew thow hald nocht of sic pryce
+  As herb of vertew and of odour sueit;
+    And lat no nettill vyle, and full of vyce,
+    Hir fallow to the gudly flour-de-lyce;
+  Nor latt no wyld weid, full of churlicheness,
+  Compair hir till the lilleis nobilness.
+
+  Nor hald non udir flour in sic denty
+    As the fresche Rois, of cullour reid and quhyt:
+  For gife thow dois, hurt is thyne honesty;
+    Considring that no flour is so perfyt,
+    So full of vertew, plesans, and delyt,
+  So full of blisful angeilik bewty,
+  Imperiall birth, honour and dignité.
+
+
+
+FROM 'THE GOLDEN TARGE'
+
+
+  Bryght as the stern of day begouth to schyne
+  Quhen gone to bed war Vesper and Lucyne,
+    I raise, and by a rosere did me rest:
+  Up sprang the goldyn candill matutyne,
+  With clere depurit bemes cristallyne
+    Glading the mery foulis in thair nest;
+    Or Phebus was in purpur cape revest
+  Up raise the lark, the hevyn's menstrale fyne
+    In May, in till a morrow myrthfullest.
+
+  Full angellike thir birdis sang thair houris
+  Within thair courtyns grene, in to thair bouris,
+    Apparalit quhite and red, wyth blomes suete;
+  Anamalit was the felde with all colouris,
+  The perly droppis schuke in silvir schouris;
+    Quhill all in balme did branch and levis flete,
+    To part fra Phebus did Aurora grete;
+  Hir cristall teris I saw hyng on the flouris
+    Quhilk he for lufe all drank up with his hete.
+
+  For mirth of May, wyth skippis and wyth hoppis,
+  The birdis sang upon the tender croppis,
+    With curiouse notis, as Venus chapell clerkis;
+  The rosis yong, new spreding of their knoppis,
+  War powderit brycht with hevinly beriall droppis,
+    Throu bemes rede, birnyng as ruby sperkis;
+    The skyes rang for schoutyng of the larkis.
+
+
+
+NO TREASURE AVAILS WITHOUT GLADNESS
+
+
+  Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind
+    The wavering of this wretchit warld of sorrow;
+  To God be humble, and to thy friend be kind,
+    And with thy neighbour gladly lend and borrow:
+    His chance to-nicht, it may be thine to-morrow;
+  Be blyth in heart for ony aventúre;
+    For oft with wise men't has been said aforrow
+  Without Gladnéss availis no Treasúre.
+
+  Mak thee gude cheer of it that God thee sendis,
+    For warldis wrak but weilfare nocht availis;
+  Nae gude is thine, save only that thou spendis,
+    Remenant all thou brukis but with bailis:
+    Seek to soláce when sadness thee assailis;
+  In dolour lang thy life may not indure,
+    Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sailis;
+  Without Gladnéss availis no Treasúre.
+
+  Follow on pitý, flee trouble and debate,
+    With famous folkis hald thy company;
+  Be charitáble and humble in thine estate,
+    For warldly honour lastis but a cry:
+    For trouble in erd tak no mélancholý;
+  Be rich in patience, give thou in guids be puir;
+    Who livis merry he livis michtily;
+  Without Gladnéss availis no Treasúre.
+
+  Thou sees thir wretches set with sorrow and care
+    To gather guids in all their livis space;
+  And when their bags are full, their selves are bare,
+    And of their riches but the keeping has:
+    While others come to spend it that has grace,
+  Whilk of thy winning no labour had nor cure.
+    Tak thou example, and spend with merriness;
+  Without Gladnéss availis no Treasúre.
+
+  Though all the work that e'er had living wicht
+    Were only thine, no more thy part does fall
+  But meat, drink, clais, and of the lave a sicht,
+    Yet to the Judge thou sall give compt of all;
+    Ane reckoning richt comes of ane ragment small:
+  But just and joyous, do to none injúre,
+    Ane Truth sail mak thee strang as ony wall;
+  Without Gladnéss availis no Treasúre.
+
+
+
+
+JEAN VICTOR DURUY
+
+(1811-1894)
+
+[Illustration: JEAN VICTOR DURUY]
+
+
+Duruy, whose monumental works upon Grecian and Roman history have been
+worthily reproduced in England under the editorship of Professor
+Mahaffy, and in America in sumptuous illustrated editions, was a
+figure of the first importance both in the educational and in the
+distinctly literary history of France, throughout nearly half the
+present century. He became one of the "Immortals" in 1884, succeeding
+to the chair of Mignet; but his 'History of Ancient Greece,' which was
+published in 1862, had been already crowned by the Academy. His more
+extensive 'History of the Grecian People,' published in 1885-1887, won
+from the Academy the Jean Renaud prize of 10,000 francs.
+
+He was born September 11th, 1811, of a family employed in the Gobelins
+tapestry works in Paris. His predilection for study secured him an
+opportunity to enter the College of Sainte-Barbe, whence he passed to
+the Normal School.
+
+When he was twenty-two he began teaching history, first at Rheims, and
+then in the College of Henry IV. in Paris. Here he began his literary
+work, mostly upon school-books, of which he wrote many, mainly
+historical and geographical. He received the degree of Doctor of
+Letters in 1853, and became successively Inspector of the Academy of
+Paris, Master of Conferences at the Normal School, Professor of
+History at the Polytechnic School, and Inspector-General of Secondary
+Instruction. During the whole of this period he had been engaged with
+secondary classes, and had become strongly impressed by the faulty
+condition of the primary and secondary schools. In 1863 Louis Napoleon
+put him at the head of the educational system of the empire as
+Minister of Public Instruction. This appointment gave him the
+opportunity to carry out numerous and important secularizing reforms
+which brought him into sharp collision with the clerical party. He
+held his post as minister for six years--six years of struggle with
+the parsimonious disposition of the administration upon the one hand,
+and with the hostile clericals upon the other.
+
+The measures in which he was especially interested were the
+reorganization of the Museum of Natural History, the extension of
+scientific study, the introduction of the study of modern and
+contemporary history in the lyceums (a dreadful experiment, according
+to his opponents), gratuitous and compulsory primary education, the
+improvement of the night schools, and popular classes for adults. He
+was to a large extent successful in all these, except in the direction
+of compulsory education. The efforts which he made to improve the
+instruction given to young girls brought upon him the tempest. The
+bishops, with Monsignor Dupanloup of Orléans at their head, raised a
+veritable crusade, and Pope Pio Nono himself at length entered the
+hostile ranks. Probably in part because of this conflict, he was
+superseded in 1869 and was made a member of the Senate, from which he
+retired to private life, and the prosecution of his literary labors on
+the fall of the empire, in the following year. He died in 1894.
+
+As an author his style is clear and direct. Among his numerous works
+the most important are the two great histories, for which, as for
+other achievements, honors were heaped upon him. In these he laid
+particular stress upon the _milieu_--the conditions of place, time,
+and race. Consequently he has therein written the history of the Greek
+and Roman peoples, and not merely the history of Greece and Rome,--and
+has pictured them, so far as possible, as they looked and felt and
+thought and acted. He exhibits, for example, the growth of the
+magnificent power of Rome, and its decadence; and shows the
+all-conquering empire subdued to the manners, the gods, and the
+institutions of the conquered. And worse:--"They had become enamored
+of the arts, the letters, and the philosophy of Greece, and dying
+Greece had avenged itself by transmitting to them the corruption which
+had dishonored its old age."
+
+The drift of his argument appears in this paragraph, in which he sums
+up his story of the Eternal City:--"In the earlier portion of its
+history may be seen the happy effects of a progressively liberal
+policy; in the later the baneful consequences of absolute power,
+governing a servile society through a venal administration."
+
+
+
+THE NATIONAL POLICY
+
+From the 'History of Rome'
+
+
+The Roman power, till then confined to the West, was now to penetrate
+into another universe,--that of the successors of Alexander. The
+eternal glory of Rome, the immense benefaction by which she effaces
+the memory of so many unjust wars, is to have reunited those two
+worlds that in all former ages were divided in interest, and strangers
+to each other; is to have mingled and fused the brilliant but corrupt
+civilization of the East with the barbaric energy of the West. The
+Mediterranean became a Roman lake,--_mare nostrum_, they said,--and
+the same life circulated on all its shores, called for the first and
+the last time to a common existence.
+
+In this work were employed a century and a half of struggles and
+diplomacy; for Rome, working for a patient aristocracy and not for a
+man, was not compelled to attain her end at a bound. Instead of
+rearing suddenly one of those colossal monarchies formed like the
+statue of gold with feet of clay, she founded slowly an empire which
+fell only under the weight of years and of the Northern hordes. After
+Zama she could have attempted the conquest of Africa, but she left
+Carthage and the Numidians to enfeeble each other. After Cynoscephalæ
+and Magnesia, Greece and Asia were all ready for the yoke, but she
+accorded them fifty years more of liberty. This was because, along
+with the pride of the Roman name and the necessity for dominion, she
+always retained some of her ancient virtues. The Popiliuses were more
+numerous than the Verreses. Now she preferred to rule the world; later
+she will put it to pillage. Thus, wherever Rome saw strength she sent
+her legions; all power was broken; the ties of States and leagues were
+shattered; and when her soldiers were recalled they left behind them
+only weakness and anarchy. But the task of the legions accomplished,
+that of the Senate began. After force came craft and diplomacy. Those
+senators, grown old amidst the terrors of the second Punic war, seemed
+now to have less pleasure in arms than in the game of politics,--the
+first, in all ages, of Italian arts.
+
+Several other causes dictated this policy of reserve. Against the
+Gauls, the Samnites, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal,--in other words, for the
+defense of Latium and of Italy,--Rome had employed all her strength;
+it was then a question of her existence: whereas, in the wars with
+Greece and with Asia, her ambition and her pride alone were
+interested; and wisdom demanded that some relaxation be given to the
+plebeians and the allies. The Senate had moreover too many affairs on
+its hands--the wars with Spain, with Corsica, with Cisalpina, and with
+Istria--to admit of its becoming deeply involved in the East.
+Therefore two legions only will fight Philip and Antiochus--that will
+suffice to conquer, but would be too little to despoil them.
+Furthermore, the Senate believed that in penetrating into this Greek
+world, where an old glory concealed so much weakness, they could not
+accord too much to prudence. These pitiless enemies of the Volscians
+and the Samnites will not proceed in their next wars by exterminating
+their adversaries and wasting their country. "It was not with such a
+purpose," said they, "that they came to pour out their blood; they
+took in hand the cause of oppressed Greece." And that language and
+that policy they will not change after victory. The first act of
+Flamininus, on the day after Cynoscephalæ, was to proclaim the liberty
+of the Greeks. All who bore that respected name seemed to have the
+right to Roman protection; and the little Greek cities of Caria, and
+of the coasts of Asia and Thrace, received with astonishment their
+liberty from a people that they hardly knew. All were captivated
+by this apparent generosity. None perceived that in restoring
+independence to the cities and States, Rome wished to break up the
+confederations that sought to reorganize and would perhaps have given
+new force to Greece. In isolating them and attaching them to herself
+by grateful ties, she placed them almost insensibly under her
+influence. She made allies of them; and every one knows what the
+allies of Rome became. Thus the Senate was so well satisfied with this
+policy, which created division everywhere and awakened extinct
+rivalries, that for half a century it followed no other.
+
+
+
+RESULTS OF THE ROMAN DOMINION
+
+From the 'History of Rome'
+
+
+Although in literature Rome was but the echo of Greece, she civilized
+all the Western world, for which the Greeks had done nothing. Her
+language, out of which sprang the various languages of the Romance
+nations, is in case of need a means of communication among scholars
+of all countries, and her books will always remain--a wise selection
+being made--the best for the higher culture of the mind. They have
+merited above all others the title of _litteræ humaniores_, the
+literature by which men are made. A cardinal, reading the 'Thoughts
+of Marcus Aurelius' (written in Greek, it is true, but written by a
+Roman), exclaimed, "My soul blushes redder than my scarlet at sight of
+the virtues of this Gentile."
+
+Suppose Rome destroyed by Pyrrhus or Hannibal, before Marius and Cæsar
+had driven the German tribes back from Gaul: their invasion would have
+been effected five centuries sooner; and since they would have found
+opposed to them only other barbarians, what a long night would have
+settled down upon the world!
+
+It is true that when the Roman people had laid hands upon the
+treasures of Alexander's successors, the scandal of their orgies
+exceeded for a century anything that the East had ever seen; that
+their amusements were sanguinary games or licentious plays; that the
+Roman mind, after receiving a temporary benefit from Greek philosophy,
+went astray in Oriental mysticism; and that finally, after having
+loved liberty, Rome accepted despotism, as if willing to astonish the
+world as much by her great corruption as she did by the greatness of
+her empire.
+
+But can we say that no other age or nation has known servility of
+soul, licentiousness in public amusements, and the conspicuous
+depravity in morals that is always to be seen where indolence and
+wealth are united?
+
+To the legacies left by Rome which have now been enumerated, we must
+add another, which ranks among the most precious. Notwithstanding the
+poetic piety of Virgil, and Livy's official credulity, the dominant
+note of Latin literature is the indifference of Horace, when it is not
+the daring skepticism of Lucretius. To Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, and
+the great jurisconsults, the prime necessity was the free possession
+of themselves, that independence of philosophic thought which they
+owed to Greece. This spirit, begotten of pure reason, was almost
+stifled during the Middle Ages. It reappeared when antiquity was
+recovered. From that day the renascent world set forward again; and
+in the new path France, heir of Athens and of Rome, was long her
+guide--for art in its most charming form, and for thought, developed
+in the light.
+
+Upon a medal of Constantine his son presents to him a globe surmounted
+by a phoenix, symbol of immortality. For once the courtiers were not
+in the wrong. The sacred bird which springs from her own ashes is a
+fitting emblem of this old Rome, dead fifteen centuries ago, yet alive
+to-day through her genius: _Siamo Romani_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best
+literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12, by Various
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best literature,
+Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12, by Various
+
+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: Library of the World's Best literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2010 [EBook #32308]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="JAVANESE_ILLUMINATED_MANUSCRIPT" id="JAVANESE_ILLUMINATED_MANUSCRIPT"></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>JAVANESE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT.</i></span>
+<p>The origin of the Oceanic dialects, and of those of India beyond the
+Ganges, more especially the civilized idioms of the Indian
+Archipelago, is referred to a language which was that of an unknown
+people inhabiting the island of Java. From this primitive language the
+modern Javanese is supposed to be immediately derived. Javanese
+literature consists of poems, dramas, songs, and historical and
+religious writings. The accompanying facsimile is from a
+mythological-religious tract written upon a vegetable paper of
+native manufacture, and ornamented with grotesque drawings.</p>
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="420" height="655" alt="JAVANESE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT." title="JAVANESE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT." />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LIBRARY OF THE</h2>
+<h1>WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE</h1>
+<h3>ANCIENT AND MODERN<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER</h3>
+<h5>EDITOR</h5>
+
+<h4>HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE<br />
+LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE<br />
+GEORGE HENRY WARNER</h4>
+<h5>ASSOCIATE EDITORS</h5>
+
+<h4>Connoisseur Edition<br />
+<span class="smcap">Vol. XII.</span></h4>
+
+<h4>NEW YORK<br />
+<big>THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY</big></h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>Connoisseur Edition</h3>
+<h5>LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA<br />
+<br />
+<i>No</i>.    ..........</h5>
+
+<h5>Copyright, 1896, by<br />
+R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL<br />
+<i>All rights reserved</i></h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE ADVISORY COUNCIL</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Hebrew, <span class="smcap">Harvard University</span>, Cambridge, Mass.</span><br />
+<br />
+THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of <span class="smcap">Yale University</span>, New Haven, Conn.</span><br />
+<br />
+WILLIAM M. SLOANE, <span class="smcap">Ph. D.</span>, L. H. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of History and Political Science, <span class="smcap">Princeton University</span>, Princeton, N. J.</span><br />
+<br />
+BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Literature, <span class="smcap">Columbia University</span>, New York City.</span><br />
+<br />
+JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">President of the <span class="smcap">University of Michigan</span>, Ann Arbor, Mich.</span><br />
+<br />
+WILLARD FISKE, A. M., <span class="smcap">Ph. D.</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, <span class="smcap">Cornell University</span>, Ithaca, N. Y.</span><br />
+<br />
+EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer, <span class="smcap">University of California</span>, Berkeley, Cal.</span><br />
+<br />
+ALC&Eacute;E FORTIER, LIT. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of the Romance Languages, <span class="smcap">Tulane University</span>, New Orleans, La.</span><br />
+<br />
+WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English and History, <span class="smcap">University of the South</span>, Sewanee, Tenn.</span><br />
+<br />
+PAUL SHOREY, <span class="smcap">Ph. D.</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, <span class="smcap">University of Chicago</span>, Chicago, Ill.</span><br />
+<br />
+WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">United States Commissioner of Education, <span class="smcap">Bureau of Education</span>, Washington, D. C.</span><br />
+<br />
+MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Literature in the <span class="smcap">Catholic University of America</span>, Washington, D. C.</span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. XII</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><small>LIVED</small></td>
+  <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#DENIS_DIDEROT"><span class="smcap">Denis Diderot</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1713-1784</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4689">4689</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#RAMEAU">From 'Rameau's Nephew'</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#FRANZ_VON_DINGELSTEDT"><span class="smcap">Franz von Dingelstedt</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1814-1881</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4704">4704</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BUSSMAN">A Man of Business ('The Amazon')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#WATCHMAN">The Watchman (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#DIOGENES_LAERTIUS"><span class="smcap">Diogenes Laertius</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>200-250 A. D.?</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4711">4711</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SOCRATES">Life of Socrates ('Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GREEK">Examples of Greek Wit and Wisdom</a>:
+  <a href="#Bias">Bias</a>; <a href="#Plato">Plato</a>;
+  <a href="#Aristippus">Aristippus</a>; <a href="#Aristotle">Aristotle</a>;
+  <a href="#Theophrastus">Theophrastus</a>; <a href="#Demetrius">Demetrius</a>;
+  <a href="#Antisthenes">Antisthenes</a>; <a href="#Diogenes">Diogenes</a>;
+  <a href="#Cleanthes">Cleanthes</a>; <a href="#Pythagoras">Pythagoras</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#ISAAC_DISRAELI"><span class="smcap">Isaac D'Israeli</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1766-1848</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4725">4725</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#POETS_PHILOSOPHERS_AND_ARTISTS_MADE_BY_ACCIDENT">Poets, Philosophers, and Artists Made by Accident ('Curiosities of Literature')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MARTYRDOM">Martyrdom of Charles the First ('Commentaries on the Reign of Charles the First')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#SYDNEY_DOBELL"><span class="smcap">Sydney Dobell</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1824-1874</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4733">4733</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#EPIGRAM">Epigram on the Death of Edward Forbes</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MYBOY">How's My Boy?</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SAILOR">The Sailor's Return</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AFLOAT">Afloat and Ashore</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SOUL">The Soul ('Balder')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ENGLAND">England (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AMERICA">America</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AMY">Amy's Song of the Willow ('Balder')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#AUSTIN_DOBSON"><span class="smcap">Austin Dobson</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1840-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4741">4741</a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg vi]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align="center">BY ESTHER SINGLETON</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#NANKIN">On a Nankin Plate</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SEDAN">The Old Sedan-Chair</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BALLAD">Ballad of Prose and Rhyme</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_CURES_PROGRESS">The Cur&eacute;'s Progress</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GOOD-NIGHT_BABETTE">"Good-Night, Babbette"</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_LADIES_OF_ST_JAMESS">The Ladies of St. James's</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DORA_VERSUS_ROSE">Dora <i>versus</i> Rose</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#UNE_MARQUISE">Une Marquise</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#A_BALLAD_TO_QUEEN_ELIZABETH">A Ballad to Queen Elizabeth</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_PRINCESS_DE_LAMBALLE">The Princess De Lamballe ('Four Frenchwomen')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#MARY_MAPES_DODGE"><span class="smcap">Mary Mapes Dodge</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1840?-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4751">4751</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_RACE">The Race ('Hans Brinker')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#JOHN_DONNE"><span class="smcap">John Donne</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1573-1631</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4771">4771</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#UNDERTAKING">The Undertaking</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#VALEDICTION">A Valediction Forbidding Mourning</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SONG1">Song</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LOVEGROWTH">Love's Growth</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SONG2">Song</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#FEODOR_MIKHAILOVITCH_DOSTOEVSKY"><span class="smcap">Feodor Mikhailovitch Dosto&eacute;vsky</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1821-1881</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4779">4779</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align="center">BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_POOR_PEOPLE">From 'Poor People'</a>:
+  <a href="#LetterI">Letter from Varvara Debrosyeloff to Makar Dyevushkin</a>;
+  <a href="#LetterII">Letter from Makar Dyevushkin to Varvara Alexievna Dobrosyeloff</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BIBLE">The Bible Reading ('Crime and Punishment')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#EDWARD_DOWDEN"><span class="smcap">Edward Dowden</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1843-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4806">4806</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HUMOR">The Humor of Shakespeare ('Shakespeare; a Critical Study of His Mind and Art')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SHAKESPEARE">Shakespeare's Portraiture of Women ('Transcripts and Studies')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#INTERPRETATION">The Interpretation of Literature (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#A_CONAN_DOYLE"><span class="smcap">A. Conan Doyle</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1859-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4815">4815</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HOLMES">The Red-Headed League ('The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BOWMEN">Bowmen's Song ('The White Company')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#HOLGER_DRACHMANN"><span class="smcap">Holger Drachmann</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1846-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4840">4840</a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg vii]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SKIPPER">The Skipper and His Ship ('Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#PRINCE">The Prince's Song ('Once Upon a Time')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#JOSEPH_RODMAN_DRAKE"><span class="smcap">Joseph Rodman Drake</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1795-1820</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4851">4851</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#WINTER">A Winter's Tale ('The Croakers')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CULPRIT">The Culprit Fay</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FLAG">The American Flag</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#JOHN_WILLIAM_DRAPER"><span class="smcap">John William Draper</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1811-1882</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4865">4865</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#VEDAS">The Vedas and Their Theology ('The Intellectual Development of Europe')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BELIEFS">Primitive Beliefs Dismissed by Scientific Knowledge (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#KORAN">The Koran (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#MICHAEL_DRAYTON"><span class="smcap">Michael Drayton</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1563-1631</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4877">4877</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SONNET">Sonnet</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AGINCOURT">The Ballad of Agincourt</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MAB">Queen Mab's Excursion ('Nymphidia, the Court of Faery')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#GUSTAVE_DROZ"><span class="smcap">Gustave Droz</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1832-1895</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4885">4885</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BABY">How the Baby Was Saved ('The Seamstress's Story')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FAMILY">A Family New-Year's ('Monsieur, Madame, and B&eacute;b&eacute;')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#EXCURSION">Their Last Excursion ('Making an Omelette')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#HENRY_DRUMMOND"><span class="smcap">Henry Drummond</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1851-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4897">4897</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AFRICA">The Country and Its People ('Tropical Africa')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LAKE">The East-African Lake Country (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ANTS">White Ants (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#WILLIAM_DRUMMOND_OF_HAWTHORNDEN"><span class="smcap">William Drummond of Hawthornden</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1585-1649</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4913">4913</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SEXTAIN">Sextain</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MADRIGAL">Madrigal</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#REASON">Reason and Feeling</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DEGENERACY">Degeneracy of the World</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BRIEFNESS">Briefness of Life</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#UNIVERSE">The Universe</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DEATH">On Death ('Cypress Grove')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#JOHN_DRYDEN"><span class="smcap">John Dryden</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1631-1700</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4919">4919</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align="center">BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HIND">From 'The Hind and the Panther'</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FRIEND">To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ODE">Ode to the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew</a></span></td><td><span class='pagenum'>[Pg viii]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ASONG">A Song</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LINES">Lines Printed under Milton's Portrait</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ALEXANDER">Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Music</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ACHITOPHELA">Achitophel ('Absalom and Achitophel')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#MAXIME_DU_CAMP"><span class="smcap">Maxime Du Camp</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1822-</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4951">4951</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#STREET">Street Scene during the Commune ('The Convulsions of Paris')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#ALEXANDRE_DUMAS_SENIOR"><span class="smcap">Alexandre Dumas, Senior</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1802-1870</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4957">4957</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align="center">BY ANDREW LANG</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CURE">The Cure for Dormice that Eat Peaches ('The Count of Monte Cristo')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SHOULDER">The Shoulder of Athos, the Belt of Porthos, and the Handkerchief of Aramis ('The Three Musketeers')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DEFENSE">Defense of the Bastion St.-Gervais (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CONSULTATION">Consultation of the Musketeers (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#IRONMASK">The Man in the Iron Mask ('The Viscount of Bragelonne')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#TRICK">A Trick is Played on Henry III. by Aid of Chicot ('The Lady of Monsoreau')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#ALEXANDRE_DUMAS_JUNIOR"><span class="smcap">Alexandre Dumas, Junior</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1824-1895</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5001">5001</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align="center">BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#PLAYWRIGHT">The Playwright Is Born&mdash;and Made (Preface to 'The Prodigal Father')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#TRUCE">An Armed Truce ('A Friend to the Sex')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MONEY">Two Views of Money ('The Money Question')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MARRIAGE">M. De Remonin's Philosophy of Marriage ('L'&Eacute;trang&eacute;re')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FATHER">Reforming a Father ('The Prodigal Father')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CLARKSON">Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson ('L'&Eacute;trang&eacute;re')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#GEORGE_DU_MAURIER"><span class="smcap">George Du Maurier</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1834-1896</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5041">5041</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BOHEMIA">At the Heart of Bohemia ('Trilby')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CHRISTMAS">Christmas in the Latin Quarter (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DREAMING">"Dreaming True" ('Peter Ibbetson')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BARTY">Barty Josselin at School ('The Martian')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#WILLIAM_DUNBAR"><span class="smcap">William Dunbar</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1465?-1530?</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5064">5064</a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg ix]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THISTLE">The Thistle and the Rose</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#TARGE">From 'The Golden Targe'</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GLADNESS">No Treasure Avails Without Gladness</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><big><a href="#JEAN_VICTOR_DURUY"><span class="smcap">Jean Victor Duruy</span></a></big></td>
+  <td>1811-1894</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5069">5069</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#POLICY">The National Policy ('History of Rome')</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DOMINION">Results of the Roman Dominion (same)</a></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME XII</h3>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS" width="60%">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#JAVANESE_ILLUMINATED_MANUSCRIPT">Javanese Manuscript (Colored Plate)</a></td>
+  <td align="right">Frontispiece</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#Illustration_CODEX_ALEXANDRINUS">The Alexandrine Manuscript (Fac-simile)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_xii">xii</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#QUARTO">Old Black-Letter Quarto (Fac-simile)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4726">4726</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#CHARLES">"Charles I. Going to Execution" (Photogravure)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4730">4730</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#SKATER">"The Skater of the Zuyder Zee" (Photogravure)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4758">4758</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#MANUSCRIPT">African Arabic Manuscript (Fac-simile)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4870">4870</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#DRYDEN">John Dryden (Portrait)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4920">4920</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#SENIOR">Alexandre Dumas (Portrait)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4958">4958</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#JUNIOR">Alexandre Dumas, Fils (Portrait)</a></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5002">5002</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<h3>VIGNETTE PORTRAITS</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="PORTRAITS" width="60%">
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#DENIS_DIDEROT">Denis Diderot</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#JOSEPH_RODMAN_DRAKE">Joseph Rodman Drake</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#FRANZ_VON_DINGELSTEDT">Franz von Dingelstedt</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#JOHN_WILLIAM_DRAPER">John William Draper</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#ISAAC_DISRAELI">Isaac D'Israeli</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#MICHAEL_DRAYTON">Michael Drayton</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#AUSTIN_DOBSON">Austin Dobson</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#GUSTAVE_DROZ">Gustav Droz</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#MARY_MAPES_DODGE">Mary Mapes Dodge</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#HENRY_DRUMMOND">Henry Drummond</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#JOHN_DONNE">John Donne</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#WILLIAM_DRUMMOND_OF_HAWTHORNDEN">William Drummond</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#FEODOR_MIKHAILOVITCH_DOSTOEVSKY">Feodor Dosto&eacute;vsky</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#MAXIME_DU_CAMP">Maxime Du Camp</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#A_CONAN_DOYLE">A. Conan Doyle</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#GEORGE_DU_MAURIER">George du Maurier</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#HOLGER_DRACHMANN">Holger Drachmann</a></td>
+  <td><a href="#JEAN_VICTOR_DURUY">Jean Victor Duruy</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="Illustration_CODEX_ALEXANDRINUS" id="Illustration_CODEX_ALEXANDRINUS"></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>CODEX ALEXANDRINUS.</i><br /><br />
+Fifth Century. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; British Museum.</span>
+<p>The Alexandrine Manuscript of the Christian Scriptures is almost
+complete in both Testaments, the Septuagint version of the Old and the
+original Greek of the New. It consists of 773 sheets, 12&frac34; by 10&frac34;
+inches, of very thin gray goatskin vellum, written on both sides in
+two columns of faint but clear characters. It was made in the early
+part of the fifth century, under the supervision of Thecla, a noble
+Christian lady of Alexandria, in the fifth century. It was brought
+from Alexandria to Constantinople by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of
+Constantinople, who in 1624 gave it into the charge of the English
+Ambassador for presentation to King James I.; but owing to James'
+death before the presentation could be made, it was presented instead
+to Charles I. It remained in the possession of the English sovereigns
+until the Royal Library was presented to the nation by George II. in
+1753. With the exception of the greater part of Matthew to Chapter
+xxv., two leaves of John, and three of Second Corinthians, it contains
+the whole Greek Bible, including the two Epistles of Clement of Rome,
+which in early times ranked among the inspired books. Its table of
+contents shows that it once included also the "Psalms of Solomon,"
+though, from their position and title in the index, it is evident that
+they were regarded as standing apart from the other books. The Museum
+has bound the leaves of this precious manuscript in four volumes, and
+has had photographic copies made of each page for the use of students.
+The accompanying reproduction is from the last chapter of the First
+Epistle of John, from "His Son," in verse 9, to the end.</p>
+<img src="images/Illus0420.jpg" width="420" height="815" alt="CODEX ALEXANDRINUS." title="CODEX ALEXANDRINUS." />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4688" id="Page_4688">[Pg 4688]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4689" id="Page_4689">[Pg 4689]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="DENIS_DIDEROT" id="DENIS_DIDEROT"></a>DENIS DIDEROT</h2>
+
+<h4>(1713-1784)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capa19.png" width="90" height="90" alt="A" title="A" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">mong the French Encyclop&aelig;dists of the eighteenth century Denis
+Diderot holds the place of leader. There were intellects of broader
+scope and of much surer balance in that famous group, but none of such
+versatility, brilliancy, and outbursting force. To his associates he
+was a marvel and an inspiration.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 170px;">
+<img src="images/Illus19.png" width="170" height="220" alt="Denis Diderot" title="Denis Diderot" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Denis Diderot</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>He was born in October 1713, in Langres, Haute-Marne, France; and died
+in Paris July 31st, 1784. After a classical education in Jesuit
+schools, he utterly disgusted his father by turning to the Bohemian
+life of a litt&eacute;rateur in Paris. Although very poor, he married at the
+age of thirty. The whole story of his married life&mdash;the common
+Parisian story in those days&mdash;reflects no credit on him; though his
+<i>liaison</i> with Mademoiselle Voland presents the aspects of a
+friendship abiding through life. Poverty spurred him to exertion. Four
+days of work in 1746 are said to have produced 'Pens&eacute;es
+Philosophiques' (Philosophic Thoughts). This book, with a little essay
+following it, 'Interpr&eacute;tation de la Nature,' was his first open attack
+on revealed religion. Its argument, though only negative, and keeping
+within the bounds of theism, foretokened a class of utterances which
+were frequent in Diderot's later years, and whose assurance of his
+materialistic atheism would be complete had they not been too
+exclamatory for settled conviction. He contents himself with
+glorifying the passions, to the annulling of all ethical standards. On
+this point at least his convictions were stable, for long afterward he
+writes thus to Mademoiselle Voland:&mdash;"The man of mediocre passion
+lives and dies like the brute.... If we were bound to choose between
+Racine, a bad husband, a bad father, a false friend, and a sublime
+poet, and Racine, good father, good husband, good friend, and dull
+worthy man, I hold to the first. Of Racine the bad man, what remains?
+Nothing. Of Racine the man of genius? The work is eternal."</p>
+
+<p>About 1747 he produced an allegory, 'Promenade du Sceptique.'
+This French 'Pilgrim's Progress' scoffs at the Church of Rome for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4690" id="Page_4690">[Pg 4690]</a></span>
+denying pleasure, then decries the pleasures of the world, and ends by
+asserting the hopeless uncertainty of the philosophy which both scoffs
+at the Church and decries worldly pleasure. At this period he was
+evidently inclined to an irregular attack on the only forms of
+Christianity familiar to him, asceticism and pietism.</p>
+
+<p>In 1749 Diderot first showed himself a thinker of original power,
+in his Letter on the Blind. This work, 'Lettre sur les Avengles
+&agrave; l'Usage de Ceux qui Voient' (Letter on the Blind for the Use of
+Those who See) opened the eyes of the public to Diderot's peculiar
+genius, and the eyes of the authorities to the menace in his principles.
+The result was his imprisonment, and from that the spread of
+his views. His offense was, that through his ingenious supposition of
+the mind deprived of its use of one or more of the bodily senses,
+he had shown the relativity of all man's conceptions, and had thence
+deduced the relativity, the lack of absoluteness, of all man's ethical
+standards&mdash;thus invalidating the foundations of civil and social order.
+The broad assertion that Diderot and his philosophic group caused
+the French Revolution has only this basis, that these men were
+among the omens of its advance, feeling its stir afar but not recognizing
+the coming earthquake. Yet it may be conceded that Diderot
+anticipated things great and strange; for his mind, although neither
+precise nor capable of sustained and systematic thought, was amazingly
+original in conception and powerful in grasp. The mist, blank
+to his brethren, seems to have wreathed itself into wonderful shapes
+to his eye; he was the seer whose wild enthusiasm caught the oracles
+from an inner shrine. A predictive power appears in his Letter on
+the Blind, where he imagines the blind taught to read by touch; and
+nineteenth-century hypotheses gleam dimly in his random guess at
+variability in organisms, and at survival of those best adapted to
+their environment.</p>
+
+<p>Diderot's monumental work, 'L'Encyclop&eacute;die,' dates from the middle
+of the century. It was his own vast enlargement of Ephraim
+Chambers's Cyclop&aelig;dia of 1727, of which a bookseller had demanded
+a revision in French. D'Alembert was secured as his colleague, and
+in 1751 the first volume appeared. The list of contributors includes
+most of the great contemporary names in French literature. From
+these, Diderot and D'Alembert gathered the inner group known as
+the French Encyclop&aelig;dists, to whose writings has been ascribed a
+general tendency to destroy religion and to reconstitute society.
+The authorities interfered repeatedly, with threats and prohibitions
+of the publication; but the science of government included the science
+of connivance for an adequate consideration, and the great
+work went forward. Its danger lurked in its principles; for Diderot
+dealt but little in the cheap flattery which the modern demagogue
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4691" id="Page_4691">[Pg 4691]</a></span>
+addresses to the populace. D'Alembert, wearied by ten years of persecution,
+retired in 1759, leaving the indefatigable Diderot to struggle
+alone through seven years, composing and revising hundreds of
+articles, correcting proofs, supervising the unrivaled illustrations of
+the mechanic arts, while quieting the opposition of the authorities.</p>
+
+<p>The Encyclop&aelig;dia under Diderot followed no one philosophic path.
+Indeed, there are no signs that he ever gave any consideration to
+either the intellectual or the ethical force of consistency. His
+writing indicates his utter carelessness both as to the direction and
+as to the pace of his thought. He had an abiding conviction that
+Christianity was partly delusion and largely priestcraft, and was
+maintained chiefly for upholding iniquitous privilege. His antagonism
+was developed primarily from his emotions and sympathies rather than
+from his intellect; hence it sometimes swerved, drawing perilously
+near to formal orthodoxy. Moreover, this vivacious philosopher
+sometimes rambled into practical advice, and easily effervesced into
+fervid moralizings of the sentimental and almost tearful sort.
+His immense natural capacity for sentiment appears in his own
+account of his meeting with Grimm after a few months' absence. His
+sentimentalism, however, had its remarkable counterpoise in a most
+practical tendency of mind. In the Encyclop&aelig;dia the interests of
+agriculture and of all branches of manufacture were treated with great
+fullness; and the reform of feudal abuses lingering in the laws of
+France was vigorously urged in a style more practical than cyclop&aelig;dic.</p>
+
+<p>Diderot gave much attention to the drama, and his 'Paradoxe sur
+le Com&eacute;dien' (Paradox on the Actor) is a valuable discussion. He is
+the father of the modern domestic drama. His influence upon the
+dramatic literature of Germany was direct and immediate; it appeared
+in the plays of Lessing and Schiller, and much of Lessing's criticism
+was inspired by Diderot. His 'P&egrave;re de Famille' (Family-Father) and
+'Le Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son) marked the beginning of a new
+era in the history of the stage, in the midst of which we are now
+living. Breaking with the old traditions, Diderot abandoned the lofty
+themes of classic tragedy and portrayed the life of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>.
+The influence of England, frequently manifest in the work of the
+Encyclop&aelig;dists, is evident also here. Richardson was then the chief
+force in fiction, and the sentimental element so characteristic in him
+reappears in the dramas of Diderot.</p>
+
+<p>Goethe was strongly attracted by the genius of Diderot, and
+thought it worth his while not only to translate but to supply with
+a long and luminous commentary the latter's 'Essay on Painting.'
+It was by a singular trick of fortune, too, that one of Diderot's
+most powerful works should first have appeared in German garb, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4692" id="Page_4692">[Pg 4692]</a></span>
+not in the original French until after the author's death. A manuscript
+copy of the book chanced to fall into the hands of Goethe,
+who so greatly admired it that he at once translated, annotated,
+and published it. This was the famous dialogue 'Le Neveu de
+Rameau' (Rameau's Nephew), a work which only Diderot's peculiar
+genius could have produced. Depicting the typical parasite, shameless,
+quick-witted for every species of villainy, at home in every possible
+meanness, the dialogue is a probably unequaled compound of
+satire, high &aelig;sthetics, gleaming humor, sentimental moralizing, fine
+musical criticism, and scientific character analysis, with passages of
+brutal indecency.</p>
+
+<p>Among literary critics of painting, Diderot has his place in the
+highest rank. His nine 'Salons'&mdash;criticisms which in his good-nature
+he wrote for the use of his friend Grimm, on the annual exhibitions
+in the Paris Salon from 1759 onward&mdash;have never been surpassed
+among non-technical criticisms for brilliancy, freshness, and philosophic
+suggestiveness. They reveal the man's elemental strength;
+which was not in his knowledge, for he was without technical training
+in art and had seen scarcely any of the world's masterpieces,
+but in his sensuously sympathetic nature, which gave him quickness
+of insight and delicacy in interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>He had the faculty of making and keeping friends, being unaffected,
+genial, amiable, enthusiastically generous and helpful to his
+friends, and without vindictiveness to his foes. He needed these
+qualities to counteract his almost utter lack of conscientiousness, his
+gush of sentiment, his unregulated morals, his undisciplined genius,
+his unbalanced thought. His style of writing, often vivid and strong,
+is as often awkward and dull, and is frequently lacking in finish.
+As a philosophic author and thinker his voluminous work is of little
+enduring worth, for though plentiful in original power it totally lacks
+organic unity; his thought rambles carelessly, his method is confused.
+It has been said of him that he was a master who produced
+no masterpiece. But as a talker, a converser, all witnesses testify
+that he was wondrously inspiring and suggestive, speaking sometimes
+as from mysterious heights of vision or out of unsearchable deeps of
+thought.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4693" id="Page_4693">[Pg 4693]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="RAMEAU" id="RAMEAU"></a>FROM 'RAMEAU'S NEPHEW'</h3>
+
+<p>Be the weather fair or foul, it is my custom in any case at
+five o'clock in the afternoon to stroll in the Palais Royal.
+I am always to be seen alone and meditative, on the bench
+D'Argenson. I hold converse with myself on politics or love, on
+taste or philosophy, and yield up my soul entirely to its own
+frivolity. It may follow the first idea that presents itself, be the
+idea wise or foolish. In the All&eacute;e de Foi one sees our young
+rakes following upon the heels of some courtesan who passes on
+with shameless mien, laughing face, animated glance, and a pug
+nose; but they soon leave her to follow another, teasing them
+all, joining none of them. My thoughts are my courtesans.</p>
+
+<p>When it is really too cold or rainy, I take refuge in the Caf&eacute;
+de la R&eacute;gence and amuse myself by watching the chess-players.
+Paris is the place of the world and the Caf&eacute; de la R&eacute;gence the
+place of Paris where the best chess is played. There one witnesses
+the most carefully calculated moves; there one hears the
+most vulgar conversation; for since it is possible to be at once
+a man of intellect and a great chess-player, like L&eacute;gal, so also
+one may be at once a great chess-player and a very silly person,
+like Foubert or Mayot.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I was there, observing much, speaking rarely, and
+hearing as little as possible, when one of the most singular
+personages came up to me that ever was produced by this land of ours,
+where surely God has never caused a dearth of singular characters.
+He is a combination of high-mindedness and baseness, of sound
+understanding and folly; in his head the conceptions of honor and
+dishonor must be strangely tangled, for the good qualities with which
+nature has endowed him he displays without boastfulness, and the bad
+qualities without shame. For the rest, he is firmly built, has an
+extraordinary power of imagination, and possesses an uncommonly strong
+pair of lungs. Should you ever meet him and succeed in escaping from
+the charm of his originality, it must be by stopping both ears with
+your fingers or by precipitate flight. Heavens, what terrible lungs!</p>
+
+<p>And nothing is less like him than he himself. Sometimes he
+is thin and wasted, like a man in the last stages of consumption;
+you could count his teeth through his cheeks; you would
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4694" id="Page_4694">[Pg 4694]</a></span>
+think he had not tasted food for several days, or had come from
+La Trappe.</p>
+
+<p>A month later he is fattened and filled out as if he had never
+left the banquets of the rich or had been fed among the Bernardines.
+To-day, with soiled linen, torn trousers, clad in rags,
+and almost barefoot, he passes with bowed head, avoids those
+whom he meets, till one is tempted to call him and bestow upon
+him an alms. To-morrow, powdered, well groomed, well dressed,
+and well shod, he carries his head high, lets himself be seen, and
+you would take him almost for a respectable man.</p>
+
+<p>So he lives from day to day, sad or merry, according to the
+circumstances. His first care, when he rises in the morning, is
+to take thought where he is to dine. After dinner he bethinks
+himself of some opportunity to procure supper, and with the night
+come new cares. Sometimes he goes on foot to his little attic,
+which is his home if the landlady, impatient at long arrears of
+rent, has not taken the key away from him. Sometimes he goes
+to one of the taverns in the suburbs, and there, between a bit of
+bread and a mug of beer, awaits the day. If he lacks the six
+sous necessary to procure him quarters for the night, which is
+occasionally the case, he applies to some cabman among his
+friends or to the coachman of some great lord, and a place on the
+straw beside the horses is vouchsafed him. In the morning he
+carries a part of his mattress in his hair. If the season is mild,
+he spends the whole night strolling back and forth on the Cours
+or in the Champs &Eacute;lys&eacute;es. With the day he appears again in
+the city, dressed yesterday for to-day and to-day often for the
+rest of the week.</p>
+
+<p>For such originals I cannot feel much esteem, but there are
+others who make close acquaintances and even friends of them.
+Once in the year perhaps they are able to put their spell upon
+me, when I meet them, because their character is in such strong
+contrast to that of every-day humanity, and they break the oppressive
+monotony which our education, our social conventions, our
+traditional proprieties have produced. When such a man enters
+a company, he acts like a cake of yeast that raises the whole, and
+restores to each a part of his natural individuality. He shakes
+them up, brings things into motion, elicits praise or censure,
+drives truth into the open, makes upright men recognizable, unmasks
+the rogues, and there the wise man sits and listens and is
+enabled to distinguish one class from another.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4695" id="Page_4695">[Pg 4695]</a></span>
+This particular specimen I had long known; he frequented a
+house into which his talents had secured him the entr&eacute;e. These
+people had an only daughter. He swore to the parents that he
+would marry their daughter. They only shrugged their shoulders,
+laughed in his face, and assured him that he was a fool.
+But I saw the day come when the thing was accomplished. He
+asked me for some money, which I gave him. He had, I know
+not how, squirmed his way into a few houses, where a <i>couvert</i>
+stood always ready for him, but it had been stipulated that he
+should never speak without the consent of his hosts. So there he
+sat and ate, filled the while with malice; it was fun to see him
+under this restraint. The moment he ventured to break the
+treaty and open his mouth, at the very first word the guests all
+shouted "O Rameau!" Then his eyes flashed wrathfully, and he
+fell upon his food again with renewed energy.</p>
+
+<p>You were curious to know the man's name; there it is. He
+is the nephew of the famous composer who has saved us from
+the church music of Lulli which we have been chanting for a
+hundred years, ... and who, having buried the Florentine,
+will himself be buried by Italian virtuosi; he dimly feels this, and
+so has become morose and irritable, for no one can be in a worse
+humor&mdash;not even a beautiful woman who in the morning finds
+a pimple on her nose&mdash;than an author who sees himself threatened
+with the fate of outliving his reputation, as Marivaux and
+Cr&eacute;billon <i>fils</i> prove.</p>
+
+<p>Rameau's nephew came up to me. "Ah, my philosopher, do
+I meet you once again? What are you doing here among the
+good-for-nothings? Are you wasting your time pushing bits of
+wood about?"</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;No; but when I have nothing better to do, I take a
+passing pleasure in watching those who push them about with
+skill.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;A rare pleasure, surely. Excepting L&eacute;gal and Philidor,
+there is no one here that understands it....</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;You are hard to please. I see that only the best finds
+favor with you.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Yes, in chess, checkers, poetry, oratory, music, and such
+other trumpery. Of what possible use is mediocrity in these
+things?</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;I am almost ready to agree with you....</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4696" id="Page_4696">[Pg 4696]</a></span>
+<i>He</i>&mdash;You have always shown some interest in me, because
+I'm a poor devil whom you really despise, but who after all
+amuses you.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;That is true.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Then let me tell you. (Before beginning, he drew a
+deep sigh, covered his forehead with both hands, then with calm
+countenance continued:&mdash;) You know I am ignorant, foolish,
+silly, shameless, rascally, gluttonous.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;What a panegyric!</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;It is entirely true. Not a word to be abated; no contradiction,
+I pray you. No one knows me better than I know myself, and I don't
+tell all.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;Rather than anger you, I will assent.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Now, just think, I lived with people who valued me precisely
+because all these qualities were mine in a high degree.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;That is most remarkable. I have hitherto believed that
+people concealed these qualities even from themselves, or excused
+them, but always despised them in others.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Conceal them? Is that possible? You may be sure that
+when Palissot is alone and contemplates himself, he tells quite a
+different story. You may be sure that he and his companion
+make open confession to each other that they are a pair of arrant
+rogues. Despise these qualities in others? My people were much
+more reasonable, and I fared excellently well among them.
+I was cock of the walk. When absent, I was instantly missed. I
+was pampered. I was their little Rameau, their good Rameau,
+the shameless, ignorant, lazy Rameau, the fool, the clown, the
+gourmand. Each of these epithets was to me a smile, a caress, a
+slap on the back, a box on the ears, a kick, a dainty morsel
+thrown upon my plate at dinner, a liberty permitted me after
+dinner as if it were of no account; for I am of no account.
+People make of me and do before me and with me whatever
+they please, and I never give it a thought....</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;You have been giving lessons, I understand, in accompaniment
+and composition?</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;And you knew absolutely nothing about it?</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;No, by Heaven; and for that very reason I was a much
+better teacher than those who imagine they know something
+about it. At all events, I didn't spoil the taste nor ruin the hands
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4697" id="Page_4697">[Pg 4697]</a></span>
+of my young pupils. If when they left me they went to a competent
+master, they had nothing to unlearn, for they had learned
+nothing, and that was just so much time and money saved.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;But how did you do it?</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;The way they all do it. I came, threw myself into a chair:&mdash;"How
+bad the weather is! How tired the pavement makes one!" Then some
+scraps of town gossip:... "At the last Amateur Concert there was an
+Italian woman who sang like an angel.... Poor Dum&ecirc;nil doesn't know
+what to say or do," etc., etc. ... "Come, mademoiselle, where is your
+music-book?" And as mademoiselle displays no great haste, searches
+every nook and corner for the book, which she has mislaid, and finally
+calls the maid to help her, I continue:&mdash;"Little Clairon is an enigma.
+There is talk of a perfectly absurd marriage of&mdash;what is her
+name?"&mdash;"Nonsense, Rameau, it isn't possible."&mdash;"They say the affair
+is all settled." ... "There is a rumor that Voltaire is dead,"&mdash;"All
+the better."&mdash;"Why all the better?"&mdash;"Then he is sure to treat us to
+some droll skit. That's a way he has, a fortnight before his death."
+What more should I say? I told a few scandals about the families in
+the houses where I am received, for we are all great scandal-mongers.
+In short, I played the fool; they listened and laughed, and exclaimed,
+"He is really too droll, isn't he?" Meanwhile the music-book had been
+found under a chair, where a little dog or a little cat had worried
+it, chewed it, and torn it. Then the pretty child sat down at the
+piano and began to make a frightful noise upon it. I went up to her,
+secretly making a sign of approbation to her mother. "Well, now, that
+isn't so bad," said the mother; "one needs only to make up one's mind
+to a thing; but the trouble is, one will not make up one's mind; one
+would rather kill time by chattering, trifling, running about, and God
+knows what. Scarcely do you turn your back but the book is closed, and
+not until you are at her side again is it opened. Besides, I have
+never heard you reprimand her." In the mean time, since something had
+to be done, I took her hands and placed them differently. I pretended
+to lose my patience; I shouted,&mdash;"Sol, sol, sol, mademoiselle, it's a
+<i>sol</i>." The mother: "Mademoiselle, have you no ears? I'm not at the
+piano, I'm not looking at your notes, but my own feeling tells me that
+it ought to be a <i>sol</i>. You give the gentleman infinite trouble.
+You remember nothing, and make no progress." To break the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4698" id="Page_4698">[Pg 4698]</a></span>
+force of this reproof a little, I tossed my head and said: "Pardon me, madame,
+pardon me. It would be better if mademoiselle would only practice a
+little, but after all it is not so bad."&mdash;"In your place I would keep
+her a whole year at one piece."&mdash;"Rest assured, I shall not let her
+off until she has mastered every difficulty; and that will not take so
+long, perhaps, as mademoiselle thinks."&mdash;"Monsieur Rameau, you flatter
+her; you are too good." And that is the only thing they would remember
+of the whole lesson, and would upon occasion repeat to me. So the
+lesson came to an end. My pupil handed me the fee, with a graceful
+gesture and a courtesy which her dancing-master had taught her. I put
+the money into my pocket, and the mother said, "That's very nice,
+mademoiselle. If Favillier were here, he would praise you." For
+appearance's sake I chattered for a minute or two more; then I
+vanished; and that is what they called in those days a lesson in
+accompaniment.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;And is the case different now?</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Heavens! I should think so. I come in, I am serious,
+throw my muff aside, open the piano, try the keys, show signs
+of great impatience, and if I am kept a moment waiting I shout
+as if my purse had been stolen. In an hour I must be there or
+there; in two hours with the Duchess So-and-so; at noon I must
+go to the fair Marquise; and then there is to be a concert at
+Baron de Bagge's, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;And meanwhile no one expects you at all.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Certainly not.... And precisely because I can further my fortune
+through vices which come natural to me, which I acquired without labor
+and practice without effort, which are in harmony with the customs of
+my countrymen, which are quite to the taste of my patrons, and better
+adapted to their special needs than inconvenient virtues would be,
+which from morning to night would be standing accusations against
+them, it would be strange indeed if I should torture myself like one
+of the damned to twist and turn and make of myself something which I
+am not, and hide myself beneath a character foreign to me, and assume
+the most estimable qualities, whose worth I will not dispute, but
+which I could acquire and live up to only by great exertions, and
+which after all would lead to nothing,&mdash;perhaps to worse
+than nothing. Moreover, ought a beggar like me, who lives upon
+the wealthy, constantly to hold up to his patrons a mirror
+of good conduct? People praise virtue but hate it; they
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4699" id="Page_4699">[Pg 4699]</a></span>
+fly from it, let it freeze; and in this world a man has to keep his
+feet warm. Besides, I should always be in the sourest humor: for why
+is it that the pious and the devotional are so hard, so repellent, so
+unsociable? It is because they have imposed upon themselves a task
+contrary to their nature. They suffer, and when a man suffers he makes
+others suffer. Now, that is no affair of mine or of my patrons'. I
+must be in good spirits, easy, affable, full of sallies, drollery, and
+folly. Virtue demands reverence, and reverence is inconvenient; virtue
+challenges admiration, and admiration is not entertaining. I have to
+do with people whose time hangs heavy on their hands; they want to
+laugh. Now consider the folly: the ludicrous makes people laugh, and I
+therefore must be a fool; I must be amusing, and if nature had not
+made me so, then by hook or by crook I should have made myself seem
+so. Fortunately I have no need to play the hypocrite. There are
+hypocrites enough of all colors without me, and not counting those who
+deceive themselves.... Should it ever occur to friend Rameau to play
+Cato, to despise fortune, women, good living, idleness, what would he
+be? A hypocrite. Let Rameau remain what he is, a happy robber among
+wealthy robbers, and a man without either real or boasted virtue. In
+short, your idea of happiness, the happiness of a few enthusiastic
+dreamers like you, has no charm for me....</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;He earns his bread dearly, who in order to live must
+assail virtue and knowledge.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;I have already told you that we are of no consequence.
+We slander all men and grieve none.</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:center;'>[The dialogue reverts to music.]</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;Every imitation has its original in nature. What is the
+musician's model when he breaks into song?</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Why do you not grasp the subject higher up? What is
+song?</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;That, I confess, is a question beyond my powers. That's
+the way with us all. The memory is stored with words only,
+which we think we understand because we often use them and
+even apply them correctly, but in the mind we have only indefinite
+conceptions. When I use the word "song," I have no more
+definite idea of it than you and the majority of your kind have
+when you say reputation, disgrace, honor, vice, virtue, shame,
+propriety, mortification, ridicule.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4700" id="Page_4700">[Pg 4700]</a></span>
+<i>He</i>&mdash;Song is an imitation in tones, produced either by the voice or
+by instruments, of a scale invented by art, or if you will,
+established by nature; an imitation of physical sounds or passionate
+utterances; and you see, with proper alterations this definition could
+be made to fit painting, oratory, sculpture, and poetry. Now to come
+to your question, What is the model of the musician or of song? It is
+the declamation, when the model is alive or sensate; it is the tone,
+when the model is insensate. The declamation must be regarded as a
+line, and the music as another line which twines about it. The
+stronger and the more genuine is this declamation, this model of song,
+the more numerous the points at which the accompanying music
+intersects it, the more beautiful will it be. And this our younger
+composers have clearly perceived. When one hears "Je suis un pauvre
+diable," one feels that it is a miser's complaint. If he didn't sing,
+he would address the earth in the very same tones when he intrusts to
+its keeping his gold: "O terre, re&ccedil;ois mon tr&eacute;sor." ... In such works
+with the greatest variety of characters, there is a convincing truth
+of declamation that is unsurpassed. I tell you, go, go, and hear the
+aria where the young man who feels that he is dying, cries out, "Mon
+c&#339;ur s'en va." Listen to the air, listen to the accompaniment, and
+then tell me what difference there is between the true tones of a
+dying man and the handling of this music. You will see that the line
+of the melody exactly coincides with the line of declamation. I say
+nothing of the time, which is one of the conditions of song; I confine
+myself to the expression, and there is nothing truer than the
+statement which I have somewhere read, "Musices seminarium
+accentus,"&mdash;the accent is the seed-plot of the melody. And for that
+reason, consider how difficult and important a matter it is to be able
+to write a good recitative. There is no beautiful aria out of which a
+beautiful recitative could not be made; no beautiful recitative out of
+which a clever man could not produce a beautiful aria. I will not
+assert that one who recites well will also be able to sing well, but I
+should be much surprised if a good singer could not recite well. And
+you may believe all that I tell you now, for it is true.</p>
+
+<p>(And then he walked up and down and began to hum a few arias
+from the "&Icirc;le des Fons," etc., exclaiming from time to time,
+with upturned eyes and hands upraised:&mdash;) "Isn't that beautiful,
+great heavens! isn't that beautiful? Is it possible to have a pair
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4701" id="Page_4701">[Pg 4701]</a></span>
+of ears on one's head and question its beauty?" Then as his enthusiasm
+rose he sang quite softly, then more loudly as he became more
+impassioned, then with gestures, grimaces, contortions of body.
+"Well," said I, "he is losing his mind, and I may expect a new scene."
+And in fact, all at once he burst out singing.... He passed from one
+aria to another, fully thirty of them,&mdash;Italian, French, tragic,
+comic, of every sort. Now with a deep bass he descended into hell;
+then, contracting his throat, he split the upper air with a falsetto,
+and in gait, mien, and action he imitated the different singers, by
+turns raving, commanding, mollified, scoffing. There was a little girl
+that wept, and he hit off all her pretty little ways. Then he was a
+priest, a king, a tyrant; he threatened, commanded, stormed; then he
+was a slave and submissive. He despaired, he grew tender, he lamented,
+he laughed, always in the tone, the time, the sense of the words, of
+the character, of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>All the chess-players had left their boards and were gathered
+around him; the windows of the caf&eacute; were crowded with passers-by,
+attracted by the noise. There was laughter enough to bring
+down the ceiling. He noticed nothing, but went on in such a
+rapt state of mind, in an enthusiasm so close to madness, that I
+was uncertain whether he would recover, or if he would be
+thrown into a cab and taken straight to the mad-house; the while
+he sang the Lamentations of Jomelli.</p>
+
+<p>With precision, fidelity, and incredible warmth, he rendered one of
+the finest passages, the superb obligato recitative in which the
+prophet paints the destruction of Jerusalem; he wept himself, and the
+eyes of the listeners were moist. More could not be desired in
+delicacy of vocalization, nor in the expression of overwhelming grief.
+He dwelt especially on those parts in which the great composer has
+shown his greatness most clearly. When he was not singing, he took the
+part of the instruments; these he quickly dropped again, to return to
+the vocal part, weaving one into the other so perfectly that the
+connection, the unity of the whole, was preserved. He took possession
+of our souls and held them in the strangest suspense I have ever
+experienced. Did I admire him? Yes, I admired him. Was I moved and
+melted? I was moved and melted, and yet something of the ludicrous
+mingled itself with these feelings and modified their nature.</p>
+
+<p>But you would have burst out laughing at the way he imitated
+the different instruments. With a rough muffled tone and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4702" id="Page_4702">[Pg 4702]</a></span>
+puffed-out cheeks he represented horns and bassoon; for the oboe he assumed a
+rasping nasal tone; with incredible rapidity he made his voice run
+over the string instruments, whose tones he endeavored to reproduce
+with the greatest accuracy; the flute passages he whistled; he rumbled
+out the sounds of the German flute; he shouted and sang with the
+gestures of a madman, and so alone and unaided he impersonated the
+entire ballet corps, the singers, the whole orchestra,&mdash;in short, a
+complete performance,&mdash;dividing himself into twenty different
+characters, running, stopping, with the mien of one entranced, with
+glittering eyes and foaming mouth.... He was quite beside himself.
+Exhausted by his exertions, like a man awakening from a deep sleep or
+emerging from a long period of abstraction, he remained motionless,
+stupefied, astonished. He looked about him in bewilderment, like one
+trying to recognize the place in which he finds himself. He awaited
+the return of his strength, of his consciousness; he dried his face
+mechanically. Like one who upon awaking finds his bed surrounded by
+groups of people, in complete oblivion and profound unconsciousness of
+what he had been doing, he cried, "Well, gentlemen, what's the matter?
+What are you laughing at? What are you wondering about? What's the
+matter?"</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;My dear Rameau, let us talk again of music. Tell me
+how it comes that with the facility you display for appreciating
+the finest passages of the great masters, for retaining them in
+your memory, and for rendering them to the delight of others
+with all the enthusiasm with which the music inspires you,&mdash;how
+comes it that you have produced nothing of value yourself?</p>
+
+<p>(Instead of answering me, he tossed his head, and raising his
+finger towards heaven, cried:&mdash;)</p>
+
+<p>The stars, the stars! When nature made Leo, Vinci, Pergolese, Duni,
+she wore a smile; her face was solemn and commanding when she created
+my dear uncle Rameau, who for ten years has been called the great
+Rameau, and who will soon be named no more. But when she scraped his
+nephew together, she made a face and a face and a face.&mdash;(And as he
+spoke he made grimaces, one of contempt, one of irony, one of scorn.
+He went through the motions of kneading dough, and smiled at the
+ludicrous forms he gave it. Then he threw the strange pagoda from
+him.) So she made me and threw me down among other pagodas,
+some with portly well-filled paunches, short necks,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4703" id="Page_4703">[Pg 4703]</a></span>
+protruding goggle eyes, and an apoplectic appearance; others with lank
+and crooked necks and emaciated forms, with animated eyes and hawks'
+noses. These all felt like laughing themselves to death when they saw
+me, and when I saw them I set my arms akimbo and felt like laughing
+myself to death, for fools and clowns take pleasure in one another;
+seek one another out, attract one another. Had I not found upon my
+arrival in this world the proverb ready-made, that the money of fools
+is the inheritance of the clever, the world would have owed it to me.
+I felt that nature had put my inheritance into the purse of the
+pagodas, and I tried in a thousand ways to recover it.</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;I know these ways. You have told me of them. I have
+admired them. But with so many capabilities, why do you not
+try to accomplish something great?</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;That is exactly what a man of the world said to the Abb&eacute; Le
+Blanc. The abb&eacute; replied:&mdash;"The Marquise de Pompadour takes me in hand
+and brings me to the door of the Academy; then she withdraws her hand;
+I fall and break both legs."&mdash;"You ought to pull yourself together,"
+rejoined the man of the world, "and break the door in with your
+head."&mdash;"I have just tried that," answered the abb&eacute;, "and do you know
+what I got for it? A bump on the head." ... (Then he drank a swallow
+from what remained in the bottle and turned to his neighbor.) Sir, I
+beg you for a pinch of snuff. That's a fine snuff-box you have there.
+You are a musician? No! All the better for you. They are a lot of poor
+deplorable wretches. Fate made me one of them, me! Meanwhile at
+Montmartre there is a mill, and in the mill there is perhaps a miller
+or a miller's lad, who will never hear anything but the roaring of the
+mill, and who might have composed the most beautiful of songs. Rameau,
+get you to the mill, to the mill; it's there you belong . . . But it
+is half-past five. I hear the vesper bell which summons me too.
+Farewell. It's true, is it not, philosopher, I am always the same
+Rameau?</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>&mdash;Yes, indeed. Unfortunately.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i>&mdash;Let me enjoy my misfortune forty years longer. He
+laughs best who laughs last.</p>
+
+<p class="trans">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4704" id="Page_4704">[Pg 4704]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="FRANZ_VON_DINGELSTEDT" id="FRANZ_VON_DINGELSTEDT"></a>FRANZ VON DINGELSTEDT</h2>
+
+<h4>(1814-1881)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capf34.png" width="90" height="90" alt="F" title="F" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">ranz von Dingelstedt was born at Halsdorf, Hessen, Germany, June
+30th, 1814. He attained eminence as a poet and dramatist, but his best
+powers were devoted to his principal calling as theatre director.</p>
+
+<p>His boyhood's education was received at Rinteln. At the University of
+Marburg he applied himself to theology and philology, but more
+especially to modern languages and literature. After leaving the
+university he became instructor at Ricklingen, near Hanover. He was
+characterized, even as a young man, by his political freedom and
+independence of thought; and at Cassel, where in 1836 he was teacher
+in the Lyceum, he was on this account looked upon so much askance that
+it was found expedient to transfer him to the gymnasium at Fulda
+(1838). He resigned this position, however, in order to devote himself
+to writing. A collection of his poems appeared in 1838-45, and of
+these, 'Lieder eines Kosmopolitischen Nachtw&auml;chters' (Songs of a
+Cosmopolitan Night-Watchman: 1841) may be said to have produced a
+genuine agitation. These were not only important as literature, but as
+political promulgations, boldly embodying the radical sentiments of
+freethinking Germany.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 178px;">
+<img src="images/Illus034.png" width="178" height="216" alt="Dingelstedt" title="Dingelstedt" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dingelstedt</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In 1841 he went to Augsburg, connected himself with the Allgemeine
+Zeitung, and traveled as newspaper correspondent in France,
+Holland, Belgium, and England. 'Das Wanderbuch' (The Wander-Book),
+and 'Jusqu' &agrave; la Mer&mdash;Erinnerungen aus Holland' (As Far as
+the Sea&mdash;Remembrances of Holland: 1847), were the fruits of these
+journeys. He had in contemplation a voyage to the Orient, and preparatory
+to this he settled for a short time in Vienna; but the journey
+was not undertaken, for just at this time he was appointed
+librarian of the Royal Library of Stuttgart, and reader to the king,
+with the title of Court Councilor. Here in 1844 he married the celebrated
+singer Jenny Lutzer. He returned to Vienna, where in 1850
+his drama 'Das Haus der Barneveldt' (The House of the Barneveldts)
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4705" id="Page_4705">[Pg 4705]</a></span>
+was produced with such brilliant success that he was thereupon
+appointed stage manager of the National Theatre at Munich. To
+this for six years he devoted his best efforts, presenting in the
+most admirable manner the finest of the German classics. The merit
+of his work was recognized by the king, who ennobled him in 1857.
+He was pre-eminently a theatrical manager, and served successively
+at Weimar (1857) and at Vienna, where he was appointed director of
+the Court Opera House in 1867, and of the Burg Theatre in 1870.
+He brought the classic plays of other lands upon the stage, and
+his revivals of Shakespeare's historical plays and the 'Winter's Tale,'
+and of Moli&egrave;re's 'L'Avare' (The Miser), were brilliant events in the
+theatrical annals of Vienna. He was made Imperial Councilor by the
+Emperor, and raised in 1876 to the rank of baron. In 1875 he took
+the position of general director of both court theatres of Vienna. He
+died at Vienna, May 15th, 1881.</p>
+
+<p>The novels 'Licht und Schatten der Liebe' (The Light and
+Shadow of Love: 1838); 'Heptameron,' 1841; and 'Novellenbuch,'
+1855, were not wholly successful; but in contrast to these, 'Unter
+der Erde' (Under the Earth: 1840); 'Sieben Friedliche Erz&auml;hlungen'
+(Seven Peaceful Tales: 1844), and 'Die Amazone' (The Amazon:
+1868), are admirable.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded purely as literature, Dingelstedt's best productions are
+his early poems, although his commentaries upon Shakespeare and
+Goethe are wholly praiseworthy. He was successful chiefly as a
+political poet, but his muse sings also the joys of domestic life.
+'Hauslieder' (Household Songs: 1844), and his poems upon Chamisso
+and Uhland, are among the most beautiful personal poems in German
+literature.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BUSSMAN" id="BUSSMAN"></a>A MAN OF BUSINESS</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Amazon': copyrighted by G.P. Putnam's Sons</h4>
+
+<p>Herr Krafft was about to reply, but was prevented by the hasty
+appearance of Herr Heyboldt, the first procurist, who entered the
+apartment; not an antiquated comedy figure in shoe-buckles, coarse
+woolen socks, velvet pantaloons, and a long-tailed coat, his vest full
+of tobacco, and a goose-quill back of his comically flexible ear; no,
+but a fine-looking man, dressed in the latest style and in black, with
+a medal in his button-hole, and having an earnest, expressive countenance.
+He was house-holder, member of the City Council, and militia captain;
+the gold medal and colored ribbon on his left breast told of his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4706" id="Page_4706">[Pg 4706]</a></span>
+having saved, at the risk of his own life, a Leander who
+had been carried away by the current in the swimming-baths.</p>
+
+<p>His announcement, urgent as it was, was made without haste, deliberate
+and cool, somewhat as the mate informs the captain that an ugly wind
+has sprung up. "Herr Principal," he said, "the crowd has broken in the
+barriers and one wing of the gateway; they are attacking the
+counting-house." "Who breaks, pays," said Krafft, with a joke; "we
+will charge the sport to their account."&mdash;"The police are not strong
+enough; they have sent to the Royal Watch for military."&mdash;"That is
+right, Heyboldt. No accident, no arms or legs broken?"&mdash;"Not that I
+know of."&mdash;"Pity for Meyer Hirsch; he would have thundered
+magnificently in the official Morning News against the excesses of the
+rage for speculation. Nor any one wounded by the police?"&mdash;"Not any,
+so far."&mdash;"Pity for Hirsch Meyer. The oppositional Evening Journal has
+missed a capital opportunity of weeping over the barbarity of the
+soldateska. At all events, the two papers must continue to write&mdash;one
+for, the other against us. Keep Hirsch Meyer and Meyer Hirsch
+going."&mdash;"All right, Herr Principal."&mdash;"Send each of them a polite
+line, to the effect that we have taken the liberty of keeping a few
+shares for him, to sell them at the most favorable moment, and pay him
+over the difference."&mdash;"It shall be attended to, Herr Principal."&mdash;"So
+our Southwestern Railway goes well, Heyboldt?"&mdash;"By steam, Herr
+Principal." The sober man smiled at his daring joke, and Herr Krafft
+smiled affably with him. "The amount that we have left to furnish will
+be exhausted before one has time to turn around. The people throw
+money, bank-notes, government bonds, at our cashiers, who cannot fill
+up the receipts fast enough. On the Bourse they fought for the
+blanks."&mdash;"For the next four weeks we will run the stock up, Heyboldt;
+after that it can fall, but slowly, with decorum."&mdash;"I understand,
+Herr Principal."</p>
+
+<p>A cashier came rushing in without knocking. "Herr Principal," he
+stammered in his panic, "we have not another blank, and the people are
+pouring in upon us more and more violently. Wild shouts call for you."
+"To your place, sir," thundered Krafft at him. "I shall come when I
+think it time. In no case," he added more quietly, "before the
+military arrive. We need an interference, for the sake of the market."
+The messenger disappeared; but pale, bewildered countenances were to
+be seen in the doorways of the comptoir; the house called for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4707" id="Page_4707">[Pg 4707]</a></span>
+its master: the trembling daughter sent again and again for her father.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us bring the play to a close," said Herr Krafft, after brief
+deliberation; he stepped into the middle office, flung open a window,
+and raising his harsh voice to its loudest tones, cried to the throng
+below, "You are looking for me, folks. Here I am. What do you want of
+me?" "Shares, subscriptions," was the noisy answer.&mdash;"You claim
+without any right or any manners. This is my house, a peaceable
+citizen's house. You are breaking in as though it were a dungeon, an
+arsenal, a tax-office,&mdash;as though we were in the midst of a
+revolution. Are you not ashamed of yourselves?" A confused murmur rang
+through the astonished ranks. "If you wish to do business with me,"
+continued the merchant, "you must first learn manners and discipline.
+Have I invited your visit? Do I need your money, or do you need my
+shares? Send up some deputies to convey your requests. I shall have
+nothing to do with a turbulent mob." So saying, he closed the window
+with such violence that the panes cracked, and the fragments fell down
+on the heads of the assailants.</p>
+
+<p>"The Principal knows how to talk to the people," said Heyboldt with
+pride to Roland, the mute witness of this strange scene. "He speaks
+their own language. He replies to a broken door with a broken window."</p>
+
+<p>Meantime a company of soldiers had arrived on double-quick, with a
+flourish of drums. The officer's word of command rang through the
+crowd, now grown suddenly quiet: "Fix bayonets! form line! march!"
+Yard and passages were cleared, the doors guarded; in the street the
+low muttering tide, forced back, made a sort of dam. Three deputies,
+abashed and confused, appeared at Krafft's door and craved audience.
+The merchant received them like a prince surrounded by his court, in
+the midst of his clerks, in the large counting-room. The spokesman
+commenced: "We ask your pardon, Herr Krafft, for what has
+happened."&mdash;"For shame, that you should drag in soldiers
+as witnesses and peacemakers in a quiet little business affair
+among order-loving citizens."&mdash;"It was reported that we
+had been fooled with these subscriptions, and that the entire sum had
+been already disposed of on the Bourse."&mdash;"And even if that were so,
+am I to be blamed for it? The Southwestern Railway must raise thirty
+millions. Double, treble that amount is offered it. Can I prevent
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4708" id="Page_4708">[Pg 4708]</a></span>
+the necessity of reducing the subscriptions?"&mdash;"No; but they say
+that we poor folks shall not get a cent's worth; the big men of the
+Bourse have gobbled up the best bits right before our
+noses."&mdash;"They say so? Who says so? Court Cooper T&auml;ubert, I
+ask you who says so?"&mdash;"Gracious Herr Court Banker&mdash;" "Don't
+Court or Gracious me. My name is Krafft, Herr Hans Heinrich Krafft. I
+think we know each other, Master T&auml;ubert. It is not the first
+time that we have done business together. You have a very snug little
+share in my workingmen's bank. Grain-broker W&uuml;st, you have bought
+one of the houses in my street. Do I ever dun you for the installments
+of purchase money?" "No indeed, Herr Krafft; you are a good man, a
+public-spirited man, no money-maker, no leech, no Jew!" cried the
+triumvirate of deputies in chorus.&mdash;"I am nothing more than you
+are: a man of business, who works for his living, the son of a
+peasant, a plain simple citizen. I began in a smaller way than any of
+you; but I shall never forget that I am flesh of your flesh, blood of
+your blood. Facts have proved it. I will give you a fresh proof
+to-day. Go home and tell the people who have sent you, Hans Heinrich
+Krafft will give up the share which his house has subscribed to the
+Southwestern Railway, in favor of the less wealthy citizens of this
+city. This sum of five hundred thousand thalers shall be divided up
+<i>pro rata</i> among the subscriptions under five hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven bless you, Herr Krafft!" stammered out the court cooper, and
+the grain-broker essayed to shed a tear of gratitude; the confidential
+clerk Herr Lange, the third of the group, caught at the hand of the
+patron to kiss it, with emotion. Krafft drew it back angrily. "No
+self-abasement, Herr Lange," he said. "We are men of the people; let
+us behave as such. God bless you, gentlemen. You know my purpose. Make
+it known to the good people waiting outside, and see that I am rid of
+my billeting. Let the subscriptions be conducted quietly and in good
+order. Adieu, children!" The deputation withdrew. A few minutes
+afterwards there was heard a thundering hurrah:&mdash;"Hurrah for Herr
+Krafft! Three cheers for Father Krafft!" He showed himself at the
+window, nodded quickly and soberly, and motioned to them to disperse.</p>
+
+<p>While the tumult was subsiding, Krafft and Roland retired into the
+private counting-room. "You have," the latter said, "spoken nobly,
+acted nobly."&mdash;"I have made a bargain, nothing more,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4709" id="Page_4709">[Pg 4709]</a></span>
+nothing less; moreover, not a bad one."&mdash;"How so?"&mdash;"In three months
+I shall buy at 70, perhaps still lower, what I am now to give up to them at
+90."&mdash;"You know that beforehand?"&mdash;"With mathematical certainty. The
+public expects an El Dorado in the Southwestern Railway, as it does in
+every new enterprise. The undertaking is a good one, it is true, or I
+should not have ventured upon it. But one must be able to wait until
+the fruit is ripe. The small holders cannot do that; they sow today,
+and tomorrow they wish to reap. At the first payment their heart and
+their purse are all right. At the second or third, both are gone. Upon
+the least rise they will throw the paper, for which they were ready to
+break each other's necks, upon the market, and so depreciate their
+property. But if some fortuitous circumstance should cause a pressure
+upon the money market, then they drop all that they have, in a perfect
+panic, for any price. I shall watch this moment, and buy. In a year or
+so, when the road is finished and its communications complete, the
+shares that were subscribed for at 90, and which I shall have bought
+at 60 to 70, will touch 100, or higher."</p>
+
+<p>"That is to say," said Roland, thoughtfully, "you will gain at the
+expense of those people whose confidence you have aroused, then
+satisfied with objects of artificial value, and finally drained for
+yourself." "Business is business," replied the familiar harsh voice.
+"Unless I become a counterfeiter or a forger I can do nothing more
+than to convert other persons' money into my own; of course, in an
+honest way."&mdash;"And you do this, without fearing lest one day some one
+mightier and luckier than you should do the same to you?"&mdash;"I must be
+prepared for that; I am prepared."&mdash;"Also for the storm,&mdash;not one of
+your own creating, but one sent by the wrath of God, that shall
+scatter all this paper splendor of our times, and reduce this
+appalling social inequality of ours to a universal zero?" "Let us
+quietly abide this Last Day," laughed the banker, taking the artist
+by the arm.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4710" id="Page_4710">[Pg 4710]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="WATCHMAN" id="WATCHMAN"></a>THE WATCHMAN</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The last faint twinkle now goes out<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Up in the poet's attic;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the roisterers, in merry rout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Speed home with steps erratic.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Soft from the house-roofs showers the snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The vane creaks on the steeple,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lanterns wag and glimmer low<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the storm by the hurrying people.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The houses all stand black and still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The churches and taverns deserted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a body may now wend at his will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With his own fancies diverted.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not a squinting eye now looks this way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Not a slanderous mouth is dissembling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a heart that has slept the livelong day<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">May now love and hope with trembling.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear Night! thou foe to each base end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While the good still a blessing prove thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They say that thou art no man's friend,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sweet Night! how I therefore love thee!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4711" id="Page_4711">[Pg 4711]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="DIOGENES_LAERTIUS" id="DIOGENES_LAERTIUS"></a>DIOGENES LAERTIUS</h2>
+
+<h4>(200-250 A. D.?)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 92px;">
+<img src="images/capi41.png" width="92" height="89" alt="I" title="I" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">t is curious how often we are dependent, for our knowledge of
+some larger subject, upon a single ancient author, who would be hardly
+worthy of notice but for the accidental loss of the books composed by
+fitter and abler men. Thus, our only general description of Greece at
+the close of the classical period is written by a man who describes
+many objects that he certainly did not see, who leaves unmentioned
+numberless things we wish explained, and who has a genius for so
+misplacing an adverb as to bring confusion into the most commonplace
+statement. But not even to Pausanias do we proffer such grudging
+gratitude and such ungrateful objurgations as to Diogenes Laertius,
+our chief&mdash;often our sole&mdash;authority for the 'Lives and Sayings of the
+Philosophers.' His book is a fascinating one, and even amusing, if we
+can forget what we so much wanted in its stead. At second or third
+hand, from the compendiums of the schools rather than from the
+original works of the great masters themselves, Diogenes does give us
+a fairly intelligible sketch, as a rule, of the outward life lived by
+each sage. This slight frame is crammed with anecdotes, evidently
+culled with most eager and uncritical hand from miscellaneous
+collections. Many of these stories are so fragmentary as to be
+pointless. Others are unquestionably attached to the wrong person.
+This method is at its maddest in the author's sketch of his namesake,
+the Recluse of the Tub. (One of Ali Baba's <i>jars</i>, by the way, would
+give a better notion of the real hermitage.) Since this "philosopher"
+had himself little character and no doctrines, the loose string of
+anecdotes, puns, and saucy answers suits all our needs. Throughout the
+work are scattered, apocryphal letters, and feeble poetic epigrams
+composed by the compiler himself. The leaning of our most
+unphilosophic author was apparently toward Epicurus. The loss of that
+teacher's own works causes us to prize doubly the extensive fragments
+of them preserved in this relatively copious and serious study. The
+lover of the great Epicurean poem of Lucretius on the 'Nature of Things'
+will often be surprised to find here the source of many among the Roman
+poet's most striking doctrines and images. The sketch of Zeno is also an
+important authority on Stoicism. Instruction in these particular chapters,
+then, and rich diversion elsewhere, await the reader of this most gossipy,
+formless, and uncritical volume. The English reader, by the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4712" id="Page_4712">[Pg 4712]</a></span>
+way, ought to be provided with something better than the "Bohn"
+version. This adds a goodly harvest of ludicrous misprints and other
+errors of every kind to Diogenes's own mixture of borrowed wisdom and
+native silliness. The classical student will prefer the <i>Didot</i>
+edition by Cobet, with the Latin version in parallel columns.</p>
+
+<p>It has been thought desirable to offer here a version, slightly
+abridged, of Diogenes's chapter on Socrates. The original sources, in
+Plato's and Xenophon's extant works, will almost always explain, or
+correct, the statements of Diogenes. Such wild shots as the assertion
+that the plague repeatedly visited Athens, striking down <i>every
+inhabitant</i> save the temperate Socrates, hardly need a serious
+rejoinder. Diogenes cannot even speak with approximate accuracy of
+Socrates's famous D&aelig;mon or Inward Monitor. We know, on the best
+authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing, but only
+vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But to apply the
+tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criticizing Uncle
+Remus for his sins against English syntax.</p>
+
+<p>Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to the
+third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers of
+the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SOCRATES" id="SOCRATES"></a>LIFE OF SOCRATES</h3>
+<h4>From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers'</h4>
+
+<p>Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Ph&aelig;narete
+a midwife [as Plato also states in the 'Theaetetus'], and
+an Athenian, of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid
+Euripides in composing his dramas.  Hence Mnesimachus speaks
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians':<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Socrates has furnished him the sticks."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Euripides, Socratically patched."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>A</i>&mdash;"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>B</i>&mdash;Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And this is he who for Euripides<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Composed the talkative wise tragedies."<br /></span></div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4713" id="Page_4713">[Pg 4713]</a></span>
+He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but
+also of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions.' After
+the former's condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the
+natural philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried
+stones. Some say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his;
+they are clothed figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli'
+declares:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"From them proceeded the stone-polisher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who taught the art of subtle argument,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The nose-in-air, mocker of orators,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half Attic, the adept in irony."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants,
+as Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing.
+Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse
+Argument seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his
+pupil &AElig;schines, to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who
+conversed about life, and the first of the philosophers who came
+to his end by being condemned to death. We are also told that
+he lent out money. At least, investing it, he would collect what
+was due, and then after spending it invest again. But Demetrius
+the Byzantine says it was Crito who, struck by the charm of his
+character, took him out of the workshop and educated him.</p>
+
+<p>Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men,
+it is said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the
+agora, and used to say he was seeking</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he conversed
+too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out,
+and was usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked,
+and bore it patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said,
+"If an ass had kicked me, would I bring an action against him?"</p>
+
+<p>Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except when he had
+to serve in the army. At other times, remaining in Athens, he disputed
+in argumentative fashion with those who conversed with him, not so as
+to deprive them of their belief, but to strive for the ascertainment
+of truth. They say Euripides gave him the work of Heraclitus, and
+asked him, "What do you think of it?" And he said, "What I understood
+is fine; I suppose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a Delian
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4714" id="Page_4714">[Pg 4714]</a></span>
+diver!" He attended also to physical training, and was in
+excellent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to
+Amphipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the battle
+of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed, when all the other
+Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly, turning about calmly, and
+on the lookout to defend himself if attacked. He also joined the
+expedition to Potid&aelig;a&mdash;by sea, for the war prevented a march by land;
+and it was there he was said once to have remained standing in one
+position all night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in
+valor, but gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to
+have been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young he
+visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he went to
+Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his 'Commentaries' says
+he went to the Isthmus.</p>
+
+<p>He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the
+democracy, as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and
+his associates when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a
+wealthy man, to them to be put to death. He was also the only
+one who opposed the condemnation of the ten generals. When
+he could have escaped from prison, too, he would not. The
+friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in prison he
+composed those beautiful discourses.</p>
+
+<p>He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells
+us in the seventh book of her 'Commentaries,' Alcibiades offered
+him a great estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If
+I needed sandals, and you offered me a hide from which to make
+them for myself, I should be laughed at if I took it." Often,
+too, beholding the multitude of things for sale, he would say to
+himself, "How many things I do not need!" He used constantly
+to repeat aloud these iambic verses:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But silver plate and garb of purple dye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To actors are of use,&mdash;but not in life."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He disdained the tyrants,&mdash;Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of
+Crannon, Eurylochus of Melissa,&mdash;not accepting gifts from them
+nor visiting them. He was so regular in his way of living that
+he was frequently the only one not ill when Athens was attacked
+by the plague.</p>
+
+<p>Aristotle says he wedded two wives, the first Xanthippe,
+who bore him Lamprocles, and the second Myrto, daughter of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4715" id="Page_4715">[Pg 4715]</a></span>
+Aristides the Just, whom he received without dowry and by
+whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Some however say
+he married Myrto first; and some again that he had them both
+at once, as the Athenians on account of scarcity of men passed
+a law to increase the population, permitting any one to marry
+one Athenian woman and have children by another; so Socrates
+did this.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man also able to disdain those who mocked him.
+He prided himself on his simple manner of living, and never
+exacted any pay. He used to say he who ate with best appetite
+had least need of delicacies, and he who drank with best appetite
+had least need to seek a draught not at hand; and that he who
+had fewest needs was nearest the gods. This indeed we may
+learn from the comic poets, who in their very ridicule covertly
+praise him. Thus Aristophanes says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O thou who hast righteously set thy heart on attaining to noble wisdom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How happy the life thou wilt lead among the Athenians and the Hellenes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shrewdness and memory both are thine, and energy unwearied<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of mind; and never art thou tired from standing or from walking.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By cold thou art not vexed at all, nor dost thou long for breakfast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wine thou dost shun, and gluttony, and every other folly."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Ameipsias also, bringing him upon the stage in the philosopher's
+cloak, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O Socrates, best among few men, most foolish of many, thou also<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Art come unto us; thou'rt a patient soul; but where didst get that doublet?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That wretched thing in mockery was presented by the cobblers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet though so hungry, he never however has stooped to flatter a mortal."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This disdain and arrogance in Socrates has also been exposed
+by Aristophanes, who says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Along the streets you haughtily strut; your eyes roll hither and thither:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Barefooted, enduring discomforts, you go with countenance solemn among us."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And yet sometimes, suiting himself to the occasion, he dressed
+finely; as when for instance in Plato's 'Symposium' he goes to
+Agathon's.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4716" id="Page_4716">[Pg 4716]</a></span>
+He was a man able both to urge others to action, and to
+dissuade them. Thus, when he conversed with The&aelig;tetus on
+Knowledge, he sent him away inspired, as Plato says. Again,
+when Euthyphron had indicted his own father for manslaughter,
+by conversing with him on piety Socrates turned him from his
+purpose. Lysis also by his exhortations he rendered a most
+moral man. He was moreover skillful in fitting his arguments
+to the circumstances. He changed the feeling of his son Lamprocles
+when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon somewhere
+relates. Plato's brother Glaucon, who wished to be active
+in politics, he dissuaded because of his inexperience, as Xenophon
+states; but Charmides on the other hand, who was well fitted,
+he urged on. He roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general
+also, pointing out to him the cocks of Midias the barber fighting
+those of Callias. He said it was strange that every man could
+tell easily how many sheep he had, but could not call by name
+the friends whom he had acquired, so negligent were men in
+that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great pains to captious
+arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to manage
+sophists&mdash;but men, never!" For he thought hair-splitting on
+such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus.'</p>
+
+<p>When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might
+make a profit on them, he did not take them.</p>
+
+<p>He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon
+also says in his 'Symposium.' He used to say, too, that there
+was but one good&mdash;knowledge; and one evil&mdash;ignorance. Wealth
+and birth, he said, had no value, but were on the contrary
+wholly an evil. So when some one told him Antisthenes's mother
+was a Thracian, "Did you think," quoth he, "so fine a man
+must be the child of two Athenians?" When Phaedo had been
+captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade Crito
+ransom him, and made him a philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre,
+saying there was no absurdity in learning what one did not
+know. He used to dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise
+helpful to health. This Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium.'</p>
+
+<p>He used to say that his D&aelig;mon foretold future events: and
+that he knew nothing, except that very fact that he did know
+nothing. Those who bought at a great price what was out of
+season, he said, had no hope of living till the season came around.
+Once being asked what was virtue in a young man, he said,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4717" id="Page_4717">[Pg 4717]</a></span>
+"To avoid excess in all things." He used to say one should study
+geometry (surveying) just enough to be able to measure land in
+buying and selling it.</p>
+
+<p>When Euripides in the 'Auge' said of virtue:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"These things were better left to lie untouched,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he rose up and left the theatre, saying it was absurd to think it
+proper to seek for a slave if he was not to be found, but to let
+virtue perish unregarded. When his advice was asked whether
+to marry or not, he said, "Whichever you do, you will regret it!"
+He used to say that he marveled that those who made stone
+statues took pains to make the stone as like the man as possible,
+but took none with themselves, that they might not be like the
+stone. He thought it proper for the young to look constantly in
+the mirror, so that if they had beauty they might prove themselves
+worthy of it, and if they were ugly, that they might conceal
+their ugliness by their accomplishments.</p>
+
+<p>When he had invited rich friends to dinner, and Xanthippe was ashamed,
+he said, "Do not be troubled. If they are sensible, they will bear
+with us. If not, we shall care nothing for them." Most men, he said,
+lived to eat; but he ate to live. As to those who showed regard for
+the opinions of the ignoble multitude, he said it was as if a man
+should reject one tetradrachm [coin] as worthless, but accept a heap
+of such coins as good. When &AElig;schines said, "I am poor and have nothing
+else, but I give you myself," he said, "Do you then not realize you
+are offering me the greatest of gifts?" To him who said, "The
+Athenians have condemned you to death," he responded, "And nature has
+condemned them also thereto:" though some ascribe this to Anaxagoras.
+When his wife exclaimed, "You die innocent!" he answered, "Do you wish
+I were guilty?"</p>
+
+<p>When a vision in sleep seemed to say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Three days hence thou'lt come to the fertile region of Phthia,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he said to &AElig;schines, "On the third day I shall die." When he
+was to drink the hemlock, Apollodorus gave him a fine garment
+to die in: "But why," quoth he, "is this garment of mine good
+enough to live in, but not to perish in?" To him who said,
+"So-and-so speaks ill of you," he answered, "Yes, he has not
+learned to speak well." When Antisthenes turned the ragged
+side of his cloak to the light, he remarked, "I see your vanity
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4718" id="Page_4718">[Pg 4718]</a></span>
+through your cloak." He declared we ought to put ourselves
+expressly at the service of the comedy writers: "For if they say
+anything about us that is true, they will correct us; and if what
+they say be untrue, it does not concern us at all."</p>
+
+<p>When Xanthippe had first reviled him, then drenched him
+with water, "Didn't I tell you," said he, "it was thundering and
+would soon rain?" To Alcibiades, who said Xanthippe's scolding
+was unbearable, he replied, "I am accustomed to it, as to a constantly
+creaking pulley. And you," he added, "endure the cackling
+of geese." Alcibiades said, "Yes, for they bring me eggs
+and goslings." "And Xanthippe," retorted Socrates, "bears me
+children." Once when she pulled off his cloak in the agora, his
+friends advised him to defend himself with force. "Yes," said
+he, "by Jove, so that as we fight, each of you may cry, 'Well
+done, Socrates!' 'Good for you, Xanthippe!'" He used to say
+he practiced on Xanthippe just as trainers do with spirited horses.
+"Just as they if they master them are able to control any other
+horse, so I who am accustomed to Xanthippe shall get on easily
+with any one else."</p>
+
+<p>It was for such words and acts as this that the Delphic priestess
+bore witness in his honor, giving to Chairephon that famous
+response:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Wisest of all mankind is Socrates."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He became extremely unpopular on account of this oracle;
+but also because he convicted of ignorance those who had a great
+opinion of themselves, particularly Anytus, as Plato also says in
+the 'Meno.' For Anytus, enraged at the ridicule Socrates brought
+upon him, first urged Aristophanes and the rest on to attack
+him, and then induced Meletus to join in indicting him for impiety
+and for corrupting the young men. Plato in the 'Apology'
+says there were three accusers,&mdash;Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus:
+Anytus being incensed at him in behalf of the artisans and politicians,
+Lycon for the orators, and Meletus for the poets, all of
+whom Socrates pulled to pieces. The sworn statement of the
+plaintiffs ran as follows; for it is still recorded, Favorinus says,
+in the State archives:&mdash;"Socrates is guilty, not honoring the
+gods whom the State honors, but introducing other strange divinities;
+and he is further guilty of corrupting the young. Penalty,
+death."</p>
+
+<p>When Lysias wrote a speech for his defense, he read it, and
+said, "A fine speech, Lysias, but not suited to me;" for indeed
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4719" id="Page_4719">[Pg 4719]</a></span>
+it was rather a lawyer's plea than a philosopher's. Lysias said,
+"But why, if the speech is a fine one, should it not be suitable
+for you?" Socrates replied, "Would not fine robes, then, and
+sandals, be unfitting for me?"</p>
+
+<p>While he was on trial, it is stated that Plato ascended the
+<i>bema</i> and began, "Being the youngest, O men of Athens, of all
+who ever came upon the bema"&mdash;but at this point the judges
+cried out, "Come down! come down!" So he was convicted by
+two hundred and eighty-one votes more than were cast for his
+acquittal. And when the judges considered what penalty or fine
+he should receive, he said he would pay five-and-twenty drachm&aelig;.
+Euboulides says he agreed to pay a hundred, but when the
+judges expressed their indignation aloud, he said, "For what I
+have done, I consider the proper return to be support at the
+public expense in the town hall." But they condemned him to
+death, the vote being larger than before by eighty.</p>
+
+<p>Not many days later he drank the hemlock in the prison,
+after uttering many noble words, recorded by Plato in the
+'Ph&aelig;do.' According to some, he wrote a poem beginning&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Greeting, Apollo of Delos, and Artemis, youthful and famous."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He also versified, not very successfully, a fable of &AElig;sop's
+which began&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"&AElig;sop once to the people who dwell in the city of Corinth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said, 'Let virtue be judged not by the popular voice.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So he passed from among men; but straightway the Athenians
+repented of their action, so that they closed the gymnasia, and
+exiling the other accusers, put Meletus to death. Socrates they
+honored with a statue of bronze, the work of Lysippus, which
+was set up in the Pompeion. Anytus in exile, entering Heraclea,
+was warned out of town that very day.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenians have had the same experience not only in Socrates's
+case, but with many others. Indeed, it is stated that they
+fined Homer as a madman, and adjudged Tyrt&aelig;us to be crazy.
+Euripides reproves them in the 'Palamedes,' saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Ye have slain, ye have slain the all-wise,
+the harmless nightingaleof the Muses."</p></div>
+
+<p>That is so. But Philochorus says Euripides died before Socrates.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4720" id="Page_4720">[Pg 4720]</a></span>
+Socrates and Euripides were both disciples of Anaxagoras.
+It appears to me, too, that Socrates did talk on natural philosophy.
+In fact, Xenophon says so, though he states that Socrates
+held discourse only upon moral questions. Plato indeed, in the
+'Apology,' mentioning Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers,
+himself says of them things whereof Socrates denies any knowledge;
+yet it is all ascribed to Socrates.</p>
+
+<p>Aristotle states that a certain mage from Syria came to
+Athens, and among other prophecies concerning Socrates foretold
+that his death would be a violent one.</p>
+
+<p>The following verses upon him are our own:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Drink, in the palace of Zeus, O Socrates, seeing that truly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou by a god wert called wise, who is wisdom itself.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Foolish Athenians, who to thee offered the potion of hemlock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through thy lips themselves draining the cup to the dregs!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William
+C. Lawton.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="GREEK" id="GREEK"></a>EXAMPLES OF GREEK WIT AND WISDOM</h3>
+
+<h4><a name="Bias" id="Bias"></a><span class="smcap">Bias</span></h4>
+
+<p>Once he was on a voyage with some impious men. The vessel was
+overtaken by a storm, and they began to call upon the gods for aid.
+But Bias said, "Be silent, so they may not discover that you are
+aboard our ship!"</p>
+
+<p>He declared it was pleasanter to decide a dispute between his enemies
+than between friends. "For of two friends," he explained, "one is sure
+to become my enemy; but of two enemies I make one friend."</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Plato" id="Plato"></a><span class="smcap">Plato</span></h4>
+
+<p>It is said Socrates, in a dream, seemed to be holding on his
+knees a cygnet, which suddenly grew wings and flew aloft, singing
+sweetly. Next day Plato came to him; and Socrates said he
+was the bird.</p>
+
+<p>It is told that Plato, once seeing a man playing at dice,
+reproved him. "The stake is but a trifle," said the other. "Yes,
+but," responded Plato, "the habit is no trifle."</p>
+
+<p>Once when Xenocrates came into Plato's house, the latter
+bade him scourge his slave for him, explaining that he could not
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4721" id="Page_4721">[Pg 4721]</a></span>
+do it himself, because he was angry. Again, he said to one
+of his slaves, "You would have had a beating if I were not
+angry."</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Aristippus" id="Aristippus"></a><span class="smcap">Aristippus</span></h4>
+
+<p>Dionysius once asked him why it is that the philosophers are
+seen at rich men's doors, not the rich men at the doors of the
+sages. Aristippus replied, "Because the wise realize what they
+lack, but the rich do not." On a repetition of the taunt on another
+occasion he retorted, "Yes, and physicians are seen at sick
+men's doors; yet none would choose to be the patient rather than
+the leech!"</p>
+
+<p>Once when overtaken by a storm on a voyage to Corinth, he
+was badly frightened. Somebody said to him, "We ordinary folk
+are not afraid, but you philosophers play the coward." "Yes,"
+was his reply, "we are not risking the loss of any such wretched
+life as yours."</p>
+
+<p>Some one reproached him for his extravagance in food. He
+answered, "If you could buy these same things for threepence,
+wouldn't you do it?"&mdash;"Oh yes."&mdash;"Why then, 'tis not I who
+am too fond of the luxurious food, but you that are over-fond of
+your money!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Aristotle" id="Aristotle"></a><span class="smcap">Aristotle</span></h4>
+
+<p>When asked, "What is Hope?" he answered, "The dream of
+a man awake." Asked what grows old quickest, he replied,
+"Gratitude." When told that some one had slandered him in
+his absence, he said, "He may beat me too&mdash;in my absence!"
+Being asked how much advantage the educated have over the
+ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead."</p>
+
+<p>Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society
+of the beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a
+blind man!" [<i>Cf.</i> Emerson's 'Rhodora.']</p>
+
+<p>Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said,
+"As we would wish them to treat us." Asked what a friend is,
+he answered, "One soul abiding in two bodies."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4722" id="Page_4722">[Pg 4722]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4><a name="Theophrastus" id="Theophrastus"></a><span class="smcap">Theophrastus</span></h4>
+
+<p>To a man who at a feast was persistently silent, he remarked,
+"If you are ignorant, you are acting wisely; if you are intelligent,
+you are behaving foolishly."</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Demetrius" id="Demetrius"></a><span class="smcap">Demetrius</span></h4>
+
+<p>It was a saying of his that to friends in prosperity we should
+go when invited, but to those in misfortune unbidden.</p>
+
+<p>When told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues,
+he answered, "But not my character, for which they erected
+them."</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Antisthenes" id="Antisthenes"></a><span class="smcap">Antisthenes</span></h4>
+
+<p>Some one asked him what he gained from philosophy. He
+replied, "The power to converse with myself."</p>
+
+<p>He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were
+horses. When they thought that irrational, he said, "But certainly,
+your generals are not such because they have learned anything,
+but simply because you have elected them!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Diogenes" id="Diogenes"></a><span class="smcap">Diogenes</span></h4>
+
+<p>He used to say that when in the course of his life he saw
+pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the most
+sensible of animals; but when he saw interpreters of dreams, and
+soothsayers, and those who paid attention to them, and those
+puffed up by fame or wealth, he believed no creature was sillier
+than man.</p>
+
+<p>Some said to him, "You are an old man. Take life easy
+now." He replied, "And if I were running the long-distance
+race, should I when nearing the goal slacken, and not rather
+exert myself?"</p>
+
+<p>When he saw a child drink out of his hands, he took the cup
+out of his wallet and flung it away, saying, "A child has beaten
+me in simplicity."</p>
+
+<p>He used to argue thus, "All things belong to the gods. The
+wise are the friends of the gods. The goods of friends are common
+property. Therefore all things belong to the wise."</p>
+
+<p>To one who argued that <i>motion</i> was impossible, he made no
+answer, but rose and walked away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4723" id="Page_4723">[Pg 4723]</a></span>
+When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mysteries,
+assuring him that in Hades those who were initiated have
+the front seats, he replied, "It is ludicrous, if Agesilaus and
+Epaminondas are to abide in the mud, and some ignoble wretches
+who are initiated are to dwell in the Isles of the Blest!"</p>
+
+<p>Plato made the definition "Man is a two-footed featherless
+animal," and was much praised for it. Diogenes plucked a fowl
+and brought it into his school, saying "This is Plato's man!"
+So the addition was made to the definition, "with broad nails."</p>
+
+<p>When a man asked him what was the proper hour for lunch,
+he said, "If you are rich, when you please; if you are poor,
+when you can get it."</p>
+
+<p>He used often to shout aloud that an easy life had been given
+by the gods to men, but they had covered it from sight in their
+search for honey-cakes and perfumes and such things.</p>
+
+<p>The musician who was always left alone by his hearers he
+greeted with "Good morning, cock!" When the other asked
+him the reason, he said, "Because your music starts everybody
+up."</p>
+
+<p>When an exceedingly superstitious man said to him, "With
+one blow I will break your head!" he retorted, "And with a
+sneeze at your left side I will make you tremble."</p>
+
+<p>When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, "Of
+wild beasts, the sycophant; and of tame creatures, the flatterer."</p>
+
+<p>Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded,
+"For young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all."</p>
+
+<p>When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drinking, he answered,
+"Another man's." [Of a different temper was Dante, who knew too well
+"how salt the bread of others tastes!"]</p>
+
+<p>Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But
+he replied, "It is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but
+Diogenes cannot without Manes."</p>
+
+<p>When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philosophers,
+he said, "Because they expect themselves to become lame
+and blind; but philosophers, never!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Cleanthes" id="Cleanthes"></a><span class="smcap">Cleanthes</span></h4>
+
+<p>When a comic actor apologized for having ridiculed him from
+the stage, he answered gently, "It would be preposterous, when
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4724" id="Page_4724">[Pg 4724]</a></span>
+Bacchus and Hercules bear the raillery of the poets without
+showing any anger, if I should be indignant when I chance to
+be attacked."</p>
+
+
+<h4><a name="Pythagoras" id="Pythagoras"></a><span class="smcap">Pythagoras</span><br />
+
+<i>Precepts</i></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Do not stir the fire with a sword.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not devour your heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Always have your bed packed up.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not walk in the main street.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Avoid a sharp sword.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">[Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death.]<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Consider nothing exclusively your own.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter,
+and yet not looking stern. [<i>Cf.</i> Emerson on Manners.]<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William C.
+Lawton.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4725" id="Page_4725">[Pg 4725]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="ISAAC_DISRAELI" id="ISAAC_DISRAELI"></a>ISAAC D'ISRAELI</h2>
+
+<h4>(1766-1848)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capa55.png" width="90" height="90" alt="A" title="A" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">mong the writers whose education and whose tastes were the outcome
+of the classicism of the eighteenth century, yet whose literary life
+lapped over into the Victorian epoch, was Isaac D'Israeli, born at
+Enfield in May 1766. D'Israeli was of Jewish origin, his ancestors
+having fled from the Spanish persecutions of the fifteenth century to
+find a home in Venice, whence a younger branch migrated to England.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 178px;">
+<img src="images/Illus055.png" width="178" height="216" alt="Isaac D Israeli" title="Isaac D Israeli" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Isaac D'Israeli</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>At the time of his birth his family had stood for generations among
+the foremost English Jews, his father having been made a citizen by
+special legislation. The boy, however, did not inherit the commercial
+spirit which had established his house. He was a lover of books and a
+dreamer of dreams, and so early developed literary tendencies that his
+frightened father sent him off to Amsterdam to school, in the hope of
+curing proclivities so dangerous. Here he became familiar with the
+works of the Encyclop&aelig;dists, and adopted the theories of Rousseau. On
+returning to England in his nineteenth year, he replied to his
+father's proposition that he should enter a commercial house at
+Bordeaux, by a long poem in which he passionately inveighed against
+the commercial spirit, and avowed himself a student of philosophy and
+letters. His father's reluctant acquiescence was obtained at last
+through the good offices of the laureate Pye, to whom the youth had
+already dedicated his first book, 'A Defence of Poetry.'</p>
+
+<p>At the outset of his career he found himself received with
+consideration by the men whose acquaintance he most desired. Following
+the fashion of the day, and inspired by the books of anecdotes so
+successfully published by his friend Douce, D'Israeli in 1791 produced
+anonymously a small volume entitled 'Curiosities of Literature,' the
+copyright of which he magnanimously presented to his publisher. The
+extraordinary success of this book can be accounted for only by the
+curious taste of the time, which still reflected the more unworthy
+traditions of the Addisonian era. It was an age of clubs and
+tea-tables, of society scandal-mongering and fireside gossip;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4726" id="Page_4726">[Pg 4726]</a></span>
+and the reading public welcomed a contribution whose refined dilettantism
+so well matched its own. The mysteries of Eleusis and the origin of wigs
+received the same grave attention. This popularity induced D'Israeli
+to buy back the copyright at a generous valuation; he enlarged the
+work to five volumes, which passed through twelve in his own lifetime,
+and still serves to illustrate a curious literary phase.</p>
+
+<p>Other compilations of similar nature met the same success: 'The
+Calamities of Authors,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' and 'Literary
+Recollections'; but the 'Amenities of Literature,' his last work, is
+the most purely literary in form, and affords perhaps the best index
+to D'Israeli's abilities as a writer. The reader of to-day, however,
+is struck by the ephemeral nature of this criticism, which yet by a
+curious literary experience is keeping a place among the permanent
+productions of its age. The reader is everywhere impressed by the
+human sympathy, by the wide if rather superficial knowledge, and by
+innumerable felicities of expression and style, which betray the
+cultivated mind. To lovers of the curious the books still appeal, and
+they will continue to hold an honorable place among the bric-a-brac of
+literature.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of curiosity which characterized the mind of D'Israeli
+assumed its most dignified concrete form in the 'Commentaries on
+the Reign of Charles I.' D'Israeli had an artistic sense of the values
+in a historical picture, with a keen perception of the importance of
+side lights; and although the book is not a great contribution to the
+literature of history, yet it became popular, and in July 1832 earned
+for its author the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>D'Israeli's romances were tedious tales, but his hold upon the public
+was secure, and the vast amount of miscellaneous matter which
+he published always found a delighted audience. 'The Genius of
+Judaism,' a philosophical inquiry into the historical significance of
+the permanence of the Jewish race, showed the author's psychic limitations.
+He designed a history of English literature, for which he
+had gathered much material, but increasing blindness forced him to
+abandon it. Much of D'Israeli's popularity was unquestionably due
+to his qualities of heart. His nature was fine; he was an affectionate
+and devoted friend, and held an enviable position in the literary circles
+of the day. Campbell, Byron, Rogers, and Scott alike admired
+and loved him, while a host of lesser men eagerly sought his friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Although brought up in the Jewish faith, D'Israeli affiliated early
+in life with the Church of England, in which his three sons and one
+daughter were baptized. He died in 1848, and was buried at Brandenham.
+Twenty years later his daughter-in-law, the Countess of
+Beaconsfield, erected at Hughenden a monument to his memory.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="QUARTO" id="QUARTO"></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>OLD BLACK-LETTER QUARTO.</i><br /><br />
+Slightly reduced facsimile of title-page of first edition of<br />
+"THE POSIES."<br /><br />
+London, about 1572. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+Original, 4&#8539; x 6&#8540; inches.</span>
+<p>An example of title-page, typography, and spelling a hundred years
+after the introduction of printing into England. The Old English,
+Gothic, or Black-letter type was being superseded by the modern
+"Roman;" and on this title page both forms were used.</p>
+<img src="images/Illus0058.jpg" width="420" height="645" alt="OLD BLACK-LETTER QUARTO" title="OLD BLACK-LETTER QUARTO" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4727" id="Page_4727">[Pg 4727]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="POETS_PHILOSOPHERS_AND_ARTISTS_MADE_BY_ACCIDENT" id="POETS_PHILOSOPHERS_AND_ARTISTS_MADE_BY_ACCIDENT"></a>POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS MADE BY ACCIDENT</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Curiosities of Literature'</h4>
+
+
+<p>Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to
+display their powers. It was at Rome, says Gibbon, on the fifteenth of
+October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while
+the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,
+that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first
+started to my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Father Malebranche, having completed his studies in philosophy and
+theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some
+religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for
+him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and
+turning over a parcel of books, 'L'Homme de Descartes' fell into his
+hands. Having dipt into some parts, he read with such delight that the
+palpitations of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was
+this circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which
+made him the Plato of his age.</p>
+
+<p>Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found,
+when very young, Spenser's 'Fairy Queen,' and by a continual study of
+poetry he became so enchanted of the Muse that he grew irrecoverably a
+poet.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Johnson informs us that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness
+of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's Treatise.</p>
+
+<p>Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics.
+His taste was first determined by an accident: when young, he
+frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor;
+and while she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness! In
+this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck
+with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the
+hall. His curiosity was roused; he approached the clock-case,
+and studied its mechanism; what he could not discover he
+guessed at. He then projected a similar machine, and gradually
+his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he
+proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which thus
+could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.</p>
+
+<p>If Shakespeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his
+wool trade and his town; if he had not engaged with a company
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4728" id="Page_4728">[Pg 4728]</a></span>
+of actors, and at length, disgusted with being an indifferent performer, he had
+not turned author, the prudent wool-seller had never been the celebrated poet.</p>
+
+<p>Accident determined the taste of Moli&egrave;re for the stage. His
+grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The
+young man lived in dissipation; the father, observing it, asked in
+anger if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the
+grandfather, "he was as good an actor as Montrose." The words struck
+young Moli&egrave;re; he took a disgust to his tapestry trade; and it is to
+this circumstance France owes her greatest comic writer.</p>
+
+<p>Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet,
+composed 'M&eacute;lite,' and afterwards his other celebrated works. The
+discreet Corneille had remained a lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is that the devotion of a mother, the death of Cromwell,
+deer-stealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the beauty of a
+woman, have given five illustrious characters to Europe.</p>
+
+<p>We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When
+a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague
+into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the
+fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed
+the smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the
+stroke. This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling
+bodies; from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the
+foundation of his philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman who was dangerously wounded at
+the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the
+Lives of the Saints, which were brought to him in his illness instead
+of a romance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a
+religious order; whence originated the celebrated society of the
+Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the
+advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy of
+Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated
+Declamation against the arts and sciences; a circumstance which
+determined his future literary efforts.</p>
+
+<p>La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any
+profession or devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally
+heard some verses of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4729" id="Page_4729">[Pg 4729]</a></span>
+directed his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so
+exquisitely delighted with this poet that after passing the nights in
+treasuring his verses in his memory, he would run in the daytime to the
+woods, where, concealing himself, he would recite his verses to the
+surrounding dryads.</p>
+
+<p>Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on
+account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book 'De Sph&aelig;ra' having been
+lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a
+course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural
+history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of
+Willoughby's work on birds; the same accident, of finding on the table
+of his professor Reaumur's 'History of Insects,'&mdash;of which he read
+more than he attended to the lecture.&mdash;and having been refused the
+loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet that he hastened
+to obtain a copy, but found many difficulties in procuring this costly
+work. Its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life:
+this naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to
+the microscope.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident.
+"I found a work of Defoe's, entitled an 'Essay on Projects,' from
+which perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of
+the principal events of my life."</p>
+
+<p>I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his
+'Schoolmaster,' one of the most curious and useful treatises among our
+elder writers.</p>
+
+<p>At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil during the plague in 1563, at
+his apartments at Windsor, where the Queen had taken refuge, a number
+of ingenious men were invited. Secretary Cecil communicated the news
+of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on account
+of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error in the
+education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe
+in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defense of hard flogging. Dr.
+Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the Secretary. Sir John Mason,
+adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted
+Sir William Petre, and adduced as an evidence that the best schoolmaster
+then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that Roger Ascham
+indignantly exclaimed that if such a master had an able scholar it was owing
+to the boy's genius and not the preceptor's rod. Secretary Cecil and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4730" id="Page_4730">[Pg 4730]</a></span>
+others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir Richard Sackville was
+silent; but when Ascham after dinner went to the Queen to read one of
+the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside, and frankly told him
+that though he had taken no part in the debate he would not have been
+absent from that conversation for a great deal; that he knew to his
+cost the truth Ascham had supported, for it was the perpetual flogging
+of such a schoolmaster that had given him an unconquerable aversion to
+study. And as he wished to remedy this defect in his own children, he
+earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his observations on so interesting
+a topic. Such was the circumstance which produced the admirable
+treatise of Roger Ascham.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="MARTYRDOM" id="MARTYRDOM"></a>THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES THE FIRST</h3>
+
+<h4>From the 'Commentaries on the Reign of Charles the First'</h4>
+
+<p>At Whitehall a repast had been prepared. The religious emotions of
+Charles had consecrated the sacrament, which he refused to mingle with
+human food. The Bishop, whose mind was unequal to conceive the
+intrepid spirit of the King, dreading lest the magnanimous monarch,
+overcome by the severity of the cold, might faint on the scaffold,
+prevailed on him to eat half a manchet of bread and taste some claret.
+But the more consolatory refreshment of Charles had been just imparted
+to him in that singular testimony from his son, who had sent a <i>carte
+blanche</i> to save the life of his father at any price. This was a
+thought on which his affections could dwell in face of the scaffold
+which he was now to ascend.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="CHARLES" id="CHARLES"></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>CHARLES I. GOING TO EXECUTION.</i><br />
+Photogravure from a painting by E. Crofts.</span>
+<img src="images/Illus0421.jpg" width="635" height="400" alt="CHARLES I. GOING TO EXECUTION." title="CHARLES I. GOING TO EXECUTION." />
+</div>
+
+<p>Charles had arrived at Whitehall about ten o'clock, and was not led to
+the scaffold till past one. It was said that the scaffold was not
+completed; it might have been more truly said that the conspirators
+were not ready. There was a mystery in this delay. The fate of Charles
+the First to the very last moment was in suspense. Fairfax, though at
+the time in the palace, inquired of Herbert how the King was, when the
+King was no more! and expressed his astonishment on hearing that the
+execution had just taken place. This extraordinary simplicity and
+abstraction from the present scene of affairs has been imputed to the
+General as an act of refined dissimulation, yet this seems uncertain.
+The Prince's <i>carte blanche</i> had been that morning confided to his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4731" id="Page_4731">[Pg 4731]</a></span>
+hands, and he surely must have laid it before the "Grandees of the
+Army," as this new order of the rulers of England was called. Fairfax,
+whose personal feelings respecting the King were congenial with those
+his lady had so memorably evinced, labored to defer for a few days the
+terrible catastrophe; not without the hope of being able, by his own
+regiment and others in the army, to prevent the deed altogether. It is
+probable&mdash;inexplicable as it may seem to us&mdash;that the execution of
+Charles the First really took place unknown to the General. Fairfax
+was not unaccustomed to discover that his colleagues first acted, and
+afterwards trusted to his own discernment.</p>
+
+<p>Secret history has not revealed all that passed in those three
+awful hours. We know, however, that the warrant for the execution
+was not signed till within a few minutes before the King
+was led to the scaffold. In an apartment in the Palace, Ireton and
+Harrison were in bed together, and Cromwell, with four colonels,
+assembled in it. Colonel Huncks refused to sign the warrant.
+Cromwell would have no further delay, reproaching the Colonel
+as "a peevish, cowardly fellow," and Colonel Axtell declared that
+he was ashamed for his friend Huncks, remonstrating with him,
+that "the ship is coming into the harbor, and now would he
+strike sail before we come to anchor?" Cromwell stepped to a
+table, and wrote what he had proposed to Huncks; Colonel
+Hacker, supplying his place, signed it, and with the ink hardly
+dry, carried the warrant in his hand and called for the King.</p>
+
+<p>At the fatal summons Charles rose with alacrity. The King
+passed through the long gallery by a line of soldiers. Awe and
+sorrow seem now to have mingled in their countenances. Their
+barbarous commanders were intent on their own triumph, and
+no farther required the forced cry of "Justice and Execution."
+Charles stepped out of an enlarged window of the Banqueting
+House, where a new opening leveled it with the scaffold. Charles
+came forward with the same indifference as "he would have
+entered Whitehall on a masque night," as an intelligent observer
+described. The King looked towards St. James's and smiled.
+Curious eyes were watchful of his slightest motions; and the
+Commonwealth papers of the day express their surprise, perhaps
+their vexation, at the unaltered aspect and the firm step of the
+Monarch. These mean spirits had flattered themselves that he
+who had been cradled in royalty, who had lived years in the
+fields of honor, and was now, they presumed, a recreant in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4732" id="Page_4732">[Pg 4732]</a></span>
+imprisonment,&mdash;"the grand Delinquent of England,"&mdash;as they
+called him, would start in horror at the block.</p>
+
+<p>This last triumph at least was not reserved for them,&mdash;it was
+for the King. Charles, dauntless, strode "the floor of Death," to
+use Fuller's peculiar but expressive phraseology. He looked on
+the block with the axe lying upon it, with attention; his only
+anxiety was that the block seemed not sufficiently raised, and
+that the edge of the axe might be turned by being swept by the
+flappings of cloaks, or blunted by the feet of some moving about
+the scaffold. "Take care they do not put me to pain!&mdash;Take
+heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!" exclaimed the King to
+a gentleman passing by. "Hurt not the axe; that may hurt
+me!" His continued anxiety concerning these <i>circumstances</i>
+proves that he felt not the terror of death, solely anxious to
+avoid the pain, for he had an idea of their cruelty. With that
+sedate thoughtfulness which was in all his actions, he only looked
+at the business of the hour. One circumstance Charles observed
+with a smile. They had a notion that the King would resist the
+executioner; on the suggestion of Hugh Peters, it is said, they
+had driven iron staples and ropes into the scaffold, that their
+victim, if necessary, might be bound down upon the block.</p>
+
+<p>The King's speech has many remarkable points, but certainly
+nothing so remarkable as the place where it was delivered. This
+was the first "King's Speech" spoken from a scaffold. Time
+shall confirm, as history has demonstrated, his principle that
+"They mistook the nature of government; for people are free
+under a government, not by being sharers in it, but by the due
+administration of the laws." "It was for this," said Charles,
+"that now I am come here. If I could have given way to an
+arbitrary sway, for to have all laws changed according to the
+power of the sword, I need not have come here; and therefore
+I tell you that I am <i>the Martyr of the People</i>!"</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4733" id="Page_4733">[Pg 4733]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="SYDNEY_DOBELL" id="SYDNEY_DOBELL"></a>SYDNEY DOBELL</h2>
+
+<h4>(1824-1874)</h4>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/caps67.png" width="90" height="90" alt="S" title="S" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">ydney Dobell, the son of a wine merchant, was born at Cranbrook in
+Kent. His parents, both persons of strong individuality, believed in
+home training, and not one of their eight children went either to
+school or to university. They belonged to the Broad Church Community
+founded by Sydney's maternal grandfather, Samuel Thompson; a church
+intended to recall in its principles the primitive Christian ages. The
+parents looked upon Sydney, their eldest-born, as destined to become
+the apostle of this creed. He grew up in a kind of religious fervor,
+with his precocious mind unnaturally stimulated; a course of conduct
+which materially weakened his constitution, and made him a chronic
+invalid at the early age of thirty-three. He read whatever books came
+to hand, many of them far beyond his years. At the age of eight he
+filled his diary with theological discussions.</p>
+
+<p>Entering his father's counting-house as a mere lad, he remained to the
+end of his life a business man of great energy. Notwithstanding his
+rare poetic endowments, he never seems to have entertained a
+single-minded purpose to be a poet and nothing more. On the contrary,
+he thought the ideal and the practical life perfectly compatible, and
+he strove to unite in himself the poet and the man of affairs. He
+wrote habitually until 1856, when regular literary work was forbidden
+by his physicians. With characteristic energy he now turned his
+thoughts into other channels; identified himself with the affairs of
+Gloucester, where he was living, looked after his business, and was
+one of the first to adopt the system of industrial co-operation. The
+last four years of his life, a period of suffering and helplessness,
+he spent at Barton-End House, above the Stroud valley, where he died
+in the spring of 1874.</p>
+
+<p>In the work of Dobell it is curious to find so few traces of the
+influences under which he grew up. He had every encouragement to
+become a writer of religious poetry; yet much of his work is
+philosophic and recondite. His delicate health is in a measure
+responsible for his failure to achieve the success which his natural
+endowments promised. All his literary work was done between the ages
+of twenty-three and thirty-three. 'The Roman,' his first long poem,
+appeared in 1850. Dedicated to the Italian struggle for liberty, it
+showed his breadth of sympathy. In 'Balder,' finished in 1853,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4734" id="Page_4734">[Pg 4734]</a></span>
+Dobell is at his best both as thinker and as poet. Yet its many fine
+passages, its wealth of metaphor, and the exquisite songs of Amy,
+hardly counterbalance the remoteness of its theme, and its over-subtle
+analysis of morbid psychic states. It is a poem to be read in
+fragments, and has aptly been called a mine for poets.</p>
+
+<p>With Alexander Smith he published in 1855 a series of sonnets inspired
+by the Crimean War. This was followed in 1856 by 'England in War
+Time,' a collection of Dobell's lyrical and descriptive poems, which
+possess more general human interest than any other of his books.</p>
+
+<p>After continuous work was interdicted, he still contributed verse and
+prose to the periodicals. His essays have been collected by Professor
+Nichol, under the title 'Thoughts on Art, Philosophy, and Religion.'
+As a poet Dobell belongs to the so-called "spasmodic school," a school
+"characterized by an undercurrent of discontent with the mystery of
+existence, by vain effort, unrewarded struggle, skeptical unrest, and
+an uneasy striving after some incomprehensible end.... Poetry of this
+kind is marked by an excess of metaphor which darkens rather than
+illustrates, and by a general extravagance of language. On the other
+hand, it manifests freshness and originality, and a rich natural
+beauty." Dobell's descriptions of scenery are among the finest in
+English literature. His senses were abnormally acute, like those of a
+savage, a condition which intensified his appreciation of natural
+beauty. Possessing a vivid imagination and wide sympathies, he was
+often over-subtle and obscure. He strove to realize in himself his
+ideal of a poet, and during his years of ill-health gave himself up to
+promoting the welfare of his fellow-men; but of his seventeen years of
+inactivity he says:&mdash;"The keen perception of all that should be done,
+and that so bitterly cries for doing, accompanies the consciousness of
+all that I might but cannot do."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="EPIGRAM" id="EPIGRAM"></a>EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He wooed and won her; and, by love made bold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She showed him more than mortal man should know&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Then slew him lest her secret should be told.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4735" id="Page_4735">[Pg 4735]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="MYBOY" id="MYBOY"></a>HOW'S MY BOY?</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Ho, <span class="smcap">sailor</span> of the sea!<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">How's my boy&mdash;my boy?"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"What's your boy's name, good wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And in what good ship sailed he?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"My boy John&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">He that went to sea&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What care I for the ship, sailor?<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">My boy's my boy to me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"You come back from the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And not know my John?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I might as well have asked some landsman,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Yonder down in the town.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There's not an ass in all the parish<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But knows my John.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"How's my boy&mdash;my boy?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And unless you let me know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">I'll swear you are no sailor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Blue jacket or no&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Brass buttons or no, sailor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Anchor and crown or no&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">"Sure, his ship was the Jolly Briton&mdash;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">"Speak low, woman, speak low!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"And why should I speak low, sailor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">About my own boy John?<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">If I was loud as I am proud<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I'd sing him over the town!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Why should I speak low, sailor?"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"That good ship went down."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"How's my boy&mdash;my boy?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What care I for the ship, sailor?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I was never aboard her.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Be she afloat or be she aground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Her owners can afford her!<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">I say, how's my John?"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Every man on board went down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Every man aboard her."<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4736" id="Page_4736">[Pg 4736]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"How's my boy&mdash;my boy?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What care I for the men, sailor?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I'm not their mother.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">How's my boy&mdash;my boy?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Tell me of him and no other!<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">How's my boy&mdash;my boy?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SAILOR" id="SAILOR"></a>THE SAILOR'S RETURN</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">This morn I lay a-dreaming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">This morn, this merry morn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the cock crew shrill from over the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I heard a bugle horn.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">And through the dream I was dreaming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">There sighed the sigh of the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And through the dream I was dreaming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">This voice came singing to me:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">"High over the breakers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Low under the lee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Sing ho!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">The billow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And the lash of the rolling sea!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">"Boat, boat, to the billow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Boat, boat, to the lee!<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Love, on thy pillow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Art thou dreaming of me?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">"Billow, billow, breaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Land us low on the lee!<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">For sleeping or waking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sweet love, I am coming to thee!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"High, high, o'er the breakers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Low, low, on the lee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Sing ho!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">The billow<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That brings me back to thee!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4737" id="Page_4737">[Pg 4737]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="AFLOAT" id="AFLOAT"></a>AFLOAT AND ASHORE</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"I see the ship on the sea, love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i11">I stand alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">On this rock;<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">The sea does not shock<br /></span>
+<span class="i11">The stone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The waters around it are swirled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">But under my feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">I feel it go down<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">To where the hemispheres meet<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">At the adamant heart of the world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Oh that the rock would move!<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Oh that the rock would roll<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">To meet thee over the sea, love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Surely my mighty love<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Should fill it like a soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And it should bear me to thee, love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Like a ship on the sea, love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Bear me, bear me, to thee, love!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">"Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Low on our lee, love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over and over<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And on through the loud pealing pomp of her cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">The great ship is going to thee, love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Blind to her mark, like a world through the dark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Thundering, sundering, to the crowds wondering,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Thundering over to thee, love."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"I have come down to thee coming to me, love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">I stand, I stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">On the solid sand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I see thee coming to me, love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The sea runs up to me on the sand:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I start&mdash;'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And touched me through the sea, love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">I feel as if I must die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">For there's something longs to fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Fly and fly, to thee, love.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4738" id="Page_4738">[Pg 4738]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">As the blood of the flower ere she blows<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Is beating up to the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">And her roots do hold her down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">And it blushes and breaks undone<br /></span>
+<span class="i11">In a rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">So my blood is beating in me, love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">I see thee nigh and nigher;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And my soul leaps up like sudden fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">My life's in the air<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">To meet thee there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">To meet thee coming to me, love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Over the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Coming to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Coming, and coming to me, love!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"The boats are lowered: I leap in first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Pull, boys, pull! or my heart will burst!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">More! more!&mdash;lend me an oar!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I'm thro' the breakers! I'm on the shore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I see thee waiting for me, love!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9">"A sudden storm<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Of sighs and tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">A clenching arm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">A look of years.<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">In my bosom a thousand cries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">A flash like light before my eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">And I am lost in thee, love!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SOUL" id="SOUL"></a>THE SOUL</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Balder'</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And as the mounting and descending bark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Borne on exulting by the under deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gains of the wild wave something not the wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Catches a joy of going and a will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Resistless, and upon the last lee foam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaps into air beyond it,&mdash;so the soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tossed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To darkness, and, still wet with drops of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Held into light eternal, and again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cast down, to be again uplift in vast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And infinite succession, cannot stay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mad momentum.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4739" id="Page_4739">[Pg 4739]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="ENGLAND" id="ENGLAND"></a>ENGLAND</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Balder'</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This dear English land!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This happy England, loud with brooks and birds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bloomed from hill to dell: but whose best flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than any rose she weaves; whose noblest floods<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pulsing torrent of a nation's heart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose forests stronger than her native oaks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are living men; and whose unfathomed lakes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forever calm, the unforgotten dead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In quiet grave-yards willowed seemly round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er which To-day bends sad, and sees his face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose rocks are rights, consolidate of old<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through unremembered years, around whose base<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ever-surging peoples roll and roar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perpetual, as around her cliffs the seas<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That only wash them whiter; and whose mountains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Souls that from this mere footing of the earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lift their great virtues through all clouds of Fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up to the very heavens, and make them rise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To keep the gods above us!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="AMERICA" id="AMERICA"></a>AMERICA</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who north or south, or east or western land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For God; O ye who in eternal youth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Speak with a living and creative flood<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">This universal English, and do stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Heroic utterance&mdash;parted, yet a whole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Far, yet unsevered,&mdash;children brave and free<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the great Mother tongue, and ye shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4740" id="Page_4740">[Pg 4740]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="AMY" id="AMY"></a>AMY'S SONG OF THE WILLOW</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Balder'</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The years they come, and the years they go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like winds that blow from sea to sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From dark to dark they come and go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All in the dew-fall and the rain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down by the stream there be two sweet willows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">&mdash;Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One hale, one blighted, two wedded willows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All in the dew-fall and the rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She is blighted, the fair young willow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">&mdash;Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She hears the spring-blood beat in the bark;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She hears the spring-leaf bud on the bough;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All in the dew-fall and the rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The stream runs sparkling under the willow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">&mdash;Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The summer rose-leaves drop in the stream;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The winter oak-leaves drop in the stream;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All in the dew-fall and the rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sometimes the wind lifts the bright stream to her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">&mdash;Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The false stream sinks, and her tears fall faster;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because she touched it her tears fall faster;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the stream her tears fall faster,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All in the sunshine or the rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The years they come, and the years they go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sing well-away, sing well-away!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And under mine eyes shines the bright life-river;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sing well-away, sing well-away!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet sounds the spring in the hale green willow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The goodly green willow, the green waving willow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet in the willow, the wind-whispering willow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sing well-away, sing well-away!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I bend blighted, the wan weeping willow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All in the sun, and the dew, and the rain.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4741" id="Page_4741">[Pg 4741]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="AUSTIN_DOBSON" id="AUSTIN_DOBSON"></a>AUSTIN DOBSON</h2>
+
+<h4>(1840-)</h4>
+
+<h4>BY ESTHER SINGLETON</h4>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capa75.png" width="90" height="90" alt="A" title="A" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">t first thought it seems difficult to consider Austin Dobson as
+belonging to the Victorian period, so entirely is he saturated with
+the spirit of the eighteenth century. A careful study of his verse
+reveals the fact that the Georgian era, seen through the vista of his
+poetic imagination, is divested of all that is coarse, dark, gross,
+and prosaic. The mental atmosphere and the types and characters that
+he gives, express only beauty and charm.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus075.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Austin Dobson" title="Austin Dobson" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Austin Dobson</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>One approaches the poems of Austin Dobson
+as one stands before a rare collection
+of enamels, fan-mounts, jeweled snuff-boxes,
+and delicate carvings in ivory and silver; and
+after delighting in the beauty and finish of
+these graceful curios, passes into a gallery of
+paintings and water-colors, suggesting Watteau,
+Fragonard, Boucher, Meissonier, and
+Greuze. We also wander among trim box-hedges
+and quaint gardens of roses and bright
+hollyhocks; lean by sun-dials to watch the
+shadow of Time; and enjoy the sight of gay
+belles, patched and powdered and dressed in
+brocaded gowns and gypsy hats. Gallant
+beaux, such as are associated with Reynolds's
+portraits, appear, and hand them into sedan-chairs or lead them
+through stately minuets to the notes of Rameau, Couperin, and Arne.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the scent of rose-leaves, lavender, and musk rises from
+antique Chinese jars, so Dobson's delicate verse reconstructs a life</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Of fashion gone, and half-forgotten ways."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He is equally at home in France. Nothing could be more sympathetic
+and exquisite than 'A Revolutionary Relic,' 'The Cur&eacute;'s
+Progress,' 'Une Marquise,' and the 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' one of
+which is cited below.</p>
+
+<p>In the 'Vers de Soci&eacute;t&eacute;,' as well as his other poetry, Dobson
+fulfills all the requirements of light verse&mdash;charm, mockery, pathos,
+banter, and, while apparently skimming the surface, often shows us
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4742" id="Page_4742">[Pg 4742]</a></span>
+the strange depths of the human heart. He blends so many qualities
+that he deserves the praise of T.B. Aldrich, who says, "Austin
+Dobson has the grace of Suckling and the finish of Herrick, and is
+easily master of both in metrical art."</p>
+
+<p>Henry Austin Dobson, the son of Mr. George Clarisse Dobson, a civil
+engineer, was born in Plymouth, England, January 18th 1840. His early
+years were spent in Anglesea, and after receiving his education in
+Beaumaris, Coventry, and Strasburg, he returned to England to become a
+civil engineer. In 1856 he entered the civil service of Great Britain,
+and ever since that date he has held offices in the Board of Trade.
+His leisure was devoted to literature, and when Anthony Trollope first
+issued his magazine St. Paul's in 1868, he introduced to the public
+the verse of Austin Dobson. In 1873 his fugitive poems were published
+in a small volume entitled 'Vignettes in Rhyme' and 'Vers de Soci&eacute;t&eacute;.'
+This was followed in 1877 by 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' and both books,
+with additional poems, were printed again in two volumes: 'Old World
+Idylls' (1883), and 'At the Sign of the Lyre' (1885). Mr. Dobson's
+original essays are contained in three volumes: 'Four Frenchwomen,'
+studies of Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, the Princess de Lamballe,
+and Madame de Genlis (1890), and 'Eighteenth-Century Vignettes' (first
+series 1892, second series 1894), which touch upon a host of
+picturesque and fascinating themes. He has written also several
+biographies: of Hogarth, of Fielding, of Steele (1886), of Goldsmith
+(1888), and a 'Memoir of Horace Walpole' (1890). He has also written
+felicitous critical introductions to many new editions of the
+eighteenth-century classics.</p>
+
+<p>Austin Dobson has been most happy in breathing English life into
+the old poems of French verse, such as ballades, villanelles, roundels,
+and rondeaux; and he has also written clever and satirical
+fables, cast in the form and temper of Gay and Prior, with quaint
+obsolete affectations, redolent of the classic age of Anne.</p>
+
+<p>So serious is his attitude towards art, and so large his audience,
+that the hope expressed in the following rondeau will certainly be
+realized:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In after days, when grasses high<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er-top the stone where I shall lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Though ill or well the world adjust<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My slender claim to honored dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shall not question nor reply.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I shall not see the morning sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I shall be mute, as all men must,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">In after days.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4743" id="Page_4743">[Pg 4743]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But yet, now living, fain were I<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That some one then should testify,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Saying&mdash;<i>He held his pen in trust</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i1"><i>To Art, not serving shame or lust.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will none?&mdash;Then let my memory die<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">In after days!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 358px;">
+<img src="images/sign077.png" width="358" height="96" alt="Esther Singleton" title="Esther Singleton" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="NANKIN" id="NANKIN"></a>ON A NANKIN PLATE</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Villanelle</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ah me, but it might have been!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was there ever so dismal a fate?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quoth the little blue mandarin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Such a maid as was never seen:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She passed, tho' I cried to her, 'Wait,'&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah me, but it might have been!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I cried, 'O my Flower, my Queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be mine!'&mdash;'Twas precipitate,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quoth the little blue mandarin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But then ... she was just sixteen,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long-eyed, as a lily straight,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah me, but it might have been!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As it was, from her palankeen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She laughed&mdash;'You're a week too late!'"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Quoth the little blue mandarin.)<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"That is why, in a mist of spleen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I mourn on this Nankin Plate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah me, but it might have been!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quoth the little blue mandarin.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4744" id="Page_4744">[Pg 4744]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="SEDAN" id="SEDAN"></a>THE OLD SEDAN-CHAIR</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><div class="poem">
+<span class="i0">"What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where's Troy,&mdash;and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Bramston's 'Art of Politicks.'</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Propped up by a broomstick and covered with leaves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It once was the pride of the gay and the fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But now 'tis a ruin,&mdash;that old Sedan-chair!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It is battered and tattered,&mdash;it little avails<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a canvas by Wilkie,&mdash;that old Sedan-chair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">See, here come the bearing-straps; here were the holes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the poles of the bearers&mdash;when once there were poles;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the birds have discovered,&mdash;that old Sedan-chair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Where's Troy?" says the poet! Look; under the seat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is a nest with four eggs; 'tis a favored retreat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan-chair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And yet&mdash;Can't you fancy a face in the frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the window,&mdash;some high-headed damsel or dame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan-chair?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can't you fancy Sir Plume, as beside her he stands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan-chair?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stout fellows!&mdash;but prone, on a question of fare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To brandish the poles of that old Sedan-chair!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It has waited by portals where Garrick has played;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It has waited by Heidegger's "Grand Masquerade";<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It has waited&mdash;and waited, that old Sedan-chair!<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4745" id="Page_4745">[Pg 4745]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, the scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of F&ecirc;te-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan-chair!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Heu! quantum mutata</i>," I say as I go.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We must furbish it up, and dispatch it,&mdash;"With Care,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To a Fine-Art Museum&mdash;that old Sedan-chair.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BALLAD" id="BALLAD"></a>THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND RHYME</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the ways are heavy with mire and rut,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In November fogs, in December snows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There is place and enough for the pains of prose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the jasmine-stars at the casement climb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When the reason stands on its squarest toes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There is place and enough for the pains of prose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the young year draws to the "golden prime,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There is place and enough for the pains of prose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But whenever a soft glance softer grows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the secret is told "that no one knows,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Envoy</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the work-a-day world,&mdash;for its needs and woes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is place and enough for the pains of prose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But whenever the May-bells clash and chime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4746" id="Page_4746">[Pg 4746]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="THE_CURES_PROGRESS" id="THE_CURES_PROGRESS"></a>THE CUR&Eacute;'S PROGRESS</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Monsieur The Cur&eacute; down the street<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Comes with his kind old face,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And his green umbrella-case.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You may see him pass by the little "<i>Grande Place</i>,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the tiny "<i>H&ocirc;tel-de-Ville</i>";<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He smiles as he goes, to the <i>fleuriste</i> Rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the <i>pompier</i> Th&eacute;ophile.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He turns as a rule through the "<i>March&eacute;</i>" cool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where the noisy fishwives call;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his compliment pays to the "<i>belle Th&eacute;r&egrave;se</i>,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As she knits in her dusky stall.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Toto, the locksmith's niece,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has jubilant hopes, for the Cur&eacute; gropes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In his tails for a <i>pain d'&eacute;pice</i>.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who is said to be heterodox,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That will ended be with a "<i>Ma foi, oui!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And a pinch from the Cur&eacute;'s box.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is also a word that no one heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To the furrier's daughter Lou;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And a "<i>Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But a grander way for the <i>Sous-Pr&eacute;fet</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And a nod to the Sacristan:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For ever through life the Cur&eacute; goes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With a smile on his kind old face&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And his green umbrella-case.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4747" id="Page_4747">[Pg 4747]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="GOOD-NIGHT_BABETTE" id="GOOD-NIGHT_BABETTE"></a>"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE"</h3>
+
+<h4>"Si vieillesse pouvait!"</h4>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>A small neat room. In a high Voltaire chair sits a white-haired
+old gentleman.</i></p></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span> [<i>turning querulously</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Day of my life! Where <i>can</i> she get?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Babette</span>! I Say! <span class="smcap">Babette!&mdash;Babette!</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span> [<i>entering hurriedly</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So loud, he won't be well for weeks!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where have you been?</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span></p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Why, M'sieu' knows:&mdash;</span></p>
+<p>April!... Ville-d' Avray!... Ma'm'selle <span class="smcap">Rose</span>!</p>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah! I am old,&mdash;and I forget.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was the place growing green, <span class="smcap">Babette</span>?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But of a greenness!&mdash;Yes, M'sieu'!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then the sky so blue!&mdash;so blue!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when I dropped my <i>immortelle</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the birds sang!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">[<i>Lifting her apron to her eyes.</i>]<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">This poor Ma'm'selle!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You're a good girl, <span class="smcap">Babette</span>, but she,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was an angel, verily.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sometimes I think I see her yet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stand smiling by the cabinet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And once, I know, she peeped and laughed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Betwixt the curtains....<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Where's the draught?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">[<i>She gives him a cup.</i>]<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now I shall sleep, I think, <span class="smcap">Babette</span>;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sing me your Norman <i>chansonnette</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4748" id="Page_4748">[Pg 4748]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span> [<i>sings</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"<i>Once at the Angelus</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>(Ere I was dead),</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i3"><i>Angels all glorious</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Came to my bed;&mdash;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i3"><i>Angels in blue and white,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Crowned on the head.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span> [<i>drowsily</i>]</p>
+
+<p>"She was an Angel" ... "Once she laughed" ...</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What! was I dreaming?<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Where's the draught?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span> [<i>showing the empty cup</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The draught, M'sieu'?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">How I forget!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am so old! But sing, <span class="smcap">Babette</span>!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span> [<i>sings</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"<i>One was the Friend I left</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Stark in the Snow;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i3"><i>One was the Wife that died</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Long,&mdash;long ago;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i3"><i>One was the Love I lost&mdash;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>How could she know?</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span> [<i>murmuring</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah <span class="smcap">Paul</span>! ... old <span class="smcap">Paul</span>! ... <span class="smcap">Eulalie</span>, too!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And <span class="smcap">Rose</span> ... And O! "the sky so blue!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">BABETTE</span> [<i>sings</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">"<i>One had my Mother's eyes,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Wistful and mild;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i3"><i>One had my Father's face;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>One was a Child:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i3"><i>All of them bent to me,&mdash;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Bent down and smiled!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">[He is asleep!]<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="char"><span class="smcap">M. VIEUXBOIS</span> [<i>almost inaudibly</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">How I forget!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am so old!... Good-night, <span class="smcap">Babette</span>!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4749" id="Page_4749">[Pg 4749]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="THE_LADIES_OF_ST_JAMESS" id="THE_LADIES_OF_ST_JAMESS"></a>THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">A Proper New Ballad of the Country and the Town</span></h4>
+
+<h4>"Phyllida amo ante alias."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Virgil</span>.</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ladies of St. James's<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Go swinging to the play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their footmen run before them<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Phyllida, my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">She takes her buckled shoon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When we go out a-courting<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Beneath the harvest moon.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ladies of St. James's<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wear satin on their backs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They sit all night at <i>Ombre</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With candles all of wax:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Phyllida, my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">She dons her russet gown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And runs to gather May-dew<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Before the world is down.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ladies of St. James's!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They are so fine and fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You'd think a box of essences<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was broken in the air:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Phyllida, my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The breath of heath and furze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When breezes blow at morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is not so fresh as hers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ladies of St. James's!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They're painted to the eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their white it stays forever,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Their red it never dies:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Phyllida, my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Her color comes and goes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It trembles to a lily,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It wavers like a rose,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ladies of St. James's!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">You scarce can understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The half of all their speeches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Their phrases are so grand:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4750" id="Page_4750">[Pg 4750]</a></span><span class="i0">But Phyllida, my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Her shy and simple words<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are clear as after rain-drops<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The music of the birds.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ladies of St. James's!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They have their fits and freaks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They smile on you&mdash;for seconds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They frown on you&mdash;for weeks:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Phyllida, my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Come either storm or shine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is always true&mdash;and mine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My Phyllida! my Phyllida!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I care not though they heap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hearts of all St. James's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And give me all to keep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I care not whose the beauties<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of all the world may be,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Phyllida, my Phyllida,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is all the world to me.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="DORA_VERSUS_ROSE" id="DORA_VERSUS_ROSE"></a>DORA <i>VERSUS</i> ROSE</h3>
+
+<h4>"The Case is Proceeding"</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From the tragic-est novels at Mudie's&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">At least on a practical plan&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">One love is enough for a man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But no case that I ever yet met is<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like mine: I am equally fond<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Rose, who a charming brunette is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And Dora, a blonde.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each rivals the other in powers&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Miss Do., perpendicular saints.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In short, to distinguish is folly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">'Twixt the pair I am come to the pass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Or Buridan's ass.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4751" id="Page_4751">[Pg 4751]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If it happens that Rosa I've singled<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For a soft celebration in rhyme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Somehow with the tune and the time;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or I painfully pen me a sonnet<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To an eyebrow intended for Do.'s,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And behold I am writing upon it<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">The legend, "To Rose."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is all over scrawled with her head),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I fancy at last that I've got her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It turns to her rival instead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or I find myself placidly adding<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To the rapturous tresses of Rose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miss Dora's bud-mouth, and her madding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Ineffable nose.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Was there ever so sad a dilemma?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For Rose I would perish (<i>pro tem.</i>);<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Dora I'd willingly stem a&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">(Whatever might offer to stem);<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to make the invidious election,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To declare that on either one's side<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've a scruple,&mdash;a grain,&mdash;more affection,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">I <i>cannot</i> decide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And as either so hopelessly nice is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My sole and my final resource<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is to wait some indefinite crisis,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Some feat of molecular force,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To solve me this riddle conducive<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By no means to peace or repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since the issue can scarce be inclusive<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Of Dora <i>and</i> Rose.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>(<span class="smcap">After-thought</span>)</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But perhaps if a third (say, a Norah),<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Not quite so delightful as Rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor wholly so charming as Dora,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Should appear, is it wrong to suppose,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the claims of the others are equal,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And flight&mdash;in the main&mdash;is the best,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I might ... But no matter,&mdash;the sequel<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Is easily guessed.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4752" id="Page_4752">[Pg 4752]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="UNE_MARQUISE" id="UNE_MARQUISE"></a>UNE MARQUISE</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">A Rhymed Monologue in the Louvre</span></h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour."</p></div>
+<p style='text-align:right;'>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Moli&egrave;re.</span></p>
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As you sit there at your ease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">O Marquise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the men flock round your knees<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Thick as bees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mute at every word you utter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Servants to your least frill-flutter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As you sit there, growing prouder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And your ringed hands glance and go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And your fan's <i>frou-frou</i> sounds louder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And your "<i>beaux yeux</i>" flash and glow;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, you used them on the Painter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">As you know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the Sieur Larose spoke fainter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Bowing low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thanked Madame and Heaven for Mercy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That each sitter was not Circe,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or at least he told you so;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Growing proud, I say, and prouder<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To the crowd that come and go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dainty Deity of Powder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Fickle Queen of Fop and Beau,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As you sit where lustres strike you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Sure to please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do we love you most, or like you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You are fair; oh yes, we know it<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Well, Marquise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he swore it, your last poet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">On his knees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he called all heaven to witness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of his ballad and its fitness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You were everything in <i>&egrave;re</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(With exception of <i>s&eacute;v&egrave;re</i>),&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4753" id="Page_4753">[Pg 4753]</a></span><span class="i0">You were <i>cruelle</i> and <i>rebelle</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the rest of rhymes as well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You were "<i>Reine</i>" and "<i>M&egrave;re d' Amour</i>";<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">You were "<i>V&eacute;nus &agrave; Cyth&egrave;re</i>";<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"<i>Sappho mise en Pompadour</i>,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And "<i>Minerve en Parav&egrave;re</i>";<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You had every grace of heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In your most angelic face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the nameless finer leaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lent of blood and courtly race;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he added, too, in duty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ninon's wit and Boufflers's beauty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And La Valliere's <i>yeux velout&eacute;s</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Followed these;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And you liked it, when he said it<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">(On his knees),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And you kept it, and you read it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet with us your toilet graces<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Fail to please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the last of your last faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And your <i>mise</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For we hold you just as real,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As your <i>Bergers</i> and <i>Berg&egrave;res</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Tes d' Amour</i> and <i>Bateli&egrave;res</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As your <i>pares</i>, and your Versailles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gardens, grottoes, and <i>socailles</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As your Naiads and your trees;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just as near the old ideal<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Calm and ease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the Venus there by Coustou,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That a fan would make quite flighty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is to her the gods were used to,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is to grand Greek Aphrodit&egrave;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Sprung from seas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are just a porcelain trifle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just a thing of puffs and patches<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made for madrigals and catches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not for heart wounds, but for scratches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">O Marquise!<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4754" id="Page_4754">[Pg 4754]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Just a pinky porcelain trifle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wrought in rarest <i>rose-Dubarry,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quick at verbal point and parry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clever, doubtless;&mdash;but to marry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">No, Marquise!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For your Cupid, you have clipped him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with <i>chapeau-bras</i> equipped him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just to arm you through your wife-time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the languors of your lifetime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Say, to trim your toilet tapers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or&mdash;to twist your hair in papers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or&mdash;to wean you from the vapors;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">As for these,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are worth the love they give you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till a fairer face outlive you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or a younger grace shall please;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the coming of the crows'-feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the backward turn of beaux' feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till your frothed-out life's commotion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Settles down to Ennui's ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or a dainty sham devotion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No: we neither like nor love you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lesser lights we place above you,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Milder merits better please.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We have passed from <i>Philosophe</i>-dom<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Into plainer modern days,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grown contented in our oafdom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Giving grace not all the praise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, <i>en partant, Arsino&eacute;</i>,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Without malice whatsoever,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall counsel to our Chlo&euml;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To be rather good than clever;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4755" id="Page_4755">[Pg 4755]</a></span><span class="i0">For we find it hard to smother<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Just one little thought, Marquise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wittier perhaps than any other,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You were neither Wife nor Mother.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">"<i>Belle Marquise!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="A_BALLAD_TO_QUEEN_ELIZABETH" id="A_BALLAD_TO_QUEEN_ELIZABETH"></a>A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH</h3>
+<h4><span class="smcap">Of the Spanish Armada</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">King Philip had vaunted his claims;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He had sworn for a year he would sack us;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With an army of heathenish names<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He was coming to fagot and stack us;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shatter our ships on the main;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But we had bold Neptune to back us,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where are the galleons of Spain?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His carackes were christened of dames<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Drake to his Devon again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For where are the galleons of Spain?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let his Majesty hang to St. James<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The axe that he whetted to hack us:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He must play at some lustier games.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To his mines of Peru he would pack us<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tug at his bullet and chain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But where are the galleons of Spain?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Envoy</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1"><span class="smcap">Gloriana!</span>&mdash;the Don may attack us<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whenever his stomach be fain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He must reach us before he can rack us,...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where are the galleons of Spain?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4756" id="Page_4756">[Pg 4756]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="THE_PRINCESS_DE_LAMBALLE" id="THE_PRINCESS_DE_LAMBALLE"></a>THE PRINCESS DE LAMBALLE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Four Frenchwomen'</h4>
+
+
+<p>A tender wife, a loving daughter, and a loyal friend,&mdash;shall we not
+here lay down upon the grave of Marie de Lamballe our reverential
+tribute, our little chaplet of <i>immortelles</i>, in the name of all good
+women, wives, and daughters?</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Elle &eacute;tait mieux femme que les autres.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> To us that apparently
+indefinite, exquisitely definite sentence most fitly marks
+the distinction between the subjects of the two preceding papers
+and the subject of the present. It is a transition from the
+stately figure of a marble Agrippina to the breathing, feeling
+woman at your side; it is the transition from the statuesque
+Rachelesque heroines of a David to the "small sweet idyl" of
+a Greuze. And, we confess it, we were not wholly at ease
+with those tragic, majestic figures. We shuddered at the dagger
+and the bowl which suited them so well. We marveled at their
+bloodless serenity, their superhuman self-sufficiency; inly we
+questioned if they breathed and felt. Or was their circulation a
+matter of machinery&mdash;a mere dead-beat escapement? We longed
+for the <i>sexe prononc&eacute;</i> of Rivarol&mdash;we longed for the showman's
+"female woman!" We respected and we studied, but we did
+not love them. With Madame de Lamballe the case is otherwise.
+Not grand like this one, not heroic like that one, "<i>elle est
+mieux femme que les autres</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She at least is woman&mdash;after a fairer fashion&mdash;after a truer
+type. Not intellectually strong like Manon Philipon, not Spartan-souled
+like Marie de Corday, she has still a rare intelligence,
+a courage of affection. She has that <i>clairvoyance</i> of the heart
+which supersedes all the stimulants of mottoes from Reynel or
+maxims from Rousseau; she has that "angel instinct" which is
+a juster lawgiver than Justinian. It was thought praise to say
+of the Girondist lady that she was a greater man than her husband;
+it is praise to say of this queen's friend that she was
+more woman than Madame Roland. Not so grand, not so great,
+we like the princess best. <i>Elle est mieux femme que les autres.</i></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_2"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> She was more woman than the others.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4757" id="Page_4757">[Pg 4757]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MARY_MAPES_DODGE" id="MARY_MAPES_DODGE"></a>MARY MAPES DODGE</h2>
+
+<h4>(1840?-)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capt091.png" width="90" height="90" alt="T" title="T" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">o write a story which in thirty years should pass through more than a
+hundred editions, which should attain the apotheosis of an <i>edition de
+luxe</i>, which should be translated into at least four foreign
+languages, be allotted the Montyon prize of 1500 francs for moral as
+well as literary excellence, and be crowned by the French
+Academy&mdash;this is a piece of good fortune which falls to the lot of few
+story-tellers. The book which has deserved so well is 'Hans Brinker,
+or The Silver Skates,' a story of life in Holland. Its author, born in
+New York, is a daughter of Professor James Jay Mapes, an eminent
+chemist and inventor, an accomplished writer and brilliant talker.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus091.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Mary Mapes Dodge" title="Mary Mapes Dodge" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Mary Mapes Dodge</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In a household where music, art, and
+literature were cultivated, and where the
+most agreeable society came, talents were
+not likely to be overlooked. Mrs. Dodge,
+very early widowed, began writing before
+she was twenty, publishing short stories,
+sketches, and poems in various periodicals.
+'Hans Brinker' appeared in 1864,&mdash;her delight
+in Motley's histories and their appeal
+to her own Dutch blood inspiring her to
+write it. Of this book Mr. Frank R. Stockton
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There are strong reasons why the fairest orange groves, the loftiest
+mountain peaks, or the inspiriting waves of the rolling sea, could not
+tempt average boys and girls from the level stretches of the Dutch
+canals, until they had skated through the sparkling story, warmed with
+a healthy glow.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not only a tale of vivid description, interesting and
+instructive; it is a romance. There are adventures, startling and
+surprising, there are mysteries of buried gold, there are the
+machinations of the wicked, there is the heroism of the good, and the
+gay humor of happy souls. More than these, there is love&mdash;that
+sentiment which glides into a good story as naturally as into a human
+life; and whether the story be for old or young, this element gives it
+an ever-welcome charm. Strange fortune and good fortune come to Hans
+and to Gretel, and to many other deserving characters in the tale, but
+there is nothing selfish about these heroes and heroines. As soon as
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4758" id="Page_4758">[Pg 4758]</a></span>
+a new generation of young people grows up to be old enough to enjoy
+this perennial story, all these characters return to the days of their
+youth, and are ready to act their parts again to the very end, and to
+feel in their own souls, as everybody else feels, that their story is
+just as new and interesting as when it was first told."</p></div>
+
+<p>Besides this book, Mrs. Dodge has published several volumes of
+juvenile verse, such as 'Rhymes and Jingles,' and 'When Life was
+Young'; a volume of serious verse, 'Along the Way'; a volume of
+satirical and humorous sketches, 'Theophilus and Others'; a second
+successful story for young people, 'Donald and Dorothy,' and a
+number of other works. Her stories evince an unusual faculty of
+construction and marked inventiveness,&mdash;inherited perhaps from
+her father,&mdash;truthful characterization, literary feeling, a strong sense
+of humor, and a high ethical standard. Her whimsical character
+sketch, 'Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question,' which has been
+reprinted thousands of times and repeated by every elocutionist in
+the land, is in its way as searching a satire as Bret Harte's 'Heathen
+Chinee.'</p>
+
+<p>Since its beginning in 1873, Mrs. Dodge has edited the St. Nicholas
+Magazine, whose pages bear witness to her enormous industry.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="THE_RACE" id="THE_RACE"></a>THE RACE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates,' Copyright 1896, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons</h4>
+
+
+<p>The 20th of December came at last, bringing with it the perfection of
+winter weather. All over the level landscape lay the warm sunlight.
+It tried its power on lake, canal, and river; but the ice flashed
+defiance, and showed no sign of melting. The very weathercocks stood
+still to enjoy the sight. This gave the windmills a holiday. Nearly
+all the past week they had been whirling briskly; now, being rather
+out of breath, they rocked lazily in the clear still air. Catch a
+windmill working when the weathercocks have nothing to do!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 541px;">
+<a name="SKATER" id="SKATER"></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE.</i><br />
+Photogravure from a Painting by G. H. Boughton, A. R. A.</span>
+<img src="images/Illus0422.jpg" width="541" height="1024" alt="THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE." title="THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE." />
+</div>
+
+<p>There was an end to grinding, crushing, and sawing for that
+day. It was a good thing for the millers near Broek. Long
+before noon, they concluded to take in their sails and go to
+the race. Everybody would be there. Already the north side
+of the frozen Y was bordered with eager spectators; the news
+of the great skating-match had traveled far and wide. Men,
+women, and children, in holiday attire, were flocking toward the
+spot. Some wore furs and wintry cloaks or shawls; but many,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4759" id="Page_4759">[Pg 4759]</a></span>
+consulting their feelings rather than the almanac, were dressed
+as for an October day.</p>
+
+<p>The site selected for the race was a faultless plain of ice near
+Amsterdam, on that great <i>arm</i> of the Zuyder Zee, which Dutchmen of
+course must call the Eye. The townspeople turned out in large numbers.
+Strangers in the city deemed it a fine chance to see what was to be
+seen. Many a peasant from the northward had wisely chosen the 20th as
+the day for the next city-trading. It seemed that everybody, young and
+old, who had wheels, skates, or feet at command, had hastened to the
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>There were the gentry in their coaches, dressed like Parisians fresh
+from the Boulevards; Amsterdam children in charity uniforms; girls
+from the Roman Catholic Orphan House, in sable gowns and white
+head-bands; boys from the Burgher Asylum, with their black tights and
+short-skirted harlequin coats. There were old-fashioned gentlemen in
+cocked hats and velvet knee-breeches; old-fashioned ladies too, in
+stiff quilted skirts and bodices of dazzling brocade. These were
+accompanied by servants bearing foot-stoves and cloaks. There were the
+peasant folk, arrayed in every possible Dutch costume,&mdash;shy young
+rustics in brazen buckles; simple village maidens concealing their
+flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women whose long narrow aprons were
+stiff with embroidery; women with short corkscrew curls hanging over
+their foreheads; women with shaved heads and close-fitting caps, and
+women in striped skirts and windmill bonnets; men in leather, in
+homespun, in velvet and broadcloth; burghers in modern European
+attire, and burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and
+steeple-crowned hats.</p>
+
+<p>There were beautiful Friesland girls in wooden shoes and coarse
+petticoats, with solid gold crescents encircling their heads, finished
+at each temple with a golden rosette, and hung with lace a century
+old. Some wore necklaces, pendants, and earrings of the purest gold.
+Many were content with gilt, or even with brass; but it is not an
+uncommon thing for a Friesland woman to have all the family treasure
+in her headgear. More than one rustic lass displayed the value of two
+thousand guilders upon her head that day.</p>
+
+<p>Scattered throughout the crowd were peasants from the
+Island of Marken, with sabots, black stockings, and the widest
+of breeches; also women from Marken, with short blue petticoats,
+and black jackets gayly figured in front. They wore red sleeves,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4760" id="Page_4760">[Pg 4760]</a></span>
+white aprons, and a cap like a bishop's mitre over their golden hair.</p>
+
+<p>The children often were as quaint and odd-looking as their elders. In
+short, one-third of the crowd seemed to have stepped bodily from a
+collection of Dutch paintings.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere could be seen tall women and stumpy men, lively-faced
+girls, and youths whose expressions never changed from sunrise to
+sunset.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be at least one specimen from every known town in
+Holland. There were Utrecht water-bearers, Gouda cheese-makers, Delft
+pottery-men, Schiedam distillers, Amsterdam diamond-cutters, Rotterdam
+merchants, dried-up herring-packers, and two sleepy-eyed shepherds
+from Texel. Every man of them had his pipe and tobacco pouch. Some
+carried what might be called the smoker's complete outfit,&mdash;a pipe,
+tobacco, a pricker with which to clean the tube, a silver net for
+protecting the bowl, and a box of the strongest of brimstone matches.</p>
+
+<p>A true Dutchman, you must remember, is rarely without his pipe on any
+possible occasion. He may for a moment neglect to breathe; but when
+the pipe is forgotten, he must be dying indeed. There were no such sad
+cases here. Wreaths of smoke were rising from every possible quarter.
+The more fantastic the smoke-wreath, the more placid and solemn the
+smoker.</p>
+
+<p>Look at those boys and girls on stilts! That is a good idea.
+They can look over the heads of the tallest. It is strange to see
+those little bodies high in the air, carried about on mysterious
+legs. They have such a resolute look on their round faces, what
+wonder that nervous old gentlemen with tender feet wince and
+tremble while the long-legged little monsters stride past them!</p>
+
+<p>You will read in certain books that the Dutch are a quiet
+people. So they are, generally. But listen! did you ever hear
+such a din? All made up of human voices&mdash;no, the horses are
+helping somewhat, and the fiddles are squeaking pitifully; (how
+it must pain fiddles to be tuned!) but the mass of the sound
+comes from the great <i>vox humana</i> that belongs to a crowd.</p>
+
+<p>That queer little dwarf, going about with a heavy basket,
+winding in and out among the people, helps not a little. You
+can hear his shrill cry above all other sounds, "Pypen en tabac!
+Pypen en tabac!"</p>
+
+<p>Another, his big brother, though evidently some years younger,
+is selling doughnuts and bonbons. He is calling on all pretty
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4761" id="Page_4761">[Pg 4761]</a></span>
+children, far and near, to come quickly or the cakes will be
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>You know quite a number among the spectators. High up
+in yonder pavilion, erected upon the border of the ice, are some
+persons whom you have seen very lately. In the centre is
+Madame Van Gleck. It is her birthday, you remember; she has
+the post of honor. There is Mynheer Van Gleck, whose meerschaum
+has not really grown fast to his lips; it only appears so.
+There are Grandfather and Grandmother, whom you met at the
+St. Nicholas f&ecirc;te. All the children are with them. It is so
+mild, they have brought even the baby. The poor little creature
+is swaddled very much after the manner of an Egyptian mummy;
+but it can crow with delight, and when the band is playing,
+open and shut its animated mittens in perfect time to the music.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather, with his pipe and spectacles and fur cap, makes
+quite a picture as he holds Baby upon his knee. Perched high
+upon their canopied platforms, the party can see all that is going
+on. No wonder the ladies look complacently at the glassy ice;
+with a stove for a footstool, one might sit cosily beside the North
+Pole.</p>
+
+<p>There is a gentleman with them, who somewhat resembles
+St. Nicholas as he appeared to the young Van Glecks on the
+fifth of December. But the Saint had a flowing white beard, and
+this face is as smooth as a pippin. His Saintship was larger
+round the body too, and (between ourselves) he had a pair of
+thimbles in his mouth, which this gentleman certainly has not.
+It cannot be St. Nicholas, after all.</p>
+
+<p>Near by in the next pavilion sit the Van Holps, with their son
+and daughter (the Van Gends) from The Hague. Peter's sister
+is not one to forget her promises. She has brought bouquets
+of exquisite hot-house flowers for the winners.</p>
+
+<p>These pavilions,&mdash;and there are others beside,&mdash;have all been erected
+since daylight. That semicircular one, containing Mynheer Korbes's
+family, is very pretty, and proves that the Hollanders are quite
+skilled at tentmaking; but I like the Van Glecks' best,&mdash;the centre
+one, striped red and white, and hung with evergreens.</p>
+
+<p>The one with the blue flags contains the musicians. Those
+pagoda-like affairs, decked with sea-shells and streamers of every
+possible hue, are the judges' stands; and those columns and flagstaffs
+upon the ice mark the limit of the race-course. The two
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4762" id="Page_4762">[Pg 4762]</a></span>
+white columns twined with green, connected at the top by that
+long floating strip of drapery, form the starting point. Those
+flagstaffs, half a mile off, stand at each end of the boundary line,
+cut sufficiently deep to be distinct to the skaters, though not
+deep enough to trip them when they turn to come back to the
+starting-point.</p>
+
+<p>The air is so clear, it seems scarcely possible that the columns and
+flagstaffs are so far apart. Of course the judges' stands are but
+little nearer together. Half a mile on the ice, when the atmosphere is
+like this, is but a short distance after all, especially when fenced
+with a living chain of spectators.</p>
+
+<p>The music has commenced. How melody seems to enjoy itself in the open
+air! The fiddles have forgotten their agony, and everything is
+harmonious. Until you look at the blue tent, it seems that the music
+springs from the sunshine, it is so boundless, so joyous. Only the
+musicians are solemn.</p>
+
+<p>Where are the racers? All assembled together near the white
+columns. It is a beautiful sight,&mdash;forty boys and girls in picturesque
+attire, darting with electric swiftness in and out among
+each other, or sailing in pairs and triplets, beckoning, chatting,
+whispering, in the fullness of youthful glee.</p>
+
+<p>A few careful ones are soberly tightening their straps; others,
+halting on one leg, with flushed eager faces, suddenly cross
+the suspected skate over their knee, give it an examining shake,
+and dart off again. One and all are possessed with the spirit
+of motion. They cannot stand still. Their skates are a part of
+them, and every runner seems bewitched.</p>
+
+<p>Holland is the place for skaters, after all. Where else can
+nearly every boy and girl perform feats on the ice that would
+attract a crowd if seen on Central Park? Look at Ben! I did
+not see him before. He is really astonishing the natives; no
+easy thing to do in the Netherlands. Save your strength, Ben;
+you will need it soon. Now other boys are trying! Ben is surpassed
+already. Such jumping, such poising, such spinning, such
+india-rubber exploits generally! That boy with a red cap is the
+lion now; his back is a watch-spring, his body is cork&mdash;no, it is
+iron, or it would snap at that. He is a bird, a top, a rabbit, a
+corkscrew, a sprite, a flesh-ball, all in an instant. When you
+think he is erect, he is down; and when you think he is down,
+he is up. He drops his glove on the ice, and turns a somerset
+as he picks it up. Without stopping, he snatches the cap from
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4763" id="Page_4763">[Pg 4763]</a></span>
+Jacob Poot's astonished head, and claps it back again "hind side
+before." Lookers-on hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is
+arctic weather under your feet, but more than temperate overhead.
+Big drops already are rolling down your forehead. Superb
+skater as you are, you may lose the race.</p>
+
+<p>A French traveler, standing with a notebook in his hand, sees
+our English friend Ben buy a doughnut of the dwarf's brother,
+and eat it. Thereupon he writes in his note-book that the Dutch
+take enormous mouthfuls, and universally are fond of potatoes
+boiled in molasses.</p>
+
+<p>There are some familiar faces near the white columns. Lambert,
+Ludwig, Peter, and Carl are all there, cool, and in good
+skating order. Hans is not far off. Evidently he is going to
+join in the race, for his skates are on,&mdash;the very pair that he
+sold for seven guilders. He had soon suspected that his fairy
+godmother was the mysterious "friend" who bought them. This
+settled, he had boldly charged her with the deed; and she,
+knowing well that all her little savings had been spent in the
+purchase, had not had the face to deny it. Through the fairy
+god-mother, too, he had been rendered amply able to buy them
+back again. Therefore Hans is to be in the race. Carl is more
+indignant than ever about it; but as three other peasant boys
+have entered, Hans is not alone.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty boys and twenty girls. The latter by this time are
+standing in front, braced for the start; for they are to have the
+first "run." Hilda, Rychie, and Katrinka are among them. Two
+or three bend hastily to give a last pull at their skate-straps. It
+is pretty to see them stamp, to be sure that all is firm. Hilda
+is speaking pleasantly to a graceful little creature in a red jacket
+and a new brown petticoat. Why, it is Gretel! What a difference
+those pretty shoes make; and the skirt and the new cap!
+Annie Bouman is there too. Even Janzoon Kolp's sister has been
+admitted; but Janzoon himself has been voted out by the directors
+because he killed the stork, and only last summer was caught
+in the act of robbing a bird's nest,&mdash;a legal offense in Holland.</p>
+
+<p>This Janzoon Kolp, you see, was&mdash;There, I cannot tell the story just
+now. The race is about to commence.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty girls are formed in a line. The music has ceased.</p>
+
+<p>A man whom we shall call the crier stands between the columns and the
+first judges' stand. He reads the rules in a loud voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4764" id="Page_4764">[Pg 4764]</a></span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>The girls and boys are to race in turn, until one girl and
+one boy have beaten twice. They are to start in a line from the
+united columns, skate to the flagstaff line, turn, and then come
+back to the starting-point; thus making a mile at each run.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>A flag is waved from the judges' stand. Madame Van Gleck rises in her
+pavilion. She leans forward with a white handkerchief in her hand.
+When she drops it, a bugler is to give the signal for them to start.</p>
+
+<p>The handkerchief is fluttering to the ground. Hark!</p>
+
+<p>They are off!</p>
+
+<p>No. Back again. Their line was not true in passing the judges' stand.</p>
+
+<p>The signal is repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Off again. No mistake this time. Whew! how fast they go!</p>
+
+<p>The multitude is quiet for an instant, absorbed in eager,
+breathless watching.</p>
+
+<p>Cheers spring up along the line of spectators. Huzza! five
+girls are ahead. Who comes flying back from the boundary
+mark? We cannot tell. Something red, that is all. There is a
+blue spot flitting near it, and a dash of yellow nearer still.
+Spectators at this end of the line strain their eyes, and wish
+they had taken their post nearer the flagstaff.</p>
+
+<p>The wave of cheers is coming back again. Now we can see.
+Katrinka is ahead!</p>
+
+<p>She passes the Van Holp pavilion. The next is Madame Van
+Gleck's. That leaning figure gazing from it is a magnet. Hilda
+shoots past Katrinka, waving her hand to her mother as she
+passes. Two others are close now, whizzing on like arrows.
+What is that flash of red and gray? Hurrah, it is Gretel! She
+too waves her hand, but toward no gay pavilion. The crowd is
+cheering; but she hears only her father's voice, "Well done,
+little Gretel!" Soon Katrinka, with a quick merry laugh, shoots
+past Hilda. The girl in yellow is gaining now. She passes
+them all,&mdash;all except Gretel. The judges lean forward without
+seeming to lift their eyes from their watches. Cheer after cheer
+fills the air; the very columns seem rocking. Gretel has passed
+them. She has won.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Gretel Brinker, one mile!</span>" shouts the crier.</p>
+
+<p>The judges nod. They write something upon a tablet which
+each holds in his hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4765" id="Page_4765">[Pg 4765]</a></span>
+While the girls are resting,&mdash;some crowding eagerly around
+our frightened little Gretel, some standing aside in high disdain,&mdash;the
+boys form in a line.</p>
+
+<p>Mynheer Van Gleck drops the handkerchief this time. The
+buglers give a vigorous blast. Off start the boys!</p>
+
+<p>Half-way already. Did ever you see the like!</p>
+
+<p>Three hundred legs flashing by in an instant. But there are
+only twenty boys. No matter; there were hundreds of legs, I
+am sure. Where are they now? There is such a noise one gets
+bewildered. What are the people laughing at? Oh! at that fat
+boy in the rear. See him go! See him! He'll be down in an
+instant; no, he won't. I wonder if he knows he is all alone: the
+other boys are nearly at the boundary line. Yes, he knows it.
+He stops. He wipes his hot face. He takes off his cap, and
+looks about him. Better to give up with a good grace. He has
+made a hundred friends by that hearty, astonished laugh. Good
+Jacob Poot!</p>
+
+<p>The fine fellow is already among the spectators, gazing as
+eagerly as the rest.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of feathery ice flies from the heels of the skaters as
+they "bring to," and turn at the flagstaffs.</p>
+
+<p>Something black is coming now,&mdash;one of the boys: it is all we
+know. He has touched the <i>vox humana</i> stop of the crowd; it
+fairly roars. Now they come nearer; we can see the red cap.
+There's Ben, there's Peter, there's Hans!</p>
+
+<p>Hans is ahead. Young Madame Van Gend almost crushes
+the flowers in her hand: she had been quite sure that Peter
+would be first. Carl Schummel is next, then Ben, and the youth
+with the red cap. The others are pressing close. A tall figure
+darts from among them. He passes the red cap, he passes Ben,
+then Carl. Now it is an even race between him and Hans.
+Madame Van Gend catches her breath.</p>
+
+<p>It is Peter! He is ahead! Hans shoots past him. Hilda's
+eyes fill with tears: Peter <i>must</i> beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly.
+Gretel gazes with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her
+brother to the columns.</p>
+
+<p>He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second
+before. At the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had
+whizzed between them, and passed the goal.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Carl Schummel, one mile!</span>" shouts the crier.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4766" id="Page_4766">[Pg 4766]</a></span>
+Soon Madame Van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief
+starts the bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring,
+shoots off twenty girls like so many arrows.</p>
+
+<p>It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before
+we can fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance.
+This time they are close upon one another. It is hard to say,
+as they come speeding back from the flagstaff, which will reach
+the columns first. There are new faces among the foremost,&mdash;eager
+glowing faces, unnoticed before. Katrinka is there, and
+Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear. Gretel is wavering,
+but when Rychie passes her she starts forward afresh. Now
+they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in advance: she
+is almost "home." She has not faltered since that bugle note
+sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding toward the
+goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent, but
+his eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza!"</p>
+
+<p>The crier's voice is heard again.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Hilda van Gleck, one mile!</span>"</p>
+
+<p>A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching
+the music in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad
+rhythmic throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves all is
+still.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the
+boys like chaff before the wind,&mdash;dark chaff, I admit, and in big
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p>It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the
+cheers and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming.
+There are three boys in advance this time, and all abreast,&mdash;Hans,
+Peter, and Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing
+through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl
+beat again!&mdash;Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is
+flagging, but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter
+and Hans; which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely
+care which is the fleeter.</p>
+
+<p>Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench, can
+remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so different! and
+yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats herself: none shall know
+how interested she is; none shall know how anxious, how filled with
+one hope. Shut your eyes then, Hilda, hide your face rippling with
+joy. Peter has beaten.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4767" id="Page_4767">[Pg 4767]</a></span>
+"<span class="smcap">Peter van Holp, one mile!</span>" calls the crier.</p>
+
+<p>The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take notes,
+the same throbbing of music through the din; but something is
+different. A little crowd presses close about some object near the
+column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though somewhat stunned. If
+he were less sullen, he would find more sympathy in these warm young
+hearts. As it is, they forget him as soon as he is fairly on his feet
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The girls are to skate their third mile.</p>
+
+<p>How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line!
+Some are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a
+smile, half bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination
+pervades them all.</p>
+
+<p>This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel
+nor Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the
+silver skates.</p>
+
+<p>Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the
+distance in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their
+runners! How nervously they examine each strap! How erect
+they stand at last, every eye upon Madame Van Gleck!</p>
+
+<p>The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eagerness
+they spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each
+flashing stroke seems longer than the last.</p>
+
+<p>Now they are skimming off in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and
+cheering; again the thrill of excitement, as after a few moments,
+four or five in advance of the rest come speeding back, nearer,
+nearer to the white columns.</p>
+
+<p>Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor
+the girl in yellow, but Gretel,&mdash;Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a
+girl that ever skated. She was but playing in the earlier race:
+<i>now</i> she is in earnest, or rather, something within her has determined
+to win. That blithe little form makes no effort; but it
+cannot stop,&mdash;not until the goal is passed!</p>
+
+<p>In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has
+no news to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,&mdash;<i>Gretel
+has won the silver skates!</i></p>
+
+<p>Like a bird she has flown over the ice; like a bird she looks
+about her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the
+sheltered nook where her father and mother stand. But Hans is
+beside her; the girls are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4768" id="Page_4768">[Pg 4768]</a></span>
+voice breathes in her ear. From that hour none will despise her.
+Goose-girl or not, Gretel stands acknowledged Queen of the
+Skaters.</p>
+
+<p>With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter Van Holp is
+witnessing his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward
+them at all. He is kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and
+working hastily at his skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you in trouble, mynheer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes; my fun is over. I tried to
+tighten my strap to make a new hole, and this botheration of a
+knife has cut it nearly in two."</p>
+
+<p>"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate,
+"you must use my strap!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker!" cried Peter, looking up;
+"though I thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the
+bugle will sound in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Mynheer," pleaded Hans in a husky voice, "you have called
+me your friend. Take this strap&mdash;quick! There is not an
+instant to lose. I shall not skate this time: indeed, I am out of
+practice. Mynheer, you <i>must</i> take it;" and Hans, blind and
+deaf to any remonstrance, slipped his strap into Peter's skate,
+and implored him to put it on.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Peter!" cried Lambert from the line: "we are waiting
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"For Madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is
+motioning to you to join the racers. There, the skate is almost
+on: quick, mynheer, fasten it. I could not possibly win. The
+race lies between Master Schummel and yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a noble fellow, Hans!" cried Peter, yielding at
+last. He sprang to his post just as the handkerchief fell to
+the ground. The bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and
+ringing.</p>
+
+<p>Off go the boys!</p>
+
+<p>"Mein Gott!" cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They
+beat everything, these Amsterdam youngsters. See them!"</p>
+
+<p>See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of
+them. What mad errand are they on? Ah, I know; they are
+hunting Peter Van Holp. He is some fleet-footed runaway from
+Olympus. Mercury and his troop of winged cousins are in full
+chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the runaway. The
+pursuit grows furious. Ben is foremost!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4769" id="Page_4769">[Pg 4769]</a></span>
+The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way.
+Who is hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter Van
+Holp! Fly, Peter! Hans is watching you. He is sending all
+his fleetness, all his strength, into your feet. Your mother and
+sister are pale with eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not
+look up, Fly, Peter! The crowd has not gone deranged; it is
+only cheering. The pursuers are close upon you. Touch the
+white column! It beckons; it is reeling before you&mdash;it&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Peter van Holp!</span>" shouted the crier. But who heard him?
+"Peter Van Holp!" shouted a hundred voices; for he was the
+favorite boy of the place. "Huzza! Huzza!"</p>
+
+<p>Now the music was resolved to be heard. It struck up a
+lively air, then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking
+something new was about to happen, deigned to listen and to
+look.</p>
+
+<p>The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood
+first. Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end.
+Hans, who had borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near
+the head.</p>
+
+<p>Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the
+river, facing the Van Gleck pavilion.</p>
+
+<p>Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys
+and girls moved forward, led on by Peter, It was beautiful to
+see the bright procession glide along like a living creature. It
+curved and doubled, and drew its graceful length in and out
+among the arches; whichever way Peter, the head, went, the
+body was sure to follow. Sometimes it steered direct for the
+centre arch; then, as if seized with a new impulse, turned away
+and curled itself about the first one; then unwound slowly, and
+bending low, with quick snake-like curvings, crossed the river,
+passing at length through the farthest arch.</p>
+
+<p>When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl
+like a thing afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted forward
+with a spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and
+out, curling, twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the
+shrill call of the bugle rising above the music it suddenly
+resolved itself into boys and girls, standing in double semicircle
+before Madame Van Gleck's pavilion.</p>
+
+<p>Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others.
+Madame Van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4770" id="Page_4770">[Pg 4770]</a></span>
+that she must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what
+is said, there is such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking
+that she ought to try and make a courtesy, such as her mother
+makes to the <i>meester</i>, when suddenly something so dazzling is
+placed in her hand that she gives a cry of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Then she ventures to look about her. Peter too has something in his
+hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid!" she cries; and "Oh! how splendid!" is
+echoed as far as people can see.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing dashes of
+light upon those two happy faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Mevrouw Van Gend sends a little messenger with her bouquets,&mdash;one for
+Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and Gretel."</p>
+
+<p>At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes
+uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers skates
+and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and darts off to
+search for her father and mother in the scattering crowd.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4771" id="Page_4771">[Pg 4771]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="JOHN_DONNE" id="JOHN_DONNE"></a>JOHN DONNE</h2>
+
+<h4>(1573-1631)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capt107.png" width="90" height="90" alt="T" title="T" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">he memory of Dr. Donne must not, cannot die, as long as men speak
+English," wrote Izaak Walton, "whilst his conversation made him and
+others happy. His life ought to be the example of more than that age
+in which he died."</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus107.png" width="180" height="220" alt="John Donne" title="John Donne" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">John Donne</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Born in 1573, all the influences of the age in which Donne lived
+nourished his large nature and genius. Shakespeare and Marlowe were
+nine years older than he; Chapman fourteen; Spenser, Lyly, and Richard
+Hooker each twenty; while Sir Philip Sidney counted one year less.
+Lodge and Puttenham were grown men, and Greene and Nash riotous boys.
+In the following year Ben Jonson "came forth to warm our ears," and
+soon after we have his future co-worker Inigo Jones. It was the time
+of a multitude of poets,&mdash;Drayton, the Fletchers, Beaumont, Wither,
+Herrick, Carew, Suckling, and others. Imagination was foremost, and
+was stimulated by vast discoveries. Debates upon ecclesiastical
+reform, led by Wyclif, Tyndal, Knox, Foxe, Sternhold, Hopkins, and
+others, had prepared the way; and the luminous literatures of Greece
+and Italy, but recently brought into England, had made men's spirits
+receptive and creative. It was a period of vast conceptions, when men
+discovered themselves and the world afresh.</p>
+
+<p>Under such outward conditions Donne was born, in London, "of
+good and virtuous parents," says Walton, being descended on his
+mother's side from no less distinguished a personage than Sir Thomas
+More. In 1584, when he was eleven years old, with a good command
+both of French and Latin, he passed from the hands of tutors at
+home to Hare Hall, a much frequented college at Oxford. Here he
+formed a friendship with Henry Wotton, who, after the poet's death,
+collected the material from which Walton wrote his tender and sincere
+'Life of Donne.'</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Oxford he traveled for three years on the Continent,
+and on his return in 1592 became a member of Lincoln's Inn, with
+intent to study law; but his law never, says Walton, "served him
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4772" id="Page_4772">[Pg 4772]</a></span>
+for other use than an ornament and self-satisfaction." While a member
+of Lincoln's Inn he became one of the coterie of the poets of his
+youth. To this time are to be referred those of his 'Divine Poems'
+which show him a sincere Catholic. Stirred by the increasing differences
+between the Romanist and the Anglican denominations, Donne
+turned toward theological questions, and finally cast his lot with the
+new doctrines.  His large nature, impetuously reacting from the
+asceticism to which he had been bred, turned to excess and overboldness
+in action, and an occasional coarseness of phrasing in his poems.</p>
+
+<p>The first of his famous 'Satires' are dated 1593, and all were probably
+written before 1601. During this time also he squandered his
+father's legacy of &pound;3000. In 1596, when the Earl of Essex defeated the
+Spanish navy and pillaged Cadiz, Donne, now one of the first poets
+of the time, was among his followers. "Not long after his return
+into England ... the Lord Ellesmere, the Keeper of the Great
+Seal,... taking notice of his learning, languages, and other
+abilities, and much affecting his person and behavior, took him to be
+his chief secretary, supposing and intending it to be an introduction to
+some weighty employment in the State;... and did always use
+him with much courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table."
+Here he met the niece of Lady Ellesmere,&mdash;the daughter of Sir
+George More, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower,&mdash;whom at Christmas,
+1600, he married, despite the opposition of her father. Sir George,
+transported with wrath, obtained Donne's imprisonment; but the poet
+finally regained his liberty and his wife, Sir George in the end forgiving
+the young couple. "Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part
+spent in many chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience,
+he [being] out of all employment that might yield a support for himself
+and wife." The depth and intensity of Donne's feeling for this
+beautiful and accomplished woman are manifested, says Mr. Norton,
+in all the poems known to be addressed to her, such as 'The Anniversary'
+and 'The Token.'</p>
+
+<p>Of 'The Valediction Forbidding Mourning' Walton declares:&mdash;"I
+beg leave to tell that I have heard some critics, learned both in languages
+and poetry, say that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
+ever equal them;" while from Lowell's unpublished 'Lecture on
+Poetic Diction' Professor Norton quotes the opinion that "This poem
+is a truly sacred one, and fuller of the soul of poetry than a whole
+Alexandrian Library of common love verses."</p>
+
+<p>During this period of writing for court favors, Donne wrote many
+of his sonnets and studied the civil and canon law. After the death
+of his patron Sir Francis in 1606, Donne divided his time between
+Mitcham, whither he had removed his family, and London, where he
+frequented distinguished and fashionable drawing-rooms. At this
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4773" id="Page_4773">[Pg 4773]</a></span>
+time he wrote his admirable epistles in verse, 'The Litany,' and
+funeral elegies on Lady Markham and Mistress Bulstrode; but those
+poems are merely "occasional," as he was not a poet by profession.
+At the request of King James he wrote the 'Pseudo-Martyr,' published
+in 1610. In 1611 appeared his funeral elegy 'An Anatomy of
+the World,' and one year later another of like texture, 'On the Progress
+of the Soul,' both poems being exalted and elaborate in thought
+and fancy.</p>
+
+<p>The King, desiring Donne to enter into the ministry, denied all
+requests for secular preferment, and the unwilling poet deferred his
+decision for almost three years. All that time he studied textual
+divinity, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained about the beginning
+of 1615. The King made him his chaplain in ordinary, and promised
+other preferments. "Now," says Walton, "the English Church had
+gained a second St. Austin, for I think none was so like him before
+his conversion, none so like St. Ambrose after it; and if his youth
+had the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellences of the
+other, the learning and holiness of both."</p>
+
+<p>In 1621 the King made him Dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St.
+Dunstan in the West. By these and other ecclesiastical emoluments
+"he was enabled to become charitable to the poor and kind to his
+friends, and to make such provision for his children that they were
+not left scandalous, as relating to their or his profession or quality."</p>
+
+<p>His first printed sermons appeared in 1622. The epigrammatic
+terseness and unexpected turns of imagination which characterize the
+poems, are found also in his discourses. Three years later, during a
+dangerous illness, he composed his 'Devotion.' He died on the 31st
+of March, 1631.</p>
+
+<p>"Donne is full of salient verses," says Lowell in his 'Shakespeare
+Once More,' "that would take the rudest March winds of criticism
+with their beauty; of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and
+then delight us with the felicity of their solution." There are few in
+which an occasional loftiness is sustained throughout, but this occasional
+excellence is original, condensed, witty, showing a firm and
+strong mind, clear to a degree almost un-English. His poetry has
+somewhat of the stability of the Greeks, though it may lack their
+sweetness and art. His grossness was the heritage of his time. He
+is classed among the "metaphysical poets," of whom Dr. Johnson
+wrote:&mdash;"They were of very little care to clothe their notions with
+elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which
+are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to
+adorn their thoughts." It was in obedience to such a dictum, and to
+Dryden's suggestion, doubtless, that Pope and Parnell recast and
+re-versified the 'Satires.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4774" id="Page_4774">[Pg 4774]</a></span>
+The first edition of Donne's poems appeared two years after his death.
+Several editions succeeded during the seventeenth century. In the more
+artificial eighteenth century his harsh and abrupt versification and
+remote theorems made him difficult to understand. The best editions
+are 'The Complete Poems of John Donne,' edited by Dr. Alexander
+Grosart (1872); and 'The Poems of John Donne,' from the text of the
+edition of 1633, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895), from whose
+work the citations in this volume are taken.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="UNDERTAKING" id="UNDERTAKING"></a>THE UNDERTAKING</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have done one braver thing<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than all the Worthies did,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet a braver thence doth spring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which is, to keep that hid.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It were but madness now t' impart<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The skill of specular stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he which can have learned the art<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To cut it, can find none.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So, if I now should utter this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Others (because no more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such stuff to work upon there is)<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Would love but as before:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But he who loveliness within<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hath found, all outward loathes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he who color loves, and skin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Loves but their oldest clothes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If, as I have, you also do<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Virtue attired in women see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dare love that and say so too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And forget the He and She;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And if this love, though placed so,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From profane men you hide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which will no faith on this bestow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or, if they do, deride;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then you have done a braver thing<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than all the Worthies did,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a braver thence will spring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which is, to keep that hid.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4775" id="Page_4775">[Pg 4775]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="VALEDICTION" id="VALEDICTION"></a>A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As virtuous men pass mildly away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And whisper to their souls to go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whilst some of their sad friends do say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"The breath goes now," and some say "No";<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So let us melt and make no noise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twere profanation of our joys<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To tell the laity our love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Men reckon what it did and meant;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But trepidation of the spheres,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Though greater far, is innocent.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dull sublunary lovers' love<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Absence, because it doth remove<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Those things which elemented it.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But we by a love so much refined<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That ourselves know not what it is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inter-assur&egrave;d of the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our two souls, therefore, which are one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Though I must go, endure not yet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A breach, but an expansi&ograve;n,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like gold to airy thinness beat.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If they be two, they are two so<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As stiff twin compasses are two;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To move, but doth if the other do,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And though it in the centre sit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yet when the other far doth roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It leans and hearkens after it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And grows erect as that comes home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Such wilt thou be to me, who must,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like th' other foot, obliquely run;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy firmness makes my circle just,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And makes me end where I begun.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4776" id="Page_4776">[Pg 4776]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="SONG1" id="SONG1"></a>SONG</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Go and catch a falling star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Get with child a mandrake root,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell me where all past years are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or who cleft the devil's foot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teach me to hear mermaids singing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or to keep off envy's stinging,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And find<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">What wind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Serves to advance an honest mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If thou be'st born to strange sights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Things invisible to see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ride ten thousand days and nights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Till age snow white hairs on thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, when thou return'st, wilt tell me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All strange wonders that befell thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And swear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Nowhere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lives a woman true and fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If thou find'st one, let me know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Such a pilgrimage were sweet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet do not: I would not go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Though at next door we might meet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though she were true when you met her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And last till you write your letter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Yet she<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Will be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">False, ere I come, to two or three.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="LOVEGROWTH" id="LOVEGROWTH"></a>LOVE'S GROWTH</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I scarce believe my love to be so pure<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">As I had thought it was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Because it doth endure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vicissitude and season as the grass;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My love was infinite, if spring make it more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if this medicine love, which cures all sorrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With more, not only be no quintessence<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of the sun his working vigor borrow,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4777" id="Page_4777">[Pg 4777]</a></span><span class="i0">Love's not so pure and abstract as they use<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To say, which have no mistress but their muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as all else, being elemented too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And yet no greater, but more eminent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Love by the spring is grown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">As in the firmament<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gentle love-deeds, as blossoms on a bough,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From love's awakened root do bud out now.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If, as in water stirred, more circles be<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Produced by one, love such additions take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thou, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they are all concentric unto thee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though each spring do add to love new heat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As princes do in times of action get<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">New taxes and remit them not in peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No winter shall abate the spring's increase.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SONG2" id="SONG2"></a>SONG</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sweetest Love, I do not go<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For weariness of thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor in hope the world can show<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A fitter Love for me:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But since that I<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must die at last, 'tis best<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To use myself in jest<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thus by feigned deaths to die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yesternight the sun went hence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And yet is here to-day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hath no desire nor sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor half so short a way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then fear not me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But believe that I shall make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speedier journeys, since I take<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More wings and spurs than he.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, how feeble is man's power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That, if good fortune fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cannot add another hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor a lost hour recall!<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4778" id="Page_4778">[Pg 4778]</a></span><span class="i2">But come bad chance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we join to it our strength,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we teach it art and length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Itself o'er us to advance.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But sigh'st my soul away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My life's blood doth decay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It cannot be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If in thine my life thou waste;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thou art the best of me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let not thy divining heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Forethink me any ill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Destiny may take thy part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And may thy fears fulfill:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But think that we<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are but turned aside to sleep:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They who one another keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Alive, ne'er parted be.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4779" id="Page_4779">[Pg 4779]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="FEODOR_MIKHAILOVITCH_DOSTOEVSKY" id="FEODOR_MIKHAILOVITCH_DOSTOEVSKY"></a>FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTO&Eacute;VSKY</h2>
+
+<h4>(1821-1881)</h4>
+
+<h4>BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD</h4>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capi115.png" width="90" height="90" alt="I" title="I" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">n certain respects Dosto&eacute;vsky is the most characteristically national
+of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his work does not
+appeal to so wide a circle outside of his own country as does the work
+of Turg&eacute;nieff and Count L.N. Tolstoy. This result flows not only from
+the natural bent of his mind and temperament, but also from the
+peculiar vicissitudes of his life as compared with the comparatively
+even tenor of their existence, and the circumstances of the time in
+which he lived. These circumstances, it is true, were felt by the
+writers mentioned; but practically they affected him far more deeply
+than they did the others, with their rather one-sided training; and
+his fellow-countrymen&mdash;especially the young of both sexes&mdash;were not
+slow to express their appreciation of the fact. His special domain was
+the one which Turg&eacute;nieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and have
+touched not at all, or only incidentally,&mdash;the great middle class of
+society, or what corresponds thereto in Russia.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus115.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Feodor Dostoevsky" title="Feodor Dostoevsky" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Feodor Dosto&eacute;vsky</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Through his father, Mikhail Andr&eacute;evitch Dosto&eacute;vsky,
+Feodor Mikhailovitch belonged to the class of "nobles,"&mdash;that is
+to say, to the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable,
+well-to-do merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and
+was even more so during the first half of the present century; and in
+personal appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. The
+father was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in
+Moscow, having entered the civil service at the end of the war of
+1812, during which he had served as a physician in the army. In the
+very contracted apartment which he occupied in the hospital, Feodor
+was born&mdash;one of a family of seven children, all of whom, with
+the exception of the eldest and the youngest, were born there&mdash;on
+October 30th (November 11th), 1821. The parents were very upright,
+well-educated, devoutly religious people; and as Feodor expressed
+it many years later to his elder brother, after their father
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4780" id="Page_4780">[Pg 4780]</a></span>
+died, "Do you know, our parents were very superior people, and they
+would have been superior even in these days." The children were
+brought up at home as long as possible, and received their instruction
+from tutors and their father. Even after the necessity of preparing
+the two elder boys for a government institution forced the parents to
+send them to a boarding-school during the week, they continued their
+strict supervision over their associates, discouraged nearly all
+friendships with their comrades, and never allowed them to go into the
+street unaccompanied, after the national custom in good families, even
+at the age of seventeen or more.</p>
+
+<p>Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives,
+was always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother
+Mikhail spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott
+and James Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors;
+though Russian writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. During
+many of these years the mother and children passed the summers
+on a little estate in the country which the father bought, and
+it was there that Feodor Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with
+the beauties of nature, to which he eloquently refers in after life,
+and especially with the peasants, their feelings and temper, which
+greatly helped him in his psychological studies and in his ability to
+endure certain trials which came upon him. There can be no doubt
+that his whole training contributed not only to the literary tastes
+which the famous author and his brother cherished throughout their
+lives, but to the formation of that friendship between them which
+was stronger than all others, and to the sincere belief in religion and
+the profound piety which permeated the spirit and the books of
+Feodor Mikhailovitch.</p>
+
+<p>In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest sons to
+St. Petersburg to enter them in the government School of Engineers.
+But the healthy Mikhail was pronounced consumptive by the doctor,
+while the sickly Feodor was given a certificate of perfect health.
+Consequently Mikhail was rejected, and went to the Engineers' School
+in Revel, while Feodor, always quiet and reserved, was left lonely in
+the St. Petersburg school. Here he remained for three years, studying
+well, but devoting a great deal of time to his passionately beloved
+literary subjects, and developing a precocious and penetrating
+critical judgment on such matters. It is even affirmed that he began
+or wrote the first draft of his famous book 'Poor People,' by night,
+during this period; though in another account he places its
+composition later. After graduating well as ensign in 1841, he studied
+for another year, and became an officer with the rank of
+sub-lieutenant, and entered on active service, attached to the
+draughting department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4781" id="Page_4781">[Pg 4781]</a></span>
+A little more than a year later he resigned from the service, in order
+that he might devote himself wholly to literature. His father had died
+in the mean time, and had he possessed any practical talent he might
+have lived in comfort on the sums which his guardian sent him. But
+throughout his life people seemed to fleece him at will; he lost large
+sums at billiards with strangers, and otherwise; he was generous and
+careless; in short, he was to the end nearly always in debt, anxiety,
+and difficulties. Then came the first important crisis in his life. He
+wrote (or re-wrote) 'Poor People'; and said of his state of mind, as
+he reckoned up the possible pecuniary results, that he could not sleep
+for nights together, and "If my undertaking does not succeed, perhaps
+I shall hang myself." The history of that success is famous and
+stirring. His only acquaintance in literary circles was his old
+comrade D.V. Grigorovitch (also well known as a writer), and to him he
+committed the manuscript. His friend took it to the poet and editor
+Nekr&aacute;soff, in the hope that it might appear in the 'Collection' which
+the latter was intending to publish. Dosto&eacute;vsky was especially afraid
+of the noted critic Byelinsky's judgment on it: "He will laugh at my
+'Poor People,'" said he; "but I wrote it with passion, almost with
+tears."</p>
+
+<p>He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the
+fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four
+o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early
+summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell rang,
+and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekr&aacute;soff, who flung themselves upon
+his neck. They had begun to read his story in the evening, remarking
+that "ten pages would suffice to show its quality." But they had gone
+on reading, relieving each other as their voices failed them with
+fatigue and emotion, until the whole was finished. At the point where
+Pokrovsky's old father runs after his coffin, Nekr&aacute;soff pounded the
+table with the manuscript, deeply affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take
+him!" Then they decide to hasten to Dosto&eacute;vsky: "No matter if he is
+asleep&mdash;we will wake him up. <i>This</i> is above sleep."</p>
+
+<p>This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed
+sort which Dosto&eacute;vsky had longed for. When Nekr&aacute;soff went to
+Byelinsky with the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A
+new Gogol has made his appearance!" the critic retorted with severity,
+"Gogols spring up like mushrooms among us." But when he
+had read the story he said, "Bring him hither, bring him quickly;"
+and welcomed Dosto&eacute;vsky when he came, with extreme dignity and
+reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do you understand yourself
+what sort of a thing this is that you have written?" From that
+moment the young author's fame was assured, and he became known
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4782" id="Page_4782">[Pg 4782]</a></span>
+and popular even in advance of publication in a wide circle of literary
+and other people, as was the fashion of those days in Russia.
+When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the judgment
+of the critics.</p>
+
+<p>The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dosto&eacute;vsky
+was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence
+upon Dosto&eacute;vsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Byelinsky
+was an atheist and a socialist, and Dosto&eacute;vsky was brought
+into relations with persons who shared those views, although he himself
+never wavered, apparently, in his religious faith, and was never
+in harmony with any other aspirations of his associates except that
+of freeing the serfs. Notwithstanding this, he became involved in the
+catastrophe which overtook many visitors, occasional or constant, of
+the "circles" at whose head stood Petrashevsky. The whole affair is
+known as the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky.  During the '40's the
+students at the St. Petersburg University formed small gatherings
+where sociological subjects were the objects of study, and read the
+works of Stein, Haxthausen, Louis Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon, and
+other similar writers. Gradually assemblies of this sort were formed
+outside of the University. Petrashevsky, an employee of the Department
+of Foreign Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and
+the University, and who was ambitious of winning power and a reputation
+for eccentricity, learned of these little clubs and encouraged
+their growth. He did not however encourage their close association
+among themselves, but rather, entire dependence on himself, as the
+centre of authority, the guide; and urged them to inaugurate a sort of
+propaganda.  Dosto&eacute;vsky himself declared, about thirty years later,
+that "the socialists sprang from the followers of Petrashevsky; they
+sowed much seed." He has dealt with them and their methods in
+his novel 'Demons'; though perhaps not with exact accuracy. But
+they helped him to an elucidation of the contemporary situation,
+which Turg&eacute;nieff had treated in 'Virgin Soil.' The chief subject
+of their political discussions was the emancipation of the serfs, and
+many of Petrashevsky's followers reckoned upon a rising of the serfs
+themselves, though it was proved that Dosto&eacute;vsky maintained the
+propriety and necessity of the reform proceeding from the government.
+This was no new topic; the Emperor Nicholas I. had already
+begun to plan the Emancipation, and it is probable that it would
+have taken place long before it did, had it not been for this very
+conspiracy. From the point of view of the government, the movement
+was naturally dangerous, especially in view of what was taking
+place in Europe at that epoch. Dosto&eacute;vsky bore himself critically
+toward the socialistic writings and doctrines, maintaining that in
+their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds with reciprocal
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4783" id="Page_4783">[Pg 4783]</a></span>
+bonds there existed surer and more normal foundations than in all
+the dreams of Saint-Simon and all his school. He did not even visit
+very frequently the circle to which he particularly belonged, and was
+rarely at the house of Petrashevsky, whom many personally disliked.</p>
+
+<p>But on one occasion, as he was a good reader, he was asked to
+read aloud Byelinsky's famous letter to Gogol, which was regarded
+as a victorious manifest of "Western" (<i>i. e.</i>, of socialistic) views.
+This, technically, was propagating revolution, and was the chief
+charge against him when the catastrophe happened, and he, together
+with over thirty other "Petrashevtzi," was arrested on April 23d
+(May 5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was
+kept for eight months pending trial, Dosto&eacute;vsky wrote 'The Little
+Hero,' two or three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor
+People.' At last he, with several others, was condemned to death
+and led out for execution. The history of that day, and the analysis
+of his sensations and emotions, are to be found in several of his
+books: 'Crime and Punishment,' 'The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Brothers.'
+At the last moment it was announced to them that the Emperor
+had commuted their sentence to exile in varying degrees, and
+they were taken to Siberia. Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three
+years of age, the man who sent Byelinsky's letter to Dosto&eacute;vsky, was
+banished for a short term of years to the disciplinary brigade in
+Orenburg; and when I saw him in St. Petersburg forty years later,
+I was able to form a faint idea of what Dosto&eacute;vsky's popularity must
+have been, by the way in which he,&mdash;a man of much less talent, originality,
+and personal power,&mdash;was surrounded, even in church, by
+adoring throngs of young people. Dosto&eacute;vsky's sentence was "four
+years at forced labor in prison; after that, to serve as a common
+soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility and his civil rights, being
+the first noble to retain them under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is
+to be found in his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' where,
+under the disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the
+murder of his wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some
+respects a consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own
+judgment as to his exile was, "The government only defended itself;"
+and when people said to him, "How unjust your exile was!" he
+replied, even with irritation, "No, it was just. The people themselves
+would have condemned us." Moreover, he did not like to give
+benefit readings in later years from his 'Notes from the House of the
+Dead,' lest he might be thought to complain. Besides, this catastrophe
+was the making of him, by his own confession; he had become
+a confirmed hypochondriac, with a host of imaginary afflictions
+and ills, and had this affair not saved him from himself he said that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4784" id="Page_4784">[Pg 4784]</a></span>
+he "should have gone mad." It seems certain, from the testimony
+of his friend and physician, that he was already subject to the epileptic
+fits which he himself was wont to attribute to his imprisonment;
+and which certainly increased in severity as the years went
+on, until they occurred once a month or oftener, in consequence of
+overwork and excessive nervous strain. In his novel 'The Idiot,'
+whose hero is an epileptic, he has made a psychological study of his
+sensations before and after such fits, and elsewhere he makes allusions
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>After serving in the ranks and being promoted officer when he
+had finished his term of imprisonment, he returned to Russia in 1859,
+and lived first at Tver; afterward, when permitted, in St. Petersburg.
+The history of his first marriage&mdash;which took place in Siberia, to
+the widow of a friend&mdash;is told with tolerable accuracy in his 'Humbled
+and Insulted,' which also contains a description of his early struggles
+and the composition of 'Poor People,' the hero who narrates
+the tale of his love and sacrifice being himself. Like that hero, he
+tried to facilitate his future wife's marriage to another man. He
+was married to his second wife, by whom he had four children, in
+1867, and to her he owed much happiness and material comfort. It
+will be seen that much is to be learned concerning our author from
+his own novels, though it would hardly be safe to write a biography
+from them alone. Even in 'Crime and Punishment,' his greatest
+work in a general way, he reproduces events of his own life, meditations,
+wonderfully accurate descriptions of the third-rate quarter of
+the town in which he lived after his return from Siberia, while engaged
+on some of his numerous newspaper and magazine enterprises.</p>
+
+<p>This journalistic turn of mind, combined in nearly equal measures
+with the literary talent, produced several singular effects. It
+rendered his periodical 'Diary of a Writer' the most enormously
+popular publication of the day, and a success when previous ventures
+had failed, though it consisted entirely of his own views on current
+topics of interest, literary questions, and whatever came into his
+head. On his novels it had a rather disintegrating effect. Most of
+them are of great length, are full of digressions from the point, and
+there is often a lack of finish about them which extends not only to
+the minor characters but to the style in general. In fact, his style
+is neither jewel-like in its brilliancy, as is Turg&eacute;nieff's,
+nor has it the elegance, broken by carelessness, of Tolstoy's. But it
+was popular, remarkably well adapted to the class of society which it
+was his province to depict, and though diffuse, it is not possible to
+omit any of the long psychological analyses, or dreams, or series of ratiocinations,
+without injuring the web of the story and the moral, as chain armor is
+spoiled by the rupture of a link. This indeed is one of the great difficulties
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4785" id="Page_4785">[Pg 4785]</a></span>
+which the foreigner encounters in an attempt to study
+Dosto&eacute;vsky: the translators have been daunted by his prolixity,
+and have often cut his works down to a mere skeleton of the original.
+Moreover, he deals with a sort of Russian society which it is hard for
+non-Russians to grasp, and he has no skill whatever in presenting
+aristocratic people or society, to which foreigners have become
+accustomed in the works of his great contemporaries Turg&eacute;nieff
+and Tolstoy; while he never, despite all his genuine admiration for
+the peasants and keen sympathy with them, attempts any purely peasant
+tales like Turg&eacute;nieff's 'Notes of a Sportsman' or Tolstoy's
+'Tales for the People.' Naturally, this is but one reason the more why
+he should be studied. His types of hero, and of feminine character,
+are peculiar to himself. Perhaps the best way to arrive at his
+ideal&mdash;and at his own character, <i>plus</i> a certain irritability
+and tendency to suspicion of which his friends speak&mdash;is to
+scrutinize the pictures of Prince Myshkin ('The Idiot'), Ivan
+('Humbled and Insulted'), and Alyosha ('The Karamazoff Brothers').
+Pure, delicate both physically and morally, as Dosto&eacute;vsky
+himself is described by those who knew him best; devout, gentle,
+intensely sympathetic, strongly masculine yet with a large admixture
+of the feminine element&mdash;such are these three; such is also, in
+his way, Raskolnikoff ('Crime and Punishment'). His feminine
+characters are the precise counterparts of these in many respects, but
+are often also quixotic even to boldness and wrong-headedness, like
+Aglaya ('The Idiot'), or to shame, like Sonia ('Crime and
+Punishment'), and the heroine of 'Humbled and Insulted.' But
+Dosto&eacute;vsky could not sympathize with and consequently could not
+draw an aristocrat; his frequently recurring type of the dissolute
+petty noble or rich merchant is frequently brutal; and his unclassed
+women, though possibly quite as true to life as these men, are painful
+in their callousness and recklessness. His earliest work, 'Poor
+People,' written in the form of letters, is worthy of all the praises
+which have been bestowed upon it, simple as is the story of the
+poverty-stricken clerk who is almost too humble to draw his breath,
+who pleads that one must wear a coat and boots which do not show the
+bare feet, during the severe Russian winter, merely because public
+opinion forces one thereto; and who shares his rare pence with a
+distant but equally needy relative who is in a difficult position. As
+a compact, subtle psychological study, his 'Crime and Punishment'
+cannot be overrated, repulsive as it is in parts. The poor student who
+kills the aged usurer with intent to rob, after prolonged argument
+with himself that great geniuses, like Napoleon I. and the like, are
+justified in committing any crime, and that he has a right to relieve
+his poverty; and who eventually surrenders himself to the authorities
+and accepts his exile as moral salvation,&mdash;is one of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4786" id="Page_4786">[Pg 4786]</a></span>
+strongest in Russian literature, though wrong-headed and easily
+swayed, like all the author's characters.</p>
+
+<p>In June 1880 Dosto&eacute;vsky made a speech at the unveiling of
+Pushkin's monument in Moscow, which completely overshadowed the
+speeches of Turg&eacute;nieff and Aksakoff, and gave rise to what was
+probably the most extraordinary literary ovation ever seen in Russia.
+By that time he had become the object of pilgrimages, on the part
+of the young especially, to a degree which no other Russian author
+has ever experienced, and the recipient of confidences, both personal
+and written, which pressed heavily on his time and strength. That
+ovation has never been surpassed, save by the astonishing concourse
+at his funeral. He died of a lesion of the brain on January 28th
+(February 8th), 1881. Thousands followed his coffin for miles, but
+there was no "demonstration," as that word is understood in Russia.
+Nevertheless it was a demonstration in an unexpected way, since all
+classes of society, even those which had not seemed closely interested
+or sympathetic, now joined in the tribute of respect, which amounted
+to loving enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>The works which I have mentioned are the most important, though he
+wrote also 'The Stripling' and numerous shorter stories. His own
+characterization of his work, when reproached with its occasional lack
+of continuity and finish, was that his aim was to make his point, and
+the exigencies of money and time under which he labored were to blame
+for the defects which, with his keen literary judgment, he perceived
+quite as clearly as did his critics. If that point be borne in mind,
+it will help the reader to appreciate his literary-journalistic style,
+and to pardon shortcomings for the sake of the pearls of principle and
+psychology which can be fished up from the profound depths of his
+voluminous tomes, and of his analysis. The gospel which Dosto&eacute;vsky
+consistently preached, from the beginning of his career to the end,
+was love, self-sacrifice even to self-effacement. That was and is the
+secret of his power, even over those who did not follow his precepts.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 564px;">
+<img src="images/sign122.png" width="564" height="167" alt="Isabel F. Hapgood" title="Isabel F. Hapgood" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4787" id="Page_4787">[Pg 4787]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="FROM_POOR_PEOPLE" id="FROM_POOR_PEOPLE"></a>FROM 'POOR PEOPLE'</h3>
+<h4><a name="LetterI" id="LetterI"></a><span class="smcap">Letter from Varvara Dobrosyeloff to Makar Dyevushkin</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>Pokrovsky was a poor, very poor young man; his health did
+not permit of his attending regularly to his studies, and so
+it was only by way of custom that we called him a student.
+He lived modestly, peaceably, quietly, so that we could not even
+hear him from our room. He was very queer in appearance;
+he walked so awkwardly, bowed so uncouthly, spoke in such a
+peculiar manner, that at first I could not look at him without
+laughing. Moreover, he was of an irritable character, was constantly
+getting angry, flew into a rage at the slightest trifle,
+shouted at us, complained of us, and often went off to his own
+room in a fit of wrath without finishing our lesson. He had a
+great many books, all of them expensive, rare books. He gave
+lessons somewhere else also, received some remuneration, and
+just as soon as he had a little money, he went off and bought
+more books.</p>
+
+<p>In time I learned to understand him better. He was the
+kindest, the most worthy man, the best man I ever met. My
+mother respected him highly. Later on, he became my best
+friend&mdash;after my mother, of course....</p>
+
+<p>From time to time a little old man made his appearance at
+our house&mdash;a dirty, badly dressed, small, gray-haired, sluggish,
+awkward old fellow; in short, he was peculiar to the last degree.
+At first sight one would have thought that he felt ashamed of
+something, that his conscience smote him for something. He
+writhed and twisted constantly; he had such tricks of manner
+and ways of shrugging his shoulders, that one would not have
+been far wrong in assuming that he was a little crazy. He
+would come and stand close to the glazed door in the vestibule,
+and not dare to enter. As soon as one of us, Sasha or I or one
+of the servants whom he knew to be kindly disposed toward
+him, passed that way, he would begin to wave his hands, and
+beckon us to him, and make signs; and only when we nodded to
+him or called to him,&mdash;the signal agreed upon, that there was no
+stranger in the house and that he might enter when he pleased,&mdash;only
+then would the old man softly open the door, with a joyous
+smile, rubbing his hands together with delight, and betake
+himself to Pokrovsky's room. He was his father.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4788" id="Page_4788">[Pg 4788]</a></span>
+Afterward I learned in detail the story of this poor old man. Once
+upon a time he had been in the government service somewhere or other,
+but he had not the slightest capacity, and his place in the service
+was the lowest and most insignificant of all. When his first wife died
+(the mother of the student Pokrovsky), he took it into his head to
+marry again, and wedded a woman from the petty-merchant class. Under
+the rule of this new wife, everything was at sixes and sevens in his
+house; there was no living with her; she drew a tight rein over
+everybody. Student Pokrovsky was a boy at that time, ten years of age.
+His stepmother hated him. But fate was kind to little Pokrovsky.
+Bykoff, a landed proprietor, who was acquainted with Pokrovsky the
+father and had formerly been his benefactor, took the child under his
+protection and placed him in a school. He took an interest in him
+because he had known his dead mother, whom Anna Feodorovna had
+befriended while she was still a girl, and who had married her off to
+Pokrovsky. From school young Pokrovsky entered a gymnasium, and then
+the University, but his impaired health prevented his continuing his
+studies there. Mr. Bykoff introduced him to Anna Feodorovna,
+recommended him to her, and in this way young Pokrovsky had been taken
+into the house as a boarder, on condition that he should teach Sasha
+all that was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>But old Pokrovsky fell into the lowest dissipation through grief at
+his wife's harshness, and was almost always in a state of drunkenness.
+His wife beat him, drove him into the kitchen to live, and brought
+matters to such a point that at last he got used to being beaten and
+ill-treated, and made no complaint. He was still far from being an old
+man, but his evil habits had nearly destroyed his mind. The only sign
+in him of noble human sentiments was his boundless love for his son.
+It was said that young Pokrovsky was as like his dead mother as two
+drops of water to each other. The old man could talk of nothing but
+his son, and came to see him regularly twice a week. He dared not come
+more frequently, because young Pokrovsky could not endure his father's
+visits. Of all his failings, the first and greatest, without a doubt,
+was his lack of respect for his father. However, the old man certainly
+was at times the most intolerable creature in the world. In the first
+place he was dreadfully inquisitive; in the second, by his chatter and
+questions he interfered with his son's occupations; and lastly, he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4789" id="Page_4789">[Pg 4789]</a></span>
+sometimes presented himself in a state of intoxication. The son broke
+the father, in a degree, of his faults,&mdash;of his inquisitiveness and
+his chattering; and ultimately brought about such a condition of
+affairs that the latter listened to all he said as to an oracle, and
+dared not open his mouth without his permission.</p>
+
+<p>There were no bounds to the old man's admiration of and delight in his
+Petinka, as he called his son. When he came to visit him he almost
+always wore a rather anxious, timid expression, probably on account of
+his uncertainty as to how his son would receive him, and generally
+could not make up his mind for a long time to go in; and if I happened
+to be present, he would question me for twenty minutes: How was
+Petinka? Was he well? In what mood was he, and was not he occupied in
+something important? What, precisely, was he doing? Was he writing, or
+engaged in meditation? When I had sufficiently encouraged and soothed
+him, the old man would at last make up his mind to enter, and would
+open the door very, very softly, very, very cautiously, and stick his
+head in first; and if he saw that his son was not angry, and nodded to
+him, he would step gently into the room, take off his little coat, and
+his hat, which was always crumpled, full of holes and with broken
+rims, and hang them on a hook, doing everything very softly, and
+inaudibly. Then he would seat himself cautiously on a chair and never
+take his eyes from his son, but would watch his every movement in his
+desire to divine the state of his Petinka's temper. If the son was not
+exactly in the right mood, and the old man detected it, he instantly
+rose from his seat and explained, "I only ran in for a minute,
+Petinka. I have been walking a good ways, and happened to be passing
+by, so I came in to rest myself." And then silently he took his poor
+little coat and his wretched little hat, opened the door again very
+softly, and went away, forcing a smile in order to suppress the grief
+which was seething up in his soul, and not betray it to his son.</p>
+
+<p>But when the son received his father well, the old man was beside
+himself with joy. His satisfaction shone forth in his face, in his
+gestures, in his movements. If his son addressed a remark to him, the
+old man always rose a little from his chair, and replied softly,
+cringingly, almost reverently, and always made an effort to employ
+the most select, that is to say, the most ridiculous expressions.
+But he had not the gift of language; he always
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4790" id="Page_4790">[Pg 4790]</a></span>
+became confused and frightened, so that he did not know what to do
+with his hands, or what to do with his person, and went on, for a long
+time afterward, whispering his answer to himself, as though desirous
+of recovering his composure. But if he succeeded in making a good
+answer, the old man gained courage, set his waistcoat to rights, and
+his cravat and his coat, and assumed an air of personal dignity.
+Sometimes his courage rose to such a point, his daring reached such a
+height, that he rose gently from his chair, went up to the shelf of
+books, took down a book. He did all this with an air of artificial
+indifference and coolness, as though he could always handle his son's
+books in this proprietary manner, as though his son's caresses were no
+rarity to him. But I once happened to witness the old man's fright
+when Pokrovsky asked him not to touch his books. He became confused,
+hurriedly replaced the book upside down, then tried to put it right,
+turned it round and set it wrong side to, leaves out, smiled,
+reddened, and did not know how to expiate his crime.</p>
+
+<p>One day old Pokrovsky came in to see us. He chatted with us for a long
+time, was unusually cheerful, alert, talkative; he laughed and joked
+after his fashion, and at last revealed the secret of his raptures,
+and announced to us that his Petinka's birthday fell precisely a week
+later, and that it was his intention to call upon his son, without
+fail, on that day; that he would don a new waistcoat, and that his
+wife had promised to buy him some new boots. In short, the old man was
+perfectly happy, and chattered about everything that came into his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>His birthday! That birthday gave me no peace, either day or night. I
+made up my mind faithfully to remind Pokrovsky of my friendship, and
+to make him a present. But what? At last I hit upon the idea of giving
+him some books. I knew that he wished to own the complete works of
+Pushkin, in the latest edition. I had thirty rubles of my own, earned
+by my handiwork. I had put this money aside for a new gown. I
+immediately sent old Matryona, our cook, to inquire the price of a
+complete set. Alas! The price of the eleven volumes, together with the
+expenses of binding, would be sixty rubles at the very least. I
+thought and thought, but could not tell what to do. I did not wish to
+ask my mother. Of course she would have helped me; but, in that case
+every one in the house would have known about our gift; moreover, the
+gift would have been converted
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4791" id="Page_4791">[Pg 4791]</a></span>
+into an expression of gratitude, a payment for Pokrovsky's labors for
+the whole year. My desire was to make the present privately, unknown
+to any one. And for his toilsome lessons to me I wished to remain
+forever indebted to him, without any payment whatever. At last I
+devised an escape from my predicament. I knew that one could often buy
+at half price from the old booksellers in the Gostinny Dvor, if one
+bargained well, little used and almost entirely new books. I made up
+my mind to go to the Gostinny Dvor myself. So it came about; the very
+next morning both Anna Feodorovna and we needed something. Mamma was
+not feeling well, and Anna Feodorovna, quite opportunely, had a fit of
+laziness, so all the errands were turned over to me, and I set out
+with Matryona.</p>
+
+<p>To my delight I soon found a Pushkin, and in a very handsome binding.
+I began to bargain for it. How I enjoyed it! But alas! My entire
+capital consisted of thirty rubles in paper, and the merchant would
+not consent to accept less than ten rubles in silver. At last I began
+to entreat him, and I begged and begged, until eventually he yielded.
+But he only took off two rubles and a half, and swore that he had done
+so only for my sake, because I was such a nice young lady, and that he
+would not have come down in his price for any one else. Two rubles and
+a half were still lacking! I was ready to cry with vexation. But the
+most unexpected circumstance came to my rescue in my grief. Not far
+from me, at another stall, I caught sight of old Pokrovsky. Four or
+five old booksellers were clustered about him; he had completely lost
+his wits, and they had thoroughly bewildered him. Each one was
+offering him his wares, and what stuff they were offering, and what
+all was he not ready to buy! I stepped up to him and asked him what he
+was doing there? The old man was very glad to see me; he loved me
+unboundedly,&mdash;no less than his Petinka, perhaps. "Why, I am buying a
+few little books, Varvara Alexievna," he replied; "I am buying some
+books for Petinka." I asked him if he had much money? "See
+here,"&mdash;and the poor old man took out all his money, which was
+wrapped up in a dirty scrap of newspaper; "here's a half-ruble, and a
+twenty-kopek piece, and twenty kopeks in copper coins." I immediately
+dragged him off to my bookseller. "Here are eleven books, which cost
+altogether thirty-two rubles and a half; I have thirty; put your two
+rubles and a half with mine, and we will buy all these
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4792" id="Page_4792">[Pg 4792]</a></span>
+books and give them to him in partnership." The old man was quite
+beside himself with joy, and the bookseller loaded him down with our
+common library.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the old man came to see his son, sat with him a little
+while, then came to us and sat down beside me with a very comical air
+of mystery. Every moment he grew more sad and uneasy; at last he could
+hold out no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Varvara Alexievna," he began timidly, in a low voice: "do you
+know what, Varvara Alexievna?" The old man was dreadfully embarrassed.
+"You see, when his birthday comes, do you take ten of those little
+books and give them to him yourself, that is to say, from yourself, on
+your own behalf; then I will take the eleventh and give it from
+myself, for my share. So you see, you will have something to give, and
+I shall have something to give; we shall both have something to give."</p>
+
+<p>I was awfully sorry for the old man. I did not take long to think it
+over. The old man watched me anxiously. "Listen to me, Zakhar
+Petrovitch," I said: "do you give him all."&mdash;"How all? Do you mean all
+the books?"&mdash;"Yes, certainly, all the books."&mdash;"And from
+myself?"&mdash;"From yourself."&mdash;"From myself alone&mdash;that is, in my own
+name?"&mdash;"Yes, in your own name." I thought I was expressing myself
+with sufficient clearness, but the old man could not understand me for
+a long time.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he explained to me at last, "I sometimes indulge myself,
+Varvara Alexievna,&mdash;that is to say, I wish to state to you that I
+nearly always indulge myself,&mdash;I do that which is not right,&mdash;that is,
+you know, when it is cold out of doors, and when various unpleasant
+things happen at times, or when I feel sad for any reason, or
+something bad happens,&mdash;then sometimes, I do not restrain myself, and
+I drink too much. This is very disagreeable to Petrushka, you see,
+Varvara Alexievna; he gets angry, and he scolds me and reads me moral
+lectures. So now I should like to show him by my gift that I have
+reformed, and am beginning to conduct myself well; that I have been
+saving up my money to buy a book, saving for a long time, because I
+hardly ever have any money, except when it happens that Petrushka
+gives me some now and then. He knows that. Consequently, he will see
+what use I have made of my money, and he will know that I have done
+this for his sake alone."...</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes," he said, after thinking it over, "yes! That will
+be very fine, that would be very fine indeed,&mdash;only, what are
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4793" id="Page_4793">[Pg 4793]</a></span>
+you going to do, Varvara Alexievna?"&mdash;"Why, I shall not give
+anything."&mdash;"What!" cried the old man almost in terror; "so you
+will not give Petinka anything, so you do not wish to give him
+anything?" He was alarmed. At that moment it seemed as though he were
+ready to relinquish his own suggestions, so that I might have
+something to give his son. He was a kind-hearted old man! I explained
+that I would be glad to give something, only I did not wish to deprive
+him of the pleasure.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>On the festive day he made his appearance at precisely eleven o'clock,
+straight from the mass, in his dress coat, decently patched, and
+actually in a new waistcoat and new boots. We were all sitting in the
+hall with Anna Feodorovna, and drinking coffee (it was Sunday). The
+old man began, I believe, by saying that Pushkin was a good poet; then
+he lost the thread of his discourse and got confused, and suddenly
+jumped to the assertion that a man must behave well, and that if he
+does not behave himself well, then it simply means that he indulges
+himself; he even cited several terrible examples of intemperance, and
+wound up by stating that for some time past he had been entirely a
+reformed character, and that he now behaved with perfect propriety.
+That even earlier he had recognized the justice of his son's
+exhortations, and had treasured them all in his heart, and had
+actually begun to be sober. In proof of which he now presented these
+books, which had been purchased with money which he had been hoarding
+up for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>I could not refrain from tears and laughter, as I listened to the poor
+old fellow; he knew well how to lie when the occasion demanded! The
+books were taken to Pokrovsky's room and placed on the shelf.
+Pokrovsky immediately divined the truth.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Pokrovsky fell ill, two months after the events which I have described
+above. During those two months he had striven incessantly for the means
+of existence, for up to that time he had never had a settled position.
+Like all consumptives, he bade farewell only with his last breath to the
+hope of a very long life.... Anna Feodorovna herself made all the
+arrangements about the funeral. She bought the very plainest sort
+of a coffin, and hired a truckman. In order to repay herself for her
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4794" id="Page_4794">[Pg 4794]</a></span>
+expenditure, Anna Feodorovna took possession of all the dead man's
+books and effects. The old man wrangled with her, raised an uproar,
+snatched from her as many books as possible, stuffed all his pockets
+with them, thrust them into his hat and wherever he could, carried
+them about with him all the three days which preceded the funeral, and
+did not even part with them when the time came to go to the church.
+During all those days he was like a man stunned, who has lost his
+memory, and he kept fussing about near the coffin with a certain
+strange anxiety; now he adjusted the paper band upon the dead man's
+brow, now he lighted and snuffed the candles. It was evident that he
+could not fix his thoughts in orderly manner on anything. Neither my
+mother nor Anna Feodorovna went to the funeral services in the church.
+My mother was ill, but Anna Feodorovna quarreled with old Pokrovsky
+just as she was all ready to start, and so stayed away. The old man
+and I were the only persons present. A sort of fear came over me
+during the services&mdash;like the presentiment of something which was
+about to happen. I could hardly stand out the ceremony in church. At
+last they put the lid on the coffin and nailed it down, placed it on
+the cart and drove away. I accompanied it only to the end of the
+street. The truckman drove at a trot. The old man ran after the cart,
+weeping aloud; the sound of his crying was broken and shaken by his
+running. The poor man lost his hat and did not stop to pick it up. His
+head was wet with the rain; the sleet lashed and cut his face. The old
+man did not appear to feel the bad weather, but ran weeping from one
+side of the cart to the other. The skirts of his shabby old coat waved
+in the wind like wings. Books protruded from every one of his pockets;
+in his hands was a huge book, which he held tightly clutched. The
+passers-by removed their hats and made the sign of the cross. Some
+halted and stared in amazement at the poor old man. Every moment the
+books kept falling out of his pockets into the mud, People stopped
+him, and pointed out his losses to him; he picked them up, and set out
+again in pursuit of the coffin. At the corner of the street an old
+beggar woman joined herself to him to escort the coffin. At last the
+cart turned the corner, and disappeared from my eyes. I went home, I
+flung myself, in dreadful grief, on my mother's bosom.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4795" id="Page_4795">[Pg 4795]</a></span></p>
+<h4><a name="LetterII" id="LetterII"></a><span class="smcap">Letter from Makar Dyevushkin to Varvara Alexievna Dobrosyeloff</span></h4>
+
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">September 9th</span>.</p>
+<p><i>My dear Varvara Alexievna!</i></p>
+
+<p>I am quite beside myself as I write this. I am utterly upset by a most
+terrible occurrence. My head is whirling. I feel as though everything
+were turning in dizzy circles round about me. Ah, my dearest, what a
+thing I have to tell you now! We had not even a presentiment of such a
+thing. No, I don't believe that I did not have a presentiment&mdash;I
+foresaw it all. My heart forewarned me of this whole thing! I even
+dreamed of something like it not long ago.</p>
+
+<p>This is what has happened! I will relate it to you without attempting
+fine style, and as the Lord shall put it into my soul. I went to the
+office to-day. When I arrived, I sat down and began to write. But you
+must know, my dear, that I wrote yesterday also. Well, yesterday
+Timofei Ivan'itch came to me, and was pleased to give me a personal
+order. "Here's a document that is much needed," says he, "and we're in
+a hurry for it. Copy it, Makar Alexievitch," says he, "as quickly and
+as neatly and carefully as possible: it must be handed in for
+signature to-day." I must explain to you, my angel, that I was not
+quite myself yesterday, and didn't wish to look at anything; such
+sadness and depression had fallen upon me! My heart was cold, my mind
+was dark; you filled all my memory, and incessantly, my poor darling.
+Well, so I set to work on the copy; I wrote clearly and well, only,&mdash;I
+don't know exactly how to describe it to you, whether the Evil One
+himself tangled me up, or whether it was decreed by some mysterious
+fate, or simply whether it was bound to happen so, but I omitted a
+whole line, and the sense was utterly ruined. The Lord only knows what
+sense there was&mdash;simply none whatever. They were late with the papers
+yesterday, so they only gave this document to his Excellency for
+signature this morning. To-day I presented myself at the usual hour,
+as though nothing at all were the matter, and set myself down
+alongside Emelyan Ivanovitch.</p>
+
+<p>I must tell you, my dear, that lately I have become twice as
+shamefaced as before, and more mortified. Of late I have ceased to
+look at any one. As soon as any one's chair squeaks, I am more
+dead than alive. So to-day I crept in, slipped humbly into
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4796" id="Page_4796">[Pg 4796]</a></span>
+my seat, and sat there all doubled up, so that Efim Akimovitch (he's the
+greatest tease in the world) remarked in such a way that all could hear him,
+"Why do you sit so like a y-y-y, Makar Alexievitch?" Then he made such
+a grimace that everybody round him and me split with laughter, and of
+course at my expense. They kept it up interminably! I drooped my ears
+and screwed up my eyes, and sat there motionless. That's my way; they
+stop the quicker. All at once I heard a noise, a running and a tumult;
+I heard&mdash;did my ears deceive me? They were calling for me, demanding
+me, summoning Dyevushkin. My heart quivered in my breast, and I didn't
+know myself what I feared, for nothing of the sort had ever happened
+to me in the whole course of my life. I was rooted to my chair,&mdash;as
+though nothing had occurred, as though it were not I. But then they
+began again, nearer at hand, and nearer still. And here they were,
+right in my very ear: "Dyevushkin! Dyevushkin!" they called; "where's
+Dyevushkin?" I raise my eyes, and there before me stands Evstafiy
+Ivanovitch; he says:&mdash;"Makar Alexievitch, hasten to his Excellency as
+quickly as possible! You've made a nice mess with that document!"</p>
+
+<p>That was all he said, but it was enough, wasn't it, my dear,&mdash;quite
+enough to say? I turned livid, and grew as cold as ice, and lost my
+senses; I started, and I simply didn't know whether I was alive or
+dead as I went. They led me through one room, and through another
+room, and through a third room, to the private office, and I presented
+myself! Positively, I cannot give you any account of what I was
+thinking about. I saw his Excellency standing there, with all of them
+around him. It appears that I did not make my salute; I forgot it
+completely. I was so scared that my lips trembled and my legs shook.
+And there was sufficient cause, my dear. In the first place, I was
+ashamed of myself; I glanced to the right, at a mirror, and what I
+beheld therein was enough to drive any man out of his senses. And in
+the second place, I have always behaved as though there were no place
+for me in the world. So that it is not likely that his Excellency was
+even aware of my existence. It is possible that he may have heard it
+cursorily mentioned that there was a person named Dyevushkin in the
+department, but he had never come into any closer relations.</p>
+
+<p>He began angrily, "What's the meaning of this, sir? What are
+you staring at? Here's an important paper, needed in haste,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4797" id="Page_4797">[Pg 4797]</a></span>
+and you go and spoil it. And how did you come to permit such a thing?" Here his
+Excellency turned on Evstafiy Ivanovitch. I only listen, and the
+sounds of the words reach me: "It's gross carelessness. Heedlessness!
+You'll get yourself into trouble!" I tried to open my mouth for some
+purpose or other. I seemed to want to ask forgiveness, but I couldn't;
+to run away, but I didn't dare to make the attempt: and then&mdash;then, my
+dearest, something so dreadful happened that I can hardly hold my pen
+even now for the shame of it. My button&mdash;deuce take it&mdash;my button,
+which was hanging by a thread, suddenly broke loose, jumped off,
+skipped along (evidently I had struck it by accident), clattered and
+rolled away, the cursed thing, straight to his Excellency's feet, and
+that in the midst of universal silence. And that was the whole of my
+justification, all my excuse, all my answer, everything which I was
+preparing to say to his Excellency!</p>
+
+<p>The results were terrible! His Excellency immediately directed his
+attention to my figure and my costume. I remembered what I had seen in
+the mirror; I flew to catch the button! A fit of madness descended
+upon me! I bent down and tried to grasp the button, but it rolled and
+twisted, and I couldn't get hold of it, in short, and I also
+distinguished myself in the matter of dexterity. Then I felt my last
+strength fail me, and knew that all, all was lost! My whole reputation
+was lost, the whole man ruined! And then, without rhyme or reason,
+Teresa and Faldoni began to ring in both my ears. At last I succeeded
+in seizing the button, rose upright, drew myself up in proper salute,
+but like a fool, and stood calmly there with my hands lined down on
+the seams of my trousers! No, I didn't, though. I began to try to fit
+the button on the broken thread, just as though it would stick fast by
+that means; and moreover, I began to smile and went on smiling.</p>
+
+<p>At first his Excellency turned away; then he scrutinized me again, and
+I heard him say to Evstafiy Ivanovitch:&mdash;"How's this? See what a
+condition he is in! What a looking man! What's the matter with him?"
+Ah, my own dearest, think of that&mdash;"What a looking man!" and "What's
+the matter with him!"&mdash;"He has distinguished himself!" I heard
+Evstafiy say; "he has no bad marks, no bad marks on any score, and his
+conduct is exemplary; his salary is adequate, in accordance with the
+rates." "Well then, give him some sort of assistance," says his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4798" id="Page_4798">[Pg 4798]</a></span>
+Excellency; "make him an advance on his salary."&mdash;"But he has had it,
+he has taken it already, for ever so long in advance. Probably
+circumstances have compelled him to do so; but his conduct is good,
+and he has received no reprimands, he has never been rebuked." My dear
+little angel, I turned hot and burned as though in the fires of the
+bad place! I was on the point of fainting. "Well," says his Excellency
+in a loud voice, "the document must be copied again as quickly as
+possible; come here, Dyevushkin, make a fresh copy without errors; and
+listen to me;" here his Excellency turned to the others and gave them
+divers orders, and sent them all away. As soon as they were all gone,
+his Excellency hastily took out his pocket-book, and from it drew a
+hundred-ruble bank-note. "Here," said he, "this is all I can afford,
+and I am happy to help to that extent; reckon it as you please, take
+it,"&mdash;and he thrust it into my hand. I trembled, my angel, my whole
+soul was in a flutter; I didn't know what was the matter with me; I
+tried to catch his hand and kiss it. But he turned very red in the
+face, my darling, and&mdash;I am not deviating from the truth by so much as
+a hair's-breadth&mdash;he took my unworthy hand, and shook it, indeed he
+did; he took it and shook it as though it were of equal rank with his
+own, as though it belonged to a General like himself. "Go," says he;
+"I am glad to do what I can. Make no mistakes, but now do it as well
+as you can."</p>
+
+<p>Now, my dear, this is what I have decided: I beg you and Feodor&mdash;and
+if I had children I would lay my commands upon them&mdash;to pray to God
+for him; though they should not pray for their own father, that they
+should pray daily and forever, for his Excellency! One thing more I
+will say, my dearest, and I say it solemnly,&mdash;heed me well, my
+dear,&mdash;I swear that, no matter in what degree I may be reduced to
+spiritual anguish in the cruel days of our adversity, as I look on you
+and your poverty, on myself, on my humiliation and incapacity,&mdash;in
+spite of all this, I swear to you that the hundred rubles are not so
+precious to me as the fact that his Excellency himself deigned to
+press my unworthy hand, the hand of a straw, a drunkard! Thereby he
+restored my self-respect. By that deed he brought to life again my
+spirit, he made my existence sweeter forevermore, and I am firmly
+convinced that, however sinful I may be in the sight of the Almighty,
+yet my prayer for the happiness and prosperity of his Excellency will
+reach his throne!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4799" id="Page_4799">[Pg 4799]</a></span>
+My dearest, I am at present in the most terrible state of spiritual
+prostration, in a horribly overwrought condition. My heart beats as
+though it would burst out of my breast, and I seem to be weak all
+over. I send you forty-five rubles, paper money. I shall give twenty
+rubles to my landlady, and keep thirty-five for myself; with twenty I
+will get proper clothes, and the other fifteen will go for my living
+expenses. But just now all the impressions of this morning have shaken
+my whole being to the foundations. I am going to lie down for a bit.
+Nevertheless, I am calm, perfectly calm. Only, my soul aches, and down
+there, in the depths, my soul is trembling and throbbing and
+quivering. I shall go to see you; but just now I am simply intoxicated
+with all these emotions. God sees all, my dearest, my own darling, my
+precious one.</p>
+
+<p class="regards">Your worthy friend,</p>
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Makar Dyevushkin</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="trans">Translation of Isabel F. Hapgood.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BIBLE" id="BIBLE"></a>THE BIBLE READING</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Crime and Punishment'</h4>
+
+
+<p>Raskolnikoff went straight to the water-side, where Sonia was living.
+The three-storied house was an old building, painted green. The young
+man had some difficulty in finding the dvornik, and got from him vague
+information about the quarters of the tailor Kapernasumoff. After
+having discovered in a corner of the yard the foot of a steep and
+gloomy staircase, he ascended to the second floor, and followed the
+gallery facing the court-yard. Whilst groping in the dark, and asking
+himself how Kapernasumoff's lodgings could be reached, a door opened
+close to him; he seized it mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there?" asked a timid female voice.</p>
+
+<p>"It is I. I am coming to see you," replied Raskolnikoff, on entering a
+small ante-room. There on a wretched table stood a candle, fixed in a
+candlestick of twisted metal.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you? Good heavens!" feebly replied Sonia, who seemed not to
+have strength enough to move from the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you live? Is it here?" And Raskolnikoff passed quickly into
+the room, trying not to look the girl in the face.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4800" id="Page_4800">[Pg 4800]</a></span>
+A moment afterwards Sonia rejoined him with the candle, and remained
+stock still before him, a prey to an indescribable agitation. This
+unexpected visit had upset her&mdash;nay, even frightened her. All of a
+sudden her pale face colored up, and tears came into her eyes. She
+experienced extreme confusion, united with a certain gentle feeling.
+Raskolnikoff turned aside with a rapid movement and sat down on a
+chair, close to the table. In the twinkling of an eye he took stock of
+everything in the room.</p>
+
+<p>This room was large, with a very low ceiling, and was the only one let
+out by the Kapernasumoffs; in the wall, on the left-hand side, was a
+door giving access to theirs. On the opposite side, in the wall on the
+right, there was another door, which was always locked. That was
+another lodging, having another number. Sonia's room was more like an
+out-house, of irregular rectangular shape, which gave it an uncommon
+character. The wall, with its three windows facing the canal, cut it
+obliquely, forming thus an extremely acute angle, in the back portion
+of which nothing could be seen, considering the feeble light of the
+candle. On the other hand, the other angle was an extremely obtuse
+one. This large room contained scarcely any furniture. In the
+right-hand corner was the bed; between the bed and the door, a chair;
+on the same side, facing the door of the next set, stood a deal table,
+covered with a blue cloth; close to the table were two rush chairs.
+Against the opposite wall, near the acute angle, was placed a small
+chest of drawers of unvarnished wood, which seemed out of place in
+this vacant spot. This was the whole of the furniture. The yellowish
+and worn paper had everywhere assumed a darkish color, probably the
+effect of the damp and coal smoke. Everything in the place denoted
+poverty. Even the bed had no curtains. Sonia silently considered the
+visitor, who examined her room so attentively and so unceremoniously.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Her lot is fixed," thought he,&mdash;"a watery grave, the mad-house,
+or a brutish existence!" This latter contingency was especially repellent
+to him, but skeptic as he was, he could not help believing it a possibility.
+"Is it possible that such is really the case?" he asked himself. "Is it
+possible that this creature, who still retains a pure mind, should end by
+becoming deliberately mire-like? Has she not already become familiar with
+it, and if up to the present she has been able to bear with such a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4801" id="Page_4801">[Pg 4801]</a></span>
+life, has it not been so because vice has already lost its hideousness
+in her eyes? Impossible again!" cried he, on his part, in the same way
+as Sonia had cried a moment ago. "No, that which up to the present has
+prevented her from throwing herself into the canal has been the fear
+of sin and its punishment. May she not be mad after all? Who says she
+is not so? Is she in full possession of all her faculties? Is it
+possible to speak as she does? Do people of sound judgment reason as
+she reasons? Can people anticipate future destruction with such
+tranquillity, turning a deaf ear to warnings and forebodings? Does she
+expect a miracle? It must be so. And does not all this seem like signs
+of mental derangement?"</p>
+
+<p>To this idea he clung obstinately. Sonia mad! Such a prospect
+displeased him less than the other ones. Once more he examined the
+girl attentively. "And you&mdash;you often pray to God, Sonia?" he asked
+her.</p>
+
+<p>No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply. "What could I
+be, what should I be without God?" cried she in a low-toned but
+energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolnikoff a rapid glance of
+her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, I was not mistaken!" he muttered to himself.&mdash;"And what does
+God do for you?" asked he, anxious to clear his doubts yet more.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of reply.
+Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay! Do not question me! You have no
+such right!" exclaimed she, all of a sudden, with looks of anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected as much!" was the man's thought.</p>
+
+<p>"God does everything for me!" murmured the girl rapidly, and her eyes
+sank.</p>
+
+<p>"At last I have the explanation!" he finished mentally, whilst eagerly
+looking at her.</p>
+
+<p>He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on watching
+this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft eyes which
+could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such passion; in a
+word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indignation and anger,
+struck him as weird,&mdash;nay, almost fantastic. "Mad! she must be mad!"
+he muttered once more. A book was lying on the chest of drawers.
+Raskolnikoff had noticed it more than once whilst moving about the
+room. He took it and examined it. It was a Russian translation of the
+Gospels, a well-thumbed leather-bound book.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4802" id="Page_4802">[Pg 4802]</a></span>
+"Where does that come from?" asked he of Sonia, from the other end of
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the table.
+"It was lent me," replied Sonia, somewhat loth, without looking at
+Raskolnikoff.</p>
+
+<p>"Who lent it you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth&mdash;I asked her to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth. How strange!" he thought. Everything with Sonia assumed to
+his mind an increasingly extraordinary aspect. He took the book to the
+light, and turned it over. "Where is mention made of Lazarus?" asked
+he abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia, looking hard on the ground, preserved silence, whilst moving
+somewhat from the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is mention made of the resurrection of Lazarus? Find me the
+passage, Sonia."</p>
+
+<p>The latter looked askance at her interlocutor. "That is not the
+place&mdash;it is the Fourth Gospel," said she dryly, without moving from
+the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Find me the passage and read it out!" he repeated, and sitting down
+again rested his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, and
+glancing sideways with gloomy look, prepared to listen.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia at first hesitated to draw nearer to the table. The singular
+wish uttered by Raskolnikoff scarcely seemed sincere. Nevertheless she
+took the book. "Have you ever read the passage?" she asked him,
+looking at him from out the corners of her eyes. Her voice was getting
+harder and harder.</p>
+
+<p>"Once upon a time. In my childhood. Read!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never heard it in church?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I never go there. Do you go often yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," stammered Sonia.</p>
+
+<p>Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go tomorrow to
+your father's funeral service?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a requiem mass."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth's. She was assassinated by means of an axe."</p>
+
+<p>Raskolnikoff's nervous system became more and more irritated. He was
+getting giddy. "Were you friends with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She was straightforward. She used to come and see me&mdash;but not
+often. She was not able. We used to read and chat. She sees God."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4803" id="Page_4803">[Pg 4803]</a></span>
+Raskolnikoff became thoughtful. "What," asked he himself, "could be
+the meaning of the mysterious interviews of two such idiots as Sonia
+and Elizabeth? Why, I should go mad here myself!" thought he. "Madness
+seems to be in the atmosphere of the place!&mdash;Read!" he cried all of a
+sudden, irritably.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia kept hesitating. Her heart beat loud. She seemed afraid to read.
+He considered "this poor demented creature" with an almost sad
+expression. "How can that interest you, since you do not believe?" she
+muttered in a choking voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Read! I insist upon it! Used you not to read to Elizabeth?"</p>
+
+<p>Sonia opened the book and looked for the passage. Her hands trembled.
+The words stuck in her throat. Twice did she try to read without being
+able to utter the first syllable.</p>
+
+<p>"Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany," she read, at
+last, with an effort; but suddenly, at the third word, her voice grew
+wheezy, and gave way like an overstretched chord. Breath was deficient
+in her oppressed bosom. Raskolnikoff partly explained to himself
+Sonia's hesitation to obey him; and in proportion as he understood her
+better, he insisted still more imperiously on her reading. He felt
+what it must cost the girl to lay bare to him, to some extent, her
+heart of hearts. She evidently could not, without difficulty, make up
+her mind to confide to a stranger the sentiments which probably since
+her teens had been her support, her <i>viaticum</i>&mdash;when, what with a
+sottish father and a stepmother demented by misfortune, to say nothing
+of starving children, she heard nothing but reproach and offensive
+clamor. He saw all this, but he likewise saw that notwithstanding this
+repugnance, she was most anxious to read,&mdash;to read to him, and that
+now,&mdash;let the consequences be what they may! The girl's look, the
+agitation to which she was a prey, told him as much, and by a violent
+effort over herself Sonia conquered the spasm which parched her
+throat, and continued to read the eleventh chapter of the Gospel
+according to St. John. She thus reached the nineteenth verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort
+them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard
+that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat still in the
+house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here,
+my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatsoever
+thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee."</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4804" id="Page_4804">[Pg 4804]</a></span>
+Here she paused, to overcome the emotion which once more
+caused her voice to tremble.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith
+unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the
+last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life;
+he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
+and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest
+thou this? She saith unto him,"&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<p>and although she had difficulty in breathing, Sonia raised her
+voice, as if in reading the words of Martha she was making her
+own confession of faith:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God,
+which should come into the world."</p></div>
+
+<p>She stopped, raised her eyes rapidly on him, but cast them
+down on her book, and continued to read. Raskolnikoff listened
+without stirring, without turning toward her, his elbows resting
+on the table, looking aside. Thus the reading continued till the
+thirty-second verse.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she
+fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here,
+my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping,
+and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the
+spirit and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They
+said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the
+Jews, Behold how he loved him. And some of them said, Could not
+this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even
+this man should not have died?"</p></div>
+
+<p>Raskolnikoff turned towards her and looked at her with agitation. His
+suspicion was a correct one. She was trembling in all her limbs, a
+prey to fever. He had expected this. She was getting to the miraculous
+story, and a feeling of triumph was taking possession of her. Her
+voice, strengthened by joy, had a metallic ring. The lines became
+misty to her troubled eyes, but fortunately she knew the passage by
+heart. At the last line, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of
+the blind&mdash;" she lowered her voice, emphasizing passionately the
+doubt, the blame, the reproach of these unbelieving and blind Jews,
+who a moment after fell as if struck by lightning on their knees, to
+sob and to believe. "Yes," thought she, deeply affected by this
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4805" id="Page_4805">[Pg 4805]</a></span>
+joyful hope, "yes, he&mdash;he who is blind, who dares not believe&mdash;he also
+will hear&mdash;will believe in an instant, immediately, now, this very
+moment!"</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave.
+It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away
+the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him,
+Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days."</p></div>
+
+<p>She strongly emphasized the word <i>four</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst
+believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? Then they took away
+the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted
+up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
+And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people
+which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent
+me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice,
+Lazarus, come forth. <i>And he that was dead came forth,</i>"&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<p>(on reading these words Sonia shuddered, as if she herself had
+been witness to the miracle)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound
+about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him
+go. <i>Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the
+things which Jesus did, believed on him.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>She read no more,&mdash;such a thing would have been impossible
+to her,&mdash;closed the book, and briskly rising, said in a low-toned
+and choking voice, without turning toward the man she was
+talking to, "So much for the resurrection of Lazarus." She
+seemed afraid to raise her eyes on Raskolnikoff, whilst her feverish
+trembling continued. The dying piece of candle dimly lit up
+this low-ceiled room, in which an assassin and a harlot had just
+read the Book of books.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4806" id="Page_4806">[Pg 4806]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="EDWARD_DOWDEN" id="EDWARD_DOWDEN"></a>EDWARD DOWDEN</h2>
+
+<h4>(1843-)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capw142.png" width="90" height="90" alt="W" title="W" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">e are all hunters, skillful or skilless, in literature&mdash;hunters for
+our spiritual good or for our pleasure," says Edward Dowden; and to
+his earnest research and careful exposition many readers owe a more
+thorough appreciation of literature. He was educated at Queen's
+College, Cork (his birthplace), and then at Trinity College, Dublin,
+where he received the Vice-Chancellor's prize in both English verse
+and English prose, and also the first English Moderatorship in logic
+and ethics. For two years he studied divinity. Then he obtained by
+examination a professorship of oratory at the University of Dublin,
+where he was afterwards elected professor of English literature. The
+scholarship of his literary work has won him many honors. In 1888 he
+was chosen president of the English Goethe Society, to succeed
+Professor M&uuml;ller. The following year he was appointed first Taylorian
+lecturer in the Taylor Institute, Oxford. The Royal Irish Academy has
+bestowed the Cunningham gold medal upon him, and he has also received
+the honorary degree LL. D. of the University of Edinburgh, and from
+Princeton University.</p>
+
+<p>Very early in life Professor Dowden began to express his feeling for
+literature, and the instinct which leads him to account for a work by
+study of its author's personality. For more than twenty years English
+readers have known him as a frequent contributor of critical essays to
+the leading reviews. These have been collected into the delightful
+volumes 'Studies in Literature' and 'Transcripts and Studies.' His has
+been called "an honest method, wholesome as sweet." He would offer
+more than a mere r&eacute;sum&eacute; of what his author expresses. He would be one
+of the interpreters and transmitters of new forms of thought to the
+masses of readers who lack time or ability to discover values for
+themselves. Very widely read himself, he is fitted for just
+comparisons and comprehensive views. As has been pointed out, he is
+fond of working from a general consideration of a period with its
+formative influences, to the particular care of the author with whom
+he is dealing. Saintsbury tells us that Mr. Dowden's procedure is to
+ask his author a series of questions which seem to him of vital
+importance, and find out how he would answer them.</p>
+
+<p>Dowden's style is careful, clear, and thorough, showing his
+scholarship and incisive thought. His form of expression is strongly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4807" id="Page_4807">[Pg 4807]</a></span>
+picturesque. It is nowhere more so than in 'Shakespeare: a Study of
+His Mind and Art.' This, his most noteworthy work, has been very
+widely read and admired. His intimate acquaintance with German
+criticism upon the great Elizabethan especially fitted him to present
+fresh considerations to the public.</p>
+
+<p>He has also written a brilliant 'Life of Shelley' (bitterly criticized
+by Mark Twain in the North American Review, 'A Defense of Harriet
+Shelley'), and a 'Life of Southey' in the English Men of Letters
+Series; and edited most capably 'Southey's Correspondence with
+Caroline Bowles,' 'The Correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor,'
+'Shakespeare's Sonnets,' 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' and a collection of
+'Lyrical Ballads.'</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="HUMOR" id="HUMOR"></a>THE HUMOR OF SHAKESPEARE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Shakespeare: a Critical Study of His Mind and Art'</h4>
+
+<p>A study of Shakespeare which fails to take account of Shakespeare's
+humor must remain essentially incomplete. The character and spiritual
+history of a man who is endowed with a capacity for humorous
+appreciation of the world must differ throughout, and in every
+particular, from that of the man whose moral nature has never rippled
+over with genial laughter. At whatever final issue Shakespeare arrived
+after long spiritual travail as to the attainment of his life, that
+precise issue, rather than another, was arrived at in part by virtue
+of the fact of Shakespeare's humor. In the composition of forces which
+determined the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, this must be
+allowed for as a force among others, in importance not the least, and
+efficient at all times even when little apparent. A man whose visage
+"holds one stern intent" from day to day, and whose joy becomes at
+times almost a supernatural rapture, may descend through circles of
+hell to the narrowest and the lowest; he may mount from sphere to
+sphere of Paradise until he stands within the light of the Divine
+Majesty; but he will hardly succeed in presenting us with an adequate
+image of life as it is on this earth of ours, in its oceanic amplitude
+and variety. A few men of genius there have been, who with vision
+penetrative as lightning have gazed as it were <i>through</i> life, at some
+eternal significances of which life is the symbol. Intent upon its
+sacred meaning, they have had no eye to note the forms of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4808" id="Page_4808">[Pg 4808]</a></span>
+grotesque hieroglyph of human existence. Such men are not framed for
+laughter. To this little group the creator of Falstaff, of Bottom, and
+of Touchstone does not belong.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare, who saw life more widely and wisely than any other of the
+seers, could laugh. That is a comfortable fact to bear in mind; a fact
+which serves to rescue us from the domination of intense and narrow
+natures, who claim authority by virtue of their grasp of one-half of
+the realities of our existence and their denial of the rest.
+Shakespeare could laugh. But we must go on to ask, "What did he laugh
+at? and what was the manner of his laughter?" There are as many modes
+of laughter as there are facets of the common soul of humanity, to
+reflect the humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, in one of his
+pieces of coarse yet subtile engraving, has presented a group of
+occupants of the pit of a theatre, sketched during the performance of
+some broad comedy or farce. What proceeds upon the stage is invisible
+and undiscoverable, save as we catch its reflection on the faces of
+the spectators, in the same way that we infer a sunset from the
+evening flame upon windows that front the west. Each laughing face in
+Hogarth's print exhibits a different mode or a different stage of the
+risible paroxysm. There is the habitual enjoyer of the broad comic,
+abandoned to his mirth, which is open and unashamed; mirth which he is
+evidently a match for, and able to sustain. By his side is a companion
+female portrait&mdash;a woman with head thrown back to ease the violence of
+the guffaw; all her loose redundant flesh is tickled into an orgasm of
+merriment; she is fairly overcome. On the other side sits the
+spectator who has passed the climax of his laughter; he wipes the
+tears from his eyes, and is on the way to regain an insecure and
+temporary composure. Below appears a girl of eighteen or twenty, whose
+vacancy of intellect is captured and occupied by the innocuous folly
+still in progress; she gazes on expectantly, assured that a new
+blossom of the wonder of absurdity is about to display itself. Her
+father, a man who does not often surrender himself to an indecent
+convulsion, leans his face upon his hand, and with the other steadies
+himself by grasping one of the iron spikes that inclose the orchestra.
+In the right corner sits the humorist, whose eyes, around which the
+wrinkles gather, are half closed, while he already goes over the jest
+a second time in his imagination. At the opposite side an elderly
+woman is seen, past the period when animal violences are
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4809" id="Page_4809">[Pg 4809]</a></span>
+possible, laughing because she knows there is something to laugh at, though she
+is too dull-witted to know precisely what. One spectator, as we guess
+from his introverted air, is laughing to think what somebody else
+would think of this. Finally, the thin-lipped, perk-nosed person of
+refinement looks aside, and by his critical indifference condemns the
+broad, injudicious mirth of the company.</p>
+
+<p>All these laughers of Hogarth are very commonplace, and some are very
+vulgar persons; one trivial, ludicrous spectacle is the occasion of
+their mirth. When from such laughter as this we turn to the laughter
+of men of genius, who gaze at the total play of the world's life; and
+when we listen to this, as with the ages it goes on gathering and
+swelling, our sense of hearing is enveloped and almost annihilated by
+the chorus of mock and jest, of antic and buffoonery, of tender mirth
+and indignant satire, of monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of
+desperate misanthropic derision and genial affectionate caressing of
+human imperfection and human folly. We hear from behind the mask the
+enormous laughter of Aristophanes, ascending peal above peal until it
+passes into jubilant ecstasy, or from the uproar springs some
+exquisite lyric strain. We hear laughter of passionate indignation
+from Juvenal, the indignation of "the ancient and free soul of the
+dead republics." And there is Rabelais, with his huge buffoonery, and
+the earnest eyes intent on freedom, which look out at us in the midst
+of the zany's tumblings and indecencies. And Cervantes, with his
+refined Castilian air and deep melancholy mirth, at odds with the
+enthusiasm which is dearest to his soul. And Moli&egrave;re, with his
+laughter of unerring good sense, undeluded by fashion or vanity or
+folly or hypocrisy, and brightly mocking these into modesty. And
+Milton, with his fierce objurgatory laughter,&mdash;Elijah-like insult
+against the enemies of freedom and of England. And Voltaire, with his
+quick intellectual scorn and eager malice of the brain. And there is
+the urbane and amiable play of Addison's invention, not capable of
+large achievement, but stirring the corners of the mouth with a humane
+smile,&mdash;gracious gayety for the breakfast-tables of England. And
+Fielding's careless mastery of the whole broad common field of mirth.
+And Sterne's exquisite curiosity of oddness, his subtile extravagances
+and humors prepense. And there is the tragic laughter of Swift, which announces
+the extinction of reason, and loss beyond recovery of human faith and charity
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4810" id="Page_4810">[Pg 4810]</a></span>
+and hope. How in this chorus of laughters, joyous and terrible,
+is the laughter of Shakespeare distinguishable?</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total
+genius, is many-sided. He does not pledge himself as dramatist
+to any one view of human life. If we open a novel by Charles
+Dickens, we feel assured beforehand that we are condemned to
+an exuberance of philanthropy; we know how the writer will
+insist that we must all be good friends, all be men and brothers,
+intoxicated with the delight of one another's presence; we expect
+him to hold out the right hand of fellowship to man, woman, and
+child; we are prepared for the bacchanalia of benevolence. The
+lesson we have to learn from this teacher is, that with the
+exception of a few inevitable and incredible monsters of cruelty,
+every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam is of
+his own nature inclined to every amiable virtue, Shakespeare
+abounds in kindly mirth: he receives an exquisite pleasure from
+the alert wit and bright good sense of a Rosalind; he can dandle
+a fool as tenderly as any nurse qualified to take a baby from the
+birth can deal with her charge. But Shakespeare is not pledged
+to deep-dyed ultra-amiability. With Jacques, he can rail at the
+world while remaining curiously aloof from all deep concern
+about its interests, this way or that. With Timon he can turn
+upon the world with a rage no less than that of Swift, and discover
+in man and woman a creature as abominable as the Yahoo.
+In other words, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total genius,
+is dramatic.</p>
+
+<p>Then again, although Shakespeare laughs incomparably, mere laughter
+wearies him. The only play of Shakespeare's, out of nearly forty,
+which is farcical,&mdash;'The Comedy of Errors,'&mdash;was written in
+the poet's earliest period of authorship, and was formed upon the
+suggestion of a preceding piece. It has been observed with truth by
+Gervinus that the farcical incidents of this play have been connected
+by Shakespeare with a tragic background, which is probably his own
+invention. With beauty, or with pathos, or with thought, Shakespeare
+can mingle his mirth; and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with
+play of wit or humorous characterization; but an entirely comic
+subject somewhat disconcerts the poet. On this ground, if no other
+were forthcoming, it might be suspected that 'The Taming of the Shrew'
+was not altogether the work of Shakespeare's hand. The secondary
+intrigues and minor incidents were of little interest to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4811" id="Page_4811">[Pg 4811]</a></span>
+the poet. But in the buoyant force of Petruchio's character, in his
+subduing tempest of high spirits, and in the person of the foiled
+revoltress against the law of sex, who carries into her wifely loyalty
+the same energy which she had shown in her virgin <i>sauvagerie</i>, there
+were elements of human character in which the imagination of the poet
+took delight.</p>
+
+<p>Unless it be its own excess, however, Shakespeare's laughter
+seems to fear nothing. It does not, when it has once arrived at
+its full development, fear enthusiasm, or passion, or tragic
+intensity; nor do these fear it. The traditions of the English
+drama had favored the juxtaposition of the serious and comic:
+but it was reserved for Shakespeare to make each a part of the
+other; to interpenetrate tragedy with comedy, and comedy with
+tragic earnestness.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SHAKESPEARE" id="SHAKESPEARE"></a>SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAITURE OF WOMEN</h3>
+<h4>From 'Transcripts and Studies'</h4>
+
+<p>Of all the daughters of his imagination, which did Shakespeare love
+the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we say one of the latest born of
+them all,&mdash;our English Imogen. And what most clearly shows us how
+Shakespeare loved Imogen is this&mdash;he has given her faults, and has
+made them exquisite, so that we love her better for their sake. No one
+has so quick and keen a sensibility to whatever pains and to whatever
+gladdens as she. To her a word is a blow; and as she is quick in her
+sensibility, so she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at once
+through the Queen's false show of friendship; quick in her contempt
+for what is unworthy, as for all professions of love from the
+clown-prince, Cloten; quick in her resentment, as when she discovers
+the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. Wronged she is indeed by her
+husband, but in her haste she too grows unjust; yet she is dearer to
+us for the sake of this injustice, proceeding as it does from the
+sensitiveness of her love. It is she, to whom a word is a blow, who
+actually receives a buffet from her husband's hand; but for Imogen it
+is a blessed stroke, since it is the evidence of his loyalty and zeal
+on her behalf. In a moment he is forgiven, and her arms are round his
+neck.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare made so many perfect women unhappy that he
+owed us some <i>amende</i>. And he has made that <i>amende</i> by letting
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4812" id="Page_4812">[Pg 4812]</a></span>
+us see one perfect woman supremely happy. Shall our last
+glance at Shakespeare's plays show us Florizel at the rustic
+merry-making, receiving blossoms from the hands of Perdita? or
+Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess in Prospero's cave, and
+winning one a king and one a queen, while the happy fathers
+gaze in from the entrance of the cave? We can see a more
+delightful sight than these&mdash;Imogen with her arms around the
+neck of Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joy by the
+playful challenge and mock reproach&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Think that you are upon a rock, and now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Throw me again;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and he responds&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"Hang there like a fruit, my soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the tree die."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We shall find in all Shakespeare no more blissful creatures
+than these two.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="INTERPRETATION" id="INTERPRETATION"></a>THE INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE</h3>
+<h4>From 'Transcripts and Studies'</h4>
+
+<p>The happiest moment in a critic's hours of study is when, seemingly by
+some divination, but really as the result of patient observation and
+thought, he lights upon the central motive of a great work. Then, of a
+sudden, order begins to form itself from the crowd and chaos of his
+impressions and ideas. There is a moving hither and thither, a
+grouping or coordinating of all his recent experiences, which goes on
+of its own accord; and every instant his vision becomes clearer, and
+new meanings disclose themselves in what had been lifeless and
+unilluminated. It seems as if he could even stand by the artist's side
+and co-operate with him in the process of creating. With such a sense
+of joy upon him, the critic will think it no hard task to follow the
+artist to the sources from whence he drew his material,&mdash;it may be
+some dull chapter in an ancient chronicle, or some gross tale of
+passion by an Italian novelist,&mdash;and he will stand by and
+watch with exquisite pleasure the artist handling that crude
+material, and refashioning and refining it, and breathing
+into it the breath of a higher life. Even the minutest
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4813" id="Page_4813">[Pg 4813]</a></span>
+difference of text between an author's earlier and later draft, or a
+first and second edition, has now become a point not for dull
+commentatorship, but a point of life, at which he may touch with his
+finger the pulse of the creator in his fervor of creation.</p>
+
+<p>From each single work of a great author we advance to his total work,
+and thence to the man himself,&mdash;to the heart and brain from which
+all this manifold world of wisdom and wit and passion and beauty has
+proceeded. Here again, before we address ourselves to the
+interpretation of the author's mind, we patiently submit ourselves to
+a vast series of impressions. And in accordance with Bacon's maxim
+that a prudent interrogation is the half of knowledge, it is right to
+provide ourselves with a number of well-considered questions which we
+may address to our author. Let us cross-examine him as students of
+mental and moral science, and find replies in his written words. Are
+his senses vigorous and fine? Does he see color as well as form? Does
+he delight in all that appeals to the sense of hearing&mdash;the
+voices of nature, and the melody and harmonies of the art of man? Thus
+Wordsworth, exquisitely organized for enjoying and interpreting all
+natural, and if we may so say, homeless and primitive sounds, had but
+little feeling for the delights of music. Can he enrich his poetry by
+gifts from the sense of smell, as did Keats; or is his nose like
+Wordsworth's, an idle promontory projecting into a desert air? Has he
+like Browning a vigorous pleasure in all strenuous muscular movements;
+or does he like Shelley live rapturously in the finest nervous
+thrills? How does he experience and interpret the feeling of sex, and
+in what parts of his entire nature does that feeling find its
+elevating connections and associations? What are his special
+intellectual powers? Is his intellect combative or contemplative? What
+are the laws which chiefly preside over the associations of his ideas?
+What are the emotions which he feels most strongly? and how do his
+emotions coalesce with one another? Wonder, terror, awe, love, grief,
+hope, despondency, the benevolent affections, admiration, the
+religious sentiment, the moral sentiment, the emotion of power,
+irascible emotion, ideal emotion&mdash;how do these make themselves
+felt in and through his writings? What is his feeling for the
+beautiful, the sublime, the ludicrous? Is he of weak or vigorous will?
+In the conflict of motives, which class of motives with him is likely
+to predominate? Is he framed to believe or framed to doubt?
+Is he prudent, just, temperate, or the reverse of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4814" id="Page_4814">[Pg 4814]</a></span>
+these? These and such-like questions are not to be crudely and formally proposed,
+but are to be used with tact; nor should the critic press for hard and
+definite answers, but know how skillfully to glean its meaning from an
+evasion. He is a dull cross-examiner who will invariably follow the
+scheme which he has thought out and prepared beforehand, and who
+cannot vary his questions to surprise or beguile the truth from an
+unwilling witness. But the tact which comes from natural gift and from
+experience may be well supported by something of method,&mdash;method well
+hidden away from the surface and from sight.</p>
+
+<p>This may be termed the psychological method of study. But we may also
+follow a more objective method. Taking the chief themes with which
+literature and art are conversant&mdash;God, external nature, humanity&mdash;we
+may inquire how our author has dealt with each of these. What is his
+theology, or his philosophy of the universe? By which we mean no
+abstract creed or doctrine, but the tides and currents of feeling and
+of faith, as well as the tendencies and conclusions of the intellect.
+Under what aspect has this goodly frame of things, in whose midst we
+are, revealed itself to him? How has he regarded and interpreted the
+life of man? Under each of these great themes a multitude of
+subordinate topics are included. And alike in this and in what we have
+termed the psychological method of study, we shall gain double results
+if we examine a writer's works in the order of their chronology, and
+thus become acquainted with the growth and development of his powers,
+and the widening and deepening of his relations with man, with
+external nature, and with that Supreme Power, unknown yet well known,
+of which nature and man are the manifestation. As to the study of an
+artist's technical qualities, this, by virtue of the fact that he is
+an artist, is of capital importance; and it may often be associated
+with the study of that which his technique is employed to express and
+render&mdash;the characteristics of his mind, and of the vision which he
+has attained of the external universe, of humanity, and of God. Of all
+our study, the last end and aim should be to ascertain how a great
+writer or artist has served the life of man; to ascertain this, to
+bring home to ourselves as large a portion as may be of the gain
+wherewith he has enriched human life, and to render access to that
+store of wisdom, passion, and power, easier and surer for others.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4815" id="Page_4815">[Pg 4815]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="A_CONAN_DOYLE" id="A_CONAN_DOYLE"></a>A. CONAN DOYLE</h2>
+
+<h4>(1859-)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capt151.png" width="90" height="90" alt="T" title="T" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">he author of 'The White Company,' 'The Great Shadow,' and 'Micah
+Clarke' has been heard to lament the fact that his introduction to
+American readers came chiefly through the good offices of his
+accomplished friend "Sherlock Holmes." Dr. Doyle would prefer to be
+judged by his more serious and laborious work, as it appears in his
+historic romances. But he has found it useless to protest. 'The
+Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' delighted a public which enjoys
+incident, mystery, and above all that matching of the wits of a clever
+man against the dumb resistance of the secrecy of inanimate things,
+which results in the triumph of the human intelligence. Moreover, in
+Sherlock Holmes himself the reader perceived a new character in
+fiction. The inventors of the French detective story,&mdash;that ingenious
+Chinese puzzle of literature,&mdash;have no such wizard as he to show. Even
+Poe, past master of mystery-making, is more or less empirical in his
+methods of mystery-solving.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus151.png" width="180" height="220" alt="A. Conan Doyle" title="A. Conan Doyle" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">A. Conan Doyle</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Sherlock Holmes is a true product of his time. He is an embodiment
+of the scientific spirit seeing microscopically and applying itself to
+construct, from material vestiges and psychologic remainders, an
+unknown body of proof. From the smallest fragments he deduces the
+whole structure, precisely as the great naturalists do; and so
+flawless are his reasonings that a course of 'The Adventures of
+Sherlock Holmes' would not be bad training in a high-school class in
+logic.</p>
+
+<p>The creator of this eminent personage was born in Edinburgh in
+1859, of a line of artists; his grandfather, John Doyle, having been
+a famous political caricaturist, whose works, under the signature
+"H. B.," were purchased at a high price by the British Museum. The
+quaint signature of his father&mdash;a capital D, with a little bird
+perched on top, gained him the affectionate sobriquet of "Dicky
+Doyle"; and Dicky Doyle's house was the gathering-place of artists
+and authors, whose talk served to decide the destiny of the lad
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4816" id="Page_4816">[Pg 4816]</a></span>
+Conan. For though he was intended for the medical profession, and
+after studying in Germany had kept his terms at the Medical College
+of Edinburgh University, the love of letters drove him forth in
+his early twenties to try his fortunes in the literary world of London.</p>
+
+<p>Inheriting from his artist ancestry a sense of form and color, a
+faculty of constructiveness, and a vivid imagination, his studiousness
+and his industry have turned his capacities into abilities. For his
+romance of 'The White Company' he read more than two hundred
+books, and spent on it more than two years of labor. 'Micah
+Clarke' and 'The Great Shadow' involved equal wit and conscience.
+In his historic fiction he has described the England of Edward III.,
+of James II., and of to-day, the Scotland of George III., the France
+of Edward III., of Louis XIV., and of Napoleon, and the America of
+Frontenac; while, in securing this correctness of historic detail, he
+has not neglected the first duty of a story-teller, which is to be
+interesting.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="HOLMES" id="HOLMES"></a>THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.' Copyright 1892, by Harper &amp;
+Brothers</h4>
+
+<p>I had called upon my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes one day in
+the autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation
+with a very stout, florid-faced elderly gentleman, with fiery
+red hair. With an apology for my intrusion I was about to withdraw,
+when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed
+the door behind me.</p>
+
+<p>"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear
+Watson," he said, cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid that you were engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am. Very much so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I can wait in the next room."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner
+and helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have
+no doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also."</p>
+
+<p>The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob
+of greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small,
+fat-encircled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair
+and putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in
+judicial moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4817" id="Page_4817">[Pg 4817]</a></span>
+love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum
+routine of every-day life. You have shown your relish for
+it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and
+if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many
+of my own little adventures."</p>
+
+<p>"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,"
+I observed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just
+before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss
+Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations
+we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring
+than any effort of the imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."</p>
+
+<p>"You did, doctor; but none the less you must come round to
+my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on
+you, until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges
+me to be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough
+to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which
+promises to be one of the most singular which I have listened to
+for some time. You have heard me remark that the strangest
+and most unique things are very often connected not with the
+larger but with the smaller crimes; and occasionally, indeed,
+where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has
+been committed. As far as I have heard, it is impossible for me
+to say whether the present case is an instance of crime or not;
+but the course of events is certainly among the most singular
+that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would
+have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask
+you, not merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the
+opening part, but also because the peculiar nature of the story
+makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips.
+As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course
+of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other
+similar cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance
+I am forced to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief,
+unique."</p>
+
+<p>The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of
+some little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper
+from the inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down
+the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward, and the
+paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4818" id="Page_4818">[Pg 4818]</a></span>
+and endeavored, after the fashion of my companion, to read the
+indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
+I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our
+visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British
+tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy
+gray shepherd's-check trousers, a not over clean black frock-coat
+unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat, with a heavy
+brassy Albert chain and a square pierced bit of metal dangling
+down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown
+overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside
+him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable
+about the man save his blazing red head, and the expression of
+extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.</p>
+
+<p>Sherlock Holmes's quick eye took in my occupation, and he
+shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning
+glances. "Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time
+done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason,
+that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable
+amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger
+upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.</p>
+
+<p>"How in the name of good fortune did you know all that,
+Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example,
+that I did manual labor? It's as true as gospel, for I began as
+a ship's carpenter."</p>
+
+<p>"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size
+larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the
+muscles are more developed."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read
+that; especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order,
+you use an arc-and-compass breastpin."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"</p>
+
+<p>"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny
+for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the
+elbow where you rest it upon the desk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but China?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your
+right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a
+small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the
+literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4819" id="Page_4819">[Pg 4819]</a></span>
+of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When in addition
+I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter
+becomes even more simple."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he.
+"I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see
+that there was nothing in it, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a
+mistake in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you
+know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer
+shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement,
+Mr. Wilson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have got it now," he answered, with his thick red
+finger planted half-way down the column. "Here it is. This is
+what began it all. You just read it for yourself, sir."</p>
+
+<p>I took the paper from him, and read as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">To the Red-Headed League</span>:&mdash;On account of the bequest of
+the late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A., there is now
+another vacancy open, which entitles a member of the League to a
+salary of &pound;4 a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed
+men who are sound in body and mind, and above the age of twenty-one
+years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock,
+to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet
+Street."</p></div>
+
+<p>"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated, after I had
+twice read over the extraordinary announcement.</p>
+
+<p>Holmes chuckled, and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit
+when in high spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't
+it?" said he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and
+tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which
+this advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make
+a note, doctor, of the paper and the date."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Morning Chronicle of April 27th, 1890. Just two
+months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes," said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead: "I have a
+small pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the city.
+It's not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done
+more than just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two
+assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4820" id="Page_4820">[Pg 4820]</a></span>
+pay him, but that he is willing to come for half wages, so as to
+learn the business."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock
+Holmes.</p>
+
+<p>"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth,
+either. It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter
+assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know very well that he could better
+himself, and earn twice what I am able to give him. But
+after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an <i>employ&eacute;</i>
+who comes under the full market price. It is not a common
+experience among employers in this age. I don't know that
+your assistant is not as remarkable as your advertisement."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was
+such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera
+when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down
+into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures.
+That is his main fault; but on the whole, he's a good worker.
+There's no vice in him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is still with you, I presume?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple
+cooking, and keeps the place clean&mdash;that's all I have in the
+house, for I am a widower, and never had any family. We live
+very quietly, sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our
+heads, and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement.
+Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight weeks,
+with this very paper in his hand, and he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why that?' I asks.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of
+the Red-Headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any
+man who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies
+than there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits' end
+what to do with the money. If my hair would only change
+color, here's a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I
+am a very stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me
+instead of my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without
+putting my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn't
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4821" id="Page_4821">[Pg 4821]</a></span>
+know much of what was going on outside, and I was always glad
+of a bit of news.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-Headed
+Men?' he asked, with his eyes open.</p>
+
+<p>"'Never.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for
+one of the vacancies.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And what are they worth?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year; but the work is
+slight, and it need not interfere very much with one's other
+occupations.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my
+ears, for the business has not been over good for some years,
+and an extra couple of hundred would have been very handy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell me all about it,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for
+yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where
+you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the League
+was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very
+peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had a great
+sympathy for all red-headed men; so when he died it was found that he
+had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with
+instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to
+men whose hair is of that color. From all I hear, it is splendid pay
+and very little to do.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men
+who would apply.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see
+it is really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This
+American had started from London when he was young, and he
+wanted to do the old town a good turn. Then again, I have
+heard it is no use your applying if your hair is light red, or
+dark red, or anything but real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now
+if you care to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in; but
+perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out
+of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves,
+that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it
+seemed to me that if there was to be any competition in the
+matter, I stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4822" id="Page_4822">[Pg 4822]</a></span>
+met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that
+I thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put
+up the shutters for the day, and to come right away with me.
+He was very willing to have a holiday; so we shut the business
+up, and started off for the address that was given us in the
+advertisement.</p>
+
+<p>"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From
+north, south, east, and west, every man who had a shade of red in his
+hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet
+Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a
+coster's orange-barrow. I should not have thought there were so many
+in the whole country as were brought together by that single
+advertisement. Every shade of color they were&mdash;straw, lemon, orange,
+brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but as Spaulding said, there were
+not many who had the real vivid flame-colored tint. When I saw how
+many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding
+would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed
+and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up
+to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon
+the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but
+we wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the
+office."</p>
+
+<p>"Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked
+Holmes, as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a
+huge pinch of snuff. "Pray continue your very interesting statement."</p>
+
+<p>"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden
+chairs and a deal table, behind which sat a small man, with a
+head that was even redder than mine. He said a few words to
+each candidate as he came up, and then he always managed to
+find some fault in them which would disqualify them. Getting a
+vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy matter, after all.
+However, when our turn came, the little man was much more
+favorable to me than to any of the others, and he closed the
+door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us.</p>
+
+<p>"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is
+willing to fill a vacancy in the League.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered.
+'He has every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen
+anything so fine.' He took a step backward, cocked his head on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4823" id="Page_4823">[Pg 4823]</a></span>
+one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then
+suddenly he plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated
+me warmly on my success.</p>
+
+<p>"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, however,
+I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.'
+With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until
+I yelled with the pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he,
+as he released me. 'I perceive that all is as it should be. But
+we have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs
+and once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which
+would disgust you with human nature.' He stepped over to the
+window, and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the
+vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came up from
+below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions, until
+there was not a red head to be seen except my own and that of
+the manager.</p>
+
+<p>"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself
+one of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor.
+Are you a married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?'</p>
+
+<p>"I answered that I had not.</p>
+
+<p>"His face fell immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dear me,' he said, gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I
+am sorry to hear you say that. The fund was of course for the
+propagation and spread of the red-heads, as well as for their
+maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a
+bachelor.'</p>
+
+<p>"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that
+I was not to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it
+over for a few minutes, he said that it would be all right.</p>
+
+<p>"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be
+fatal, but we must stretch a point in favor of a man with such a
+head of hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon
+your new duties?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,'
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent
+Spaulding. 'I shall be able to look after that for you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What would be the hours?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ten to two.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening,
+Mr. Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4824" id="Page_4824">[Pg 4824]</a></span>
+just before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a
+little in the mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a
+good man, and that he would see to anything that turned up.</p>
+
+<p>"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is &pound;4 a week.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And the work?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is purely nominal.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you call purely nominal?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building,
+the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position
+forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You don't
+comply with the conditions if you budge from the office during
+that time.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,'
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross, 'neither sickness
+nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or
+you lose your billet.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And the work?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is to copy out the Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica. There is the
+first volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink,
+pens, and blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair.
+Will you be ready to-morrow?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Certainly,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then good-by, Mr. Jabez Wilson; and let me congratulate
+you once more on the important position which you have been
+fortunate enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room, and
+I went home with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or
+do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I
+was in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that
+the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what
+its object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether
+past belief that any one could make such a will, or that they
+would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying
+out the 'Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica.' Vincent Spaulding did what
+he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself
+out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I determined
+to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink,
+and with a quill pen and seven sheets of foolscap paper I started
+off for Pope's Court.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4825" id="Page_4825">[Pg 4825]</a></span>
+"Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as
+possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan
+Ross was there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me
+off upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop
+in from time to time to see that all was right with me. At two
+o'clock he bade me good-by, complimented me upon the amount
+that I had written, and locked the door of the office after me.</p>
+
+<p>"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday
+the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns
+for my week's work. It was the same next week, and the same
+the week after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every
+afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to
+coming in only once of a morning, and then after a time he
+did not come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave
+the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come,
+and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that
+I would not risk the loss of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about
+Abbots and Archery and Armor and Architecture and Attica, and
+hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B's before very
+long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly
+filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole
+business came to an end."</p>
+
+<p>"To an end?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my
+work as usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked
+with a little square of card-board hammered on to the middle of
+the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a
+sheet of note-paper. It read in this fashion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="char">
+<span class="smcap">The Red-Headed League</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">is</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Dissolved</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 50%;"><i>October 9th, 1890.</i></span></p>
+
+<p>Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and
+the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so
+completely overtopped every other consideration that we both
+burst out into a roar of laughter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4826" id="Page_4826">[Pg 4826]</a></span>
+"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our
+client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. "If you can
+do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from
+which he had half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for
+the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you
+will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it.
+Pray, what steps did you take when you found the card upon the
+door?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the
+offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it.
+Finally I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the
+ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of
+the Red-Headed League. He said that he had never heard of any such
+body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the
+name was new to him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What, the red-headed man?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris.  He was a
+solicitor, and was using my room as a temporary convenience
+until his new premises were ready.  He moved out yesterday.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Where could I find him?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes,
+17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul's.'</p>
+
+<p>"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it
+was a manufactory of artificial knee caps, and no one in it had
+ever heard of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes.</p>
+
+<p>"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice
+of my assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He
+could only say that if I waited I should hear by post. But that
+was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose
+such a place without a struggle; so as I had heard that you
+were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need
+of it, I came right away to you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you did very wisely." said Holmes. "Your case is an
+exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it.
+From what you have told me, I think that it is possible that
+graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4827" id="Page_4827">[Pg 4827]</a></span>
+"Grave enough!" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. "Why, I have lost
+four pound a week."</p>
+
+<p>"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes,
+"I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary
+league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer
+by some &pound;30, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you
+have gained on every subject which comes under the letter A.
+You have lost nothing by them."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they
+are, and what their object was in playing this prank&mdash;if it was
+a prank&mdash;upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them,
+for it cost them two-and-thirty pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall endeavor to clear up these points for you. And
+first one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours
+who first called your attention to the advertisement&mdash;how long
+had he been with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"About a month then."</p>
+
+<p>"How did he come?"</p>
+
+<p>"In answer to an advertisement."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he the only applicant?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I had a dozen."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you pick him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he was handy, and would come cheap."</p>
+
+<p>"At half wages, in fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?"</p>
+
+<p>"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his
+face, though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid
+upon his forehead."</p>
+
+<p>Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I
+thought as much," said he. "Have you ever observed that his
+ears are pierced for earrings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him
+when he was a lad."</p>
+
+<p>"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is
+still with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, sir; I have only just left him."</p>
+
+<p>"And has your business been attended to in your absence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do
+of a morning."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an
+opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4828" id="Page_4828">[Pg 4828]</a></span>
+is Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Watson," said Holmes, when our visitor had left us,
+"what do you make of it all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I make nothing of it," I answered, frankly. "It is a most
+mysterious business."</p>
+
+<p>"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is, the
+less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless
+crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face
+is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three-pipe problem,
+and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He
+curled himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to
+his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his
+black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird.
+I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and
+indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his
+chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind, and
+put his pipe down upon the mantel-piece.</p>
+
+<p>"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he
+remarked. "What do you think, Watson? Could your patients
+spare you for a few hours?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very
+absorbing."</p>
+
+<p>"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the
+city first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe
+that there is a good deal of German music on the programme,
+which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is
+introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!"</p>
+
+<p>We traveled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a
+short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the
+singular story which we had listened to in the morning. It was
+a poky little shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied
+brick houses looked out into a small railed-in inclosure,
+where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes
+made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial
+atmosphere. Three gilt balls, and a brown board with
+"<span class="smcap">Jabez Wilson</span>" in white letters, upon a corner house, announced
+the place where our red-headed client carried on his business.
+Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it, with his head on one
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4829" id="Page_4829">[Pg 4829]</a></span>
+side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between
+puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and
+then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses.
+Finally he returned to the pawnbroker's, and having thumped
+vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times
+he went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened
+by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him
+to step in.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wish to ask you how you
+would go from here to the Strand."</p>
+
+<p>"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant, promptly,
+closing the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes, as we walked away.
+"He is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London,
+and for daring I am not sure that he has not a claim to be
+third. I have known something of him before."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good
+deal in this mystery of the Red-Headed League. I am sure that
+you inquired your way merely in order that you might see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not him."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"The knees of his trousers."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I expected to see."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you beat the pavement?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk.
+We are spies in an enemy's country. We know something of
+Saxe-Coburg Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie
+behind it."</p>
+
+<p>The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the
+corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a
+contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was
+one of the main arteries which convey the traffic of the city to
+the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense
+stream of commerce, flowing in a double tide inward and
+outward, while the foot-paths were black with the hurrying
+swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realize, as we looked at
+the line of fine shops and stately business premises, that they
+really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant
+square which we had just quitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing
+along the line, "I should like just to remember the order
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4830" id="Page_4830">[Pg 4830]</a></span>
+of the houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London.
+There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the
+Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian
+Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot. That carries us
+right on to the other block. And now, doctor, we've done our work, so
+it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then
+off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony,
+and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums."</p>
+
+<p>My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not
+only a very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary
+merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the
+most perfect happiness, gently waving his long thin fingers in
+time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid,
+dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound,
+Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent,
+as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual
+nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and
+astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction
+against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally
+predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from
+extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he
+was never so truly formidable as when for days on end he had
+been lounging in his arm-chair, amid his improvisations and his
+black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase
+would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning
+power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were
+unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on
+a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I
+saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's
+Hall, I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom
+he had set himself to hunt down.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to go home, no doubt, doctor," he remarked as
+we emerged.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it would be as well."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have some business to do which will take some hours.
+This business at Coburg Square is serious."</p>
+
+<p>"Why serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason
+to believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day
+being Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your
+help to-night."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4831" id="Page_4831">[Pg 4831]</a></span>
+"At what time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten will be early enough."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. And I say, doctor, there may be some little
+danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." He
+waved his hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant
+among the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I
+was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my
+dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had
+heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it
+was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened,
+but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business
+was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home to my house
+in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story
+of the red-headed copier of the 'Encyclop&aelig;dia' down to the
+visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with which
+he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and
+why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were
+we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced
+pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable man&mdash;a man who might
+play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in
+despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring an
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and
+made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to
+Baker Street. Two hansoms were standing at the door, and as
+I entered the passage I heard the sound of voices from above.
+On entering his room I found Holmes in animated conversation
+with two men, one of whom I recognized as Peter Jones, the
+official police agent, while the other was a long thin sad-faced
+man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his
+pea-jacket, and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack.
+"Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let
+me introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion
+in to-night's adventure."</p>
+
+<p>"We're hunting in couples again, doctor, you see," said Jones,
+in his consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man
+for starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to
+do the running down."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4832" id="Page_4832">[Pg 4832]</a></span>
+"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our
+chase," observed Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,"
+said the police agent, loftily. "He has his own little methods,
+which are, if he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical
+and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in
+him. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that
+business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has
+been more nearly correct than the official force."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right," said the
+stranger, with deference, "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber.
+It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years
+that I have not had my rubber."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will play for
+a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play
+will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be
+some &pound;30,000; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you
+wish to lay your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young
+man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I
+would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.
+He's a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a royal
+duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as
+cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn,
+we never know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in
+Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in
+Cornwall the next. I've been on his track for years, and have never
+set eyes on him yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've
+had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with
+you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however,
+and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom,
+Watson and I will follow in the second."</p>
+
+<p>Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and
+lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the
+afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets
+until we emerged into Farringdon Street.</p>
+
+<p>"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow
+Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4833" id="Page_4833">[Pg 4833]</a></span>
+matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a
+bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one
+positive virtue. He is as brave as a bull-dog, and as tenacious as a
+lobster if he gets his claws upon any one. Here we are, and they are
+waiting for us."</p>
+
+<p>We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
+ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and following the
+guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and
+through a side door, which he opened for us. Within, there was a small
+corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was
+opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated
+at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a
+lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage,
+and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which
+was piled all around with crates and massive boxes.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked, as he held
+up the lantern and gazed about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the
+flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!"
+he remarked, looking up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet," said Holmes,
+severely. "You have already imperiled the whole success of our
+expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down
+upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?"</p>
+
+<p>The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very
+injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees
+upon the floor, and with the lantern and a magnifying lens began to
+examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed
+to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in
+his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked; "for they can
+hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then
+they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the
+longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present,
+doctor&mdash;as no doubt you have divined&mdash;in the cellar at the City branch
+of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman
+of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why
+the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable
+interest in this cellar at present."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4834" id="Page_4834">[Pg 4834]</a></span>
+"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several
+warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"Your French gold?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our
+resources, and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from
+the Bank of France. It has become known that we have never
+had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in
+our cellar. The crate upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons
+packed between layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is
+much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch
+office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And
+now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that
+within an hour matters will come to a head. In the mean time,
+Mr. Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark
+lantern."</p>
+
+<p>"And sit in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket,
+and I thought that, as we were a <i>partie carr&eacute;e</i>, you might have
+your rubber after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations
+have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light.
+And first of all, we must choose our positions. These are daring
+men, and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they
+may do us some harm unless we are careful. I shall stand
+behind this crate, and do you conceal yourselves behind those.
+Then when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly. If they
+fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them down."</p>
+
+<p>I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
+which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his
+lantern, and left us in pitch darkness&mdash;such an absolute darkness as I
+had never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to
+assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a
+moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of
+expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden
+gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.</p>
+
+<p>"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back through
+the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I
+asked you, Jones?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4835" id="Page_4835">[Pg 4835]</a></span>
+"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be
+silent and wait."</p>
+
+<p>What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it
+was but an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the
+night must have almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above
+us. My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my
+position; yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of
+tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear
+the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish
+the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin,
+sighing note of the bank director. From my position I could
+look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my
+eyes caught the glint of a light.</p>
+
+<p>At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement.
+Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then,
+without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a
+hand appeared; a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about
+in the centre of the little area of light. For a minute or more
+the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor.
+Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was
+dark again save the single lurid spark which marked a chink
+between the stones.</p>
+
+<p>Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a
+rending, tearing sound, one of the broad white stones turned
+over upon its side, and left a square gaping hole, through which
+streamed the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a
+clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then,
+with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high
+and waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In
+another instant he stood at the side of the hole, and was hauling
+after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale
+face and a shock of very red hair.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and
+the bags?&mdash;Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing
+for it!"</p>
+
+<p>Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by
+the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the
+sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light
+flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes's hunting crop
+came down on the man's wrist and the pistol clinked upon the
+stone floor.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4836" id="Page_4836">[Pg 4836]</a></span>
+"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes, blandly, "You have
+no chance at all."</p>
+
+<p>"So I see," the other answered, with the utmost coolness.
+"I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his
+coat-tails."</p>
+
+<p>"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said
+Holmes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely.
+I must compliment you."</p>
+
+<p>"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was
+very new and effective."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's
+quicker at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out, while
+I fix the derbies."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,"
+remarked our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists.
+"You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins.
+Have the goodness, also, when you address me always to say
+'sir' and 'please.'"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. "Well,
+would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab
+to carry your Highness to the police station?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is better," said John Clay, serenely. He made a
+sweeping bow to the three of us, and walked quietly off in the
+custody of the detective.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
+the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.
+There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most
+complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery
+that have ever come within my experience."</p>
+
+<p>"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John
+Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over this
+matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund; but beyond that I am
+amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique,
+and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-Headed
+League."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"You see, Watson," he explained, in the early hours of the
+morning, as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker
+Street, "it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4837" id="Page_4837">[Pg 4837]</a></span>
+possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League,
+and the copying of the 'Encyclop&aelig;dia,' must be to get this not over bright
+pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a
+curious way of managing it, but really, it would be difficult to
+suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay's
+ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice's hair. The &pound;4 a week
+was a lure which must draw him,&mdash;and what was it to them, who were
+playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has
+the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it,
+and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the
+week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half
+wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for
+securing the situation."</p>
+
+<p>"But how could you guess what the motive was?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere
+vulgar intrigue. That however was out of the question. The man's
+business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which
+could account for such elaborate preparations and such an expenditure
+as they were at. It must then be something out of the house. What
+could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography,
+and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the
+end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious
+assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and
+most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the
+cellar&mdash;something which took many hours a day for months on end. What
+could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was
+running a tunnel to some other building.</p>
+
+<p>"So, far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action.
+I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I
+was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or
+behind. It was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and as I
+hoped, the assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes,
+but we had never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly
+looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to see. You
+must yourself have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained
+they were. They spoke of those hours of burrowing. The only
+remaining point was what they were burrowing for. I walked
+round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank abutted
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4838" id="Page_4838">[Pg 4838]</a></span>
+on our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my problem.
+When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland
+Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the
+result that you have seen."</p>
+
+<p>"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt
+to-night?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when they closed their League offices, that was a sign that
+they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence&mdash;in other
+words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that
+they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion
+might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day,
+as it would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons
+I expected them to come to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed, in unfeigned
+admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings
+true."</p>
+
+<p>"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I
+already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long
+effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little
+problems help me to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I.</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps after all it is of
+some little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien&mdash;l'&#339;uvre
+c'est tout,' as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BOWMEN" id="BOWMEN"></a>THE BOWMEN'S SONG</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The White Company'</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">What of the bow?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The bow was made in England:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of true wood, of yew wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wood of English bows;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So men who are free<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love the old yew-tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the land where the yew-tree grows.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">What of the cord?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The cord was made in England:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A rough cord, a tough cord,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A cord that bowmen love;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4839" id="Page_4839">[Pg 4839]</a></span><span class="i2">So we'll drain our jacks<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the English flax<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the land where the hemp was wove.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">What of the shaft?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The shaft was cut in England:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A long shaft, a strong shaft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Barbed and trim and true;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So we'll drink all together<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the gray goose feather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the land where the gray goose flew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">What of the men?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The men were bred in England:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bowman&mdash;the yeoman&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The lads of dale and fell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Here's to you&mdash;and to you!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the hearts that are true<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the land where the true hearts dwell.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="transc">Reprinted by permission of the American Publishers' Corporation,
+Publishers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4840" id="Page_4840">[Pg 4840]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="HOLGER_DRACHMANN" id="HOLGER_DRACHMANN"></a>HOLGER DRACHMANN</h2>
+
+<h4>(1846-)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/caph176.png" width="90" height="90" alt="H" title="H" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">olger Drachmann, born in Copenhagen October 9th, 1846,
+belongs to the writers characterized by Georg Brandes as
+"the men of the new era."</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus176.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Holger Drachmann" title="Holger Drachmann" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Holger Drachmann</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Danish literature had stood high during the first half of the nineteenth
+century. In 1850 Oehlenschl&auml;ger died. In 1870 there was practically
+no Danish literature. The reason for this may have been that
+after the new political life of 1848-9 and the granting of the Danish
+Constitution, politics absorbed all young talent, and men of literary
+tastes put themselves at the service of the daily press.</p>
+
+<p>In 1872 Georg Brandes gave his lectures on 'Main Currents in the
+Literature of the Nineteenth Century' at the University of Copenhagen.
+That same year Drachmann published his first collection of 'Poems,'
+and so began his extraordinary productivity of poems, dramas, and
+novels. Of these, his lyric poems are undoubtedly of the greatest
+value. His is a distinctly lyric temperament. The new school had
+chosen for its guide Brandes's teaching that "Literature, to be of
+significance, should discuss problems." In view of this fact it is
+somewhat hard to understand why Drachmann should be called a man of
+the new era. He never discusses problems. He always gives himself up
+unreservedly to the subject which at that special moment claims his
+sympathy. Taken as a whole, therefore, his writings present a certain
+inconsistency. He has shown himself alternately as socialist and
+royalist, realist and romanticist, freethinker and believer,
+cosmopolitan and national, according to the lyric enthusiasm of the
+moment. Independent of these changes, the one thing to be admired and
+enjoyed is his lyric feeling and the often exquisite form in which he
+presents it. His larger compositions, novels, and dramas do not show
+the same power over his subject.</p>
+
+<p>If Drachmann discusses any problem, it is the problem Drachmann.
+He does this sometimes with what Brandes calls "a light and joking
+self-irony," in a most sympathetic way. Brandes quotes one of Drachmann's
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4841" id="Page_4841">[Pg 4841]</a></span>
+early stories, where it is said of the hero:&mdash;"His name was
+really Palnatoke Olsen; a continually repeated discord of two tones,
+as he used to say." Olsen is one of the most commonplace Danish
+names. Palnatoke is the name of one of the fiercest warriors of
+heathen antiquity, who, like a veritable Valhalla god, dared to oppose
+the terrible Danish king Harald Blaatand. When Olsen's parents
+gave him this name they unwittingly described their son, "forever
+drawn by two poles: one the plain Olsen, the other the hot-headed
+fiery Viking." With this in mind, and considering Drachmann's literary
+works as a whole, one is irresistibly reminded of his friend and
+contemporary in Norway, Bj&ouml;rnsterne Bj&ouml;rnson. There is this difference
+between them, however, that if the irony of Palnatoke Olsen
+may be applied to both, one might for Drachmann use the abbreviation
+P. Olsen and for Bj&ouml;rnson undoubtedly Palnatoke O.</p>
+
+<p>It might be said of Drachmann, as Sauer said of the Italian poet
+Monti:&mdash;"Like a master in the art of appreciation, he knew how to
+give himself up to great time-stirring ideas; somewhat as a gifted
+actor throws himself into his part, with the full strength of his art,
+with an enthusiasm carrying all before it, and in the most expressive
+way; then when the part is played, lays it quietly aside and takes
+hold of something else."</p>
+
+<p>When a young man, Drachmann studied at the Academy of Arts in
+Copenhagen, and met with considerable success as a marine painter.
+His love for the Northern seas shows itself in his poetry and prose,
+and his descriptions of the sea and the life of the sailor and fisherman
+are of the truest and best yielded by his pen. He is the author
+of no less than forty-six volumes of poems, dramas, novels, short
+stories, and sketches, and of two unpublished dramas. His most important
+work is 'Forskrevet' (Condemned), which is largely autobiographical;
+his most attractive though not his strongest production is
+the opera 'Der Var Engang' (Once Upon a Time), founded on
+Andersen's 'The Swineherd,' with music by Sange M&uuml;ller; his best
+poems and tales are those dealing with the sea.</p>
+
+<p>At present he lives in Hamburg, where on October 10th, 1896, he
+celebrated his fiftieth birthday and his twenty-fifth "Author-Jubilee,"
+as the Danes call it. Among the features of the celebration were
+the sending of an enormous number of telegrams from Drachmann's
+admirers in Europe and America, and the performance of two of his
+plays,&mdash;one at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, the other at the
+Stadt Theatre in Altona.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4842" id="Page_4842">[Pg 4842]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="SKIPPER" id="SKIPPER"></a>THE SKIPPER AND HIS SHIP</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone': copyright 1895, by Way and
+Williams, Chicago</h4>
+
+
+<p>The Anna Dorothea, in the North Sea, was pounding along
+under shortened sail. The weather was thick, the air dense;
+there was a falling barometer.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a short trip this time. Leroy and Sons, wine merchants of
+Havre, had made better offers than the old houses in Bordeaux. At each
+one of his later trips, Captain Spang had said it should be his last.
+He would "lay up" at home; he was growing too stout and clumsy for the
+sea, and now he must trust fully to T&ouml;nnes, his first mate. The
+captain's big broad face was flushed as usual; he always looked as if
+he were illuminated by a setting October sun; there was no change
+here&mdash;rather, the sunset tint was stronger. But T&ouml;nnes noted how the
+features, which he knew best in moments of simple good-nature and of
+sullen tumult, had gradually relaxed. He thought that it would indeed
+soon be time for his old skipper to "lay up"; yet perhaps a few trips
+might still be made.</p>
+
+<p>"Holloa, T&ouml;nnes! let her go about before the next squall
+strikes her. She lies too dead on this bow."</p>
+
+<p>The skipper had raised his head above the cabin stairs. As
+usual, he was in his shirt-sleeves, and his scanty hair fluttered in
+the wind. When he had warned his mate, he again disappeared
+in the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes gave the order to the man at the helm, and hurried
+to help at the main-braces. The double-reefed main-topsail swung
+about, the Anna Dorothea caught the wind somewhat sluggishly,
+and not without getting considerable water over her; then followed
+the fore-topsail, the reefed foresail, and the trysail. When
+the tacking was finished and the sails had again caught the
+wind, the trysail was torn from the boltropes with a loud crack.</p>
+
+<p>The captain's head appeared again,</p>
+
+<p>"We must close-reef!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>The last reef was taken in; the storm came down and lashed
+the sea; the sky grew more and more threatening; the waves
+dashed over the deck at each plunge of the old bark in the sea.
+The old vessel, which had carried her captain for a generation,
+lay heavily on the water&mdash;T&ouml;nnes thought too heavily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4843" id="Page_4843">[Pg 4843]</a></span>
+The second mate&mdash;the same who had played the accordion at
+the inn&mdash;came over to T&ouml;nnes.</p>
+
+<p>"It was wrong to stow the china-clay at the bottom and the
+casks on top; she lies horribly dead, and I'm afraid we shall have
+to use the pumps."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I said so to the old man, but he would have it that
+way," answered T&ouml;nnes. "We shall have a wet night."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall, surely," said the second mate.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes crawled up to the helm and looked at the compass.
+Two men were at the helm&mdash;lashed fast. T&ouml;nnes looked up
+into the rigging and out to windward; then suddenly he cried,
+with the full force of his lungs:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Look out for breakers!"</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes himself helped at the wheel; but the vessel only half
+answered the helm. The greater portion of the sea struck the
+bow, the quarter, and the bulwarks and stanchions amidship, so
+that they creaked and groaned. One of the men at the helm had
+grasped T&ouml;nnes, who would otherwise have been swept into the
+lee scupper. When the ship had righted from the terrible blow,
+the captain stood on the deck in his oilcloth suit.</p>
+
+<p>"Are any men missing?" cried he, through the howling of
+the wind and the roaring of the water streaming fore and aft,
+unable to escape quickly enough through the scuppers.</p>
+
+<p>The storm raged with undiminished fury. The crew&mdash;and amongst them
+Prussian, who had been promoted to be ship's-dog&mdash;by-and-by dived
+forward through the seething salt water and the fragments of wreck
+that covered the deck.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was that the second mate was missing.</p>
+
+<p>The captain looked at T&ouml;nnes, and then out on the wild sea.
+He scarcely glanced at the crushed long-boat; even if a boat
+could have been launched, it would have been too late. T&ouml;nnes
+and his skipper were fearless men, who took things as they were.
+If any help could have been given, they would have given it.
+But their eyes sought vainly for any dark speck amidst the
+foaming waves&mdash;and it was necessary to care for themselves,
+the vessel and the crew.</p>
+
+<p>"God save his soul!" murmured Captain Spang.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes passed his hand across his brow, and went to his duty.
+Evening set in; the wind increased rather than decreased.</p>
+
+<p>"She is taking in water," said the captain, who had sounded
+the pumps.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4844" id="Page_4844">[Pg 4844]</a></span>
+T&ouml;nnes assented.</p>
+
+<p>"We must change her course," said the captain. "She
+pitches too heavily in this sea."</p>
+
+<p>The bark was held up to the wind as closely as possible.
+The pumps were worked steadily, but often got out of order on
+account of the china-clay, which mixed with the water down in
+the hold.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that the vessel grew heavier and heavier; her
+movements in climbing a wave were more and more dead.</p>
+
+<p>During the night a cry arose: again one of the crew was
+washed overboard.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long night and a wet one, as T&ouml;nnes had predicted.
+Several times the skipper dived clown into the cabin&mdash;Tonnes
+knew perfectly well what for, but he said nothing. Few words
+were spoken on board the Anna Dorothea that night.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the captain, returning from one of his excursions
+down below, declared that the cabin was half full of water.</p>
+
+<p>"We must watch for a sail," he said, abruptly and somewhat
+huskily.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes passed the word round amongst the crew. One might
+read on their faces that they were prepared for this, and that
+they had ceased to hope, although they had not stopped work at
+the pumps.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the weather bulwark, the cook's cabin and the
+long-boat, were crushed or washed away; the water could be
+heard below the hatches. While keeping a sharp lookout for
+sails, many an eye glanced at the yawl as the last resort. But
+on board Captain Spang's vessel the words were not yet spoken
+which carried with them the doom of the ship: "We are sinking!"</p>
+
+<p>In the gray-white of the dawn a signal was to be hoisted; the
+bunting was tied together at the middle and raised half-mast high.</p>
+
+<p>Both the captain and T&ouml;nnes had lashed themselves aft; for
+now the bark was but little better than a wreck, over which the
+billows broke incessantly, as the vessel, reeling like a drunken
+man, exposed herself to the violent attacks of the sea instead of
+parrying them.</p>
+
+<p>"A sail to windward, captain!" cried T&ouml;nnes.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Spang only nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"She holds her course!" cried one of the crew excitedly.
+"No," said T&ouml;nnes, quietly. "She has seen us, and is bearing
+down upon us!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4845" id="Page_4845">[Pg 4845]</a></span>
+The captain again nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Tis a brig!" cried one of the crew.</p>
+
+<p>"A schooner-brig!" T&ouml;nnes corrected. "She carries her sails
+finely. I am sure she is a fruit-trader."</p>
+
+<p>At last the strange vessel was so near that they could see her
+deck each time she was thrown upon her side in the violent
+seething sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'tis the schooner-brig!" exclaimed T&ouml;nnes. "Do you
+remember, captain, the time when&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Again Captain Spang nodded. He acted strangely. T&ouml;nnes
+looked sharply at him, and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>Now T&ouml;nnes hailed the vessel:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Help us!&mdash;We are sinking!"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment two or three of the bark's crew rushed toward
+the yawl, although T&ouml;nnes warned them back.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Spang seemed changed. Evidently some opposing
+feelings contended within him. Seeing the insubordination of the
+men, he only shrugged his shoulders, and let T&ouml;nnes take full
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>The men were in the yawl, still hanging under the iron
+davits. Now they cut the ropes; the yawl touched the water.
+The crew of the other vessel gestured warningly; but it was too
+late. A sea seized the yawl with its small crew, and the next
+moment crushed it against the main chains of the bark. Their
+shipmates raised a cry, and rushed to help them; but help was
+impossible. Boat and crew had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I say so?" cried T&ouml;nnes, with flaming eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Over there in the schooner-brig all was activity. From the Anna
+Dorothea they could plainly see how the captain gave his orders. He
+manoeuvred his vessel like a true sailor. To board the wreck in such a
+sea would be madness. Therefore they unreeved two long lines and
+attached them to the long-boat, one on each side. Then they laid
+breeching under the boat, and hauled it up amidships by means of
+tackle. Taking advantage of a moment when their vessel was athwart the
+seas, they unloosed the tackle, and the boat swung out over the side;
+then they cut the breeching, the boat fell on the water aft, and now
+both lines were eased off quickly; while the brig caught the wind, the
+boat drifted toward the stern-sheets of the bark.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4846" id="Page_4846">[Pg 4846]</a></span></p><p>T&ouml;nnes was ready with a boat-hook, and connections were quickly made
+between the boat and the wreck.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick now!" cried T&ouml;nnes. "Every man in the boat. No
+one takes his clothes with him! We may be thankful if we save
+our lives."</p>
+
+<p>The men were quickly over the stern-sheets and down in the
+boat. Prussian whined, and kept close to Captain Spang, who
+had not moved one step on the deck.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, captain!" cried T&ouml;nnes, taking the skipper by the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" asked the old man angrily.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes looked at him. Prussian barked.</p>
+
+<p>"We must get into the boat, captain. The vessel may sink
+at any moment. Come!"</p>
+
+<p>The captain pressed his sou'wester down over his forehead,
+and glanced around his deck.</p>
+
+<p>The men in the boat cried out to them to come.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said Captain Spang, but with an air so absent-minded and a
+bearing so irresolute that T&ouml;nnes at last took a firm hold on him.</p>
+
+<p>Prussian showed his teeth at his former master.</p>
+
+<p>"You go first!" exclaimed T&ouml;nnes, snatching the dog and
+throwing him down to the men, who were having hard work to
+keep the boat from wrecking.</p>
+
+<p>When the dog was no longer on the deck, it seemed as if
+Captain Spang's resistance was broken. T&ouml;nnes did not let go
+his hold on him; but the young mate had to use almost superhuman
+strength to get the heavy old man down over the vessel's
+side and placed on a seat in the boat.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they had observed from the brig that this had
+been done, they hauled in both lines. The boat moved back
+again; but it was a dangerous voyage, and all were obliged to
+lash themselves fast to the thwarts with ropes placed there for
+that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Spang was like a child. T&ouml;nnes had to lash him to
+the seat. The old man sat with his face hidden in his hands,
+his back turned toward his ship, inactive, and seemingly unconscious
+of what took place around him.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when after a hard struggle all were on the deck of
+the schooner-brig, her captain came forward, placed his hand on
+his old friend's shoulder, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is the second time, you see! Well, we all cling to life,
+and the vessel over there is pretty old."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4847" id="Page_4847">[Pg 4847]</a></span>
+Captain Spang started. He scarcely returned his friend's
+hand-shaking.</p>
+
+<p>"My vessel, I say! My papers! All that I have is in the
+vessel. I must go aboard, do you hear? I must go aboard.
+How could I forget?"</p>
+
+<p>The other skipper and T&ouml;nnes looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Spang wrung his hands and stamped on the deck, his
+eyes fixed on his sinking vessel. She was still afloat; what did
+he care for the gale and the heavy sea? He belonged to the old
+school of skippers; he was bound to his vessel by ties longer
+than any life-line, heavier than any hawser: he had left his ship
+in a bewildered state, and had taken nothing with him that
+might serve to prove what he possessed and how long he had
+possessed it. His good old vessel was still floating on the water.
+He must, he would go there; if nobody would go with him, he
+would go alone.</p>
+
+<p>All remonstrances were in vain.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes pressed the other skipper's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing else to be done. I know him," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Spang and his mate were again in the boat. As they
+were on the point of starting, a loud whine and violent barking
+sounded from the deck, and Prussian showed his one eye over
+the railing.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay where you are!" cried T&ouml;nnes. "We shall be back
+soon."</p>
+
+<p>But the dog did not understand him. Perhaps he had his
+doubts; no one can say. He sprang overboard; T&ouml;nnes seized
+him by the ear, and hauled him into the boat.</p>
+
+<p>And then the two men and the dog ventured back to the
+abandoned vessel.</p>
+
+<p>This time the old man climbed on board without assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Prussian whined in the boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw that dog up to me!" cried the master.</p>
+
+<p>T&ouml;nnes did so.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I come up and help you?" he called out.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can find my own way."</p>
+
+<p>"But hurry, captain! do you understand?" said T&ouml;nnes, who
+anxiously noticed that the motions of the vessel were becoming
+more and more dangerous, while he needed all his strength to
+keep the boat clear of the wreck.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4848" id="Page_4848">[Pg 4848]</a></span>
+An answer came from the bark, but he could not catch it.
+In this moment T&ouml;nnes recalled the day when he rowed the
+captain out on the bay to the brig.  His next thought was of
+Nanna. Oh, if she knew where they were!</p>
+
+<p>And at this thought the mate's breast was filled with conflicting
+emotions.  The dear blessed girl! Oh, if her father would
+only come!</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" cried T&ouml;nnes; "Captain Spang! for God's sake,
+come!  Leave those papers alone.  The vessel is sinking.  We
+may at any moment&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused.</p>
+
+<p>The captain stood at the stern-sheets. At his side was Prussian,
+squinting down into the boat. There was an entirely strange expression
+in Andreas Spang's face; a double expression&mdash;one moment hard and
+defiant, the next almost solemn.</p>
+
+<p>The sou'wester had fallen from his old head. His scanty hairs
+fluttered in the wind. He held in his hand a parcel of papers and a
+coil of rope. He pointed toward the brig.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he cried, throwing the package and the rope down to Tonnes.
+"Give the skipper this new line for his trouble. He has used plenty of
+rope for us. You go back. I stay here. Give&mdash;my&mdash;love&mdash;to the girl at
+home.&mdash;You and she&mdash;You two&mdash;God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" cried T&ouml;nnes in affright; "you are sick; come, let me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He prepared to climb on board.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Spang lifted his hand threateningly, and Prussian
+barked furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay down there, boy, I say!  The vessel and I, we belong
+together.  You shall take care of the girl.  Good-by!"</p>
+
+<p>The Anna Dorothea rolled heavily over on one side, righted
+again, and then began to plunge her head downwards, like a
+whale that, tired of the surface, seeks rest at the bottom. The
+crew of the brig hauled in the lines of the boat.  Tossed on the
+turbid sea, T&ouml;nnes saw his old skipper leaning against the helm,
+the dog at his side.  His gray hairs fluttered in the wind as
+if they wafted a last farewell; and down with vessel and dog
+went the old skipper&mdash;down into the wild sea that so long had
+borne him on its waves.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4849" id="Page_4849">[Pg 4849]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="PRINCE" id="PRINCE"></a>THE PRINCE'S SONG</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Once Upon a Time'</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Princess, I come from out a land that lieth&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I know not in what arctic latitude:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though high in the bleak north, it never sigheth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For sunny smiles; they wait not to be wooed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our privilege we know: the bright half-year<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Illumines sea and shore with sunlit glory;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In twilight then our fertile fields we ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And round our brows we twine a wreath of story.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When winter decks with frost the bearded oak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In songs and sagas we our youth recover;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around the hearthstone crowd the listening folk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While on the wall mysterious shadows hover.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The summer night, suffused with loving glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The future, dawning in a golden chalice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enkindles hope in hearts of high and low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From peasant's cottage to the royal palace.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The snow of winter spreads o'er hill and valley<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Its soft and silken blue-white veil of sleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The springtime bids the green-clad earth to rally,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When through the budding leaves the sunbeams peep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The autumn brings fresh breezes from the ocean<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And paints the lad's fair cheeks a rosy red;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maiden's heart is stirred with new emotion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When summer's fragrance o'er the world is spread.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To roam in our fair land is like a dream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through these still woods, renowned in ancient story,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the shores, deep-mirrored in the gleam<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of fjords that shine beneath the sky's blue glory.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the meadows where the flowers bloom<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The elfin maidens hide themselves in slumbers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But soon along the lakes where shadows gloom<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In every bosky nook they'll dance their numbers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There are no frowning crags on our green mountains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No dark, forbidding cliffs where gorges yawn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The streams flow gently seaward from their fountains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As through the silent valley steals the dawn.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4850" id="Page_4850">[Pg 4850]</a></span><span class="i0">Here nature smoothes the rugged, tames the savage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And men born here in victory are kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forbearing still the foeman's land to ravage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And in defeat they bear a steadfast mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I'm proud of land, of kindred, and of nation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I'm proud my home is where the waters flow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Afar I see in golden radiation<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My native land like sun through amber glow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its warmth revives my heart, however lonely:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Forgive me, Princess, if my soul's aflame,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But rather be at home, a beggar only,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than, exiled thence, have universal fame.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="trans">Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4851" id="Page_4851">[Pg 4851]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="JOSEPH_RODMAN_DRAKE" id="JOSEPH_RODMAN_DRAKE"></a>JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE</h2>
+<h4>(1795-1820)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capc187.png" width="90" height="90" alt="C" title="C" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">onspicuous among the young poets, essayists, and journalists, who
+made up literary New York in the early part of the century, was Joseph
+Rodman Drake, the friend of Halleck, and the best beloved perhaps of
+all that brilliant group. Hardly known to this generation save by
+'The Culprit Fay' and 'The American Flag,' Drake was essentially a
+true poet and a man of letters. His work was characteristic of his
+day. He had a certain amount of classical knowledge, a certain
+eighteenth-century grace and style, yet withal, an instinctive
+Americanism which flowered out into our first true national
+literature. The group of writers among whom were found Irving,
+Halleck, Willis, Dana, Hoffman, Verplanck, Brockden Brown, and a
+score of others, reflected that age in which they sought their
+literary models. With the exception of Poe, who belonged to a somewhat
+later time and whose genius was purely subjective, much of the
+production of these Americans followed the lines of their English
+predecessors,&mdash;Johnson, Goldsmith, Addison, and Steele. It is only in
+their deeper moments of thought and feeling that there sounds that
+note of love of country, of genuine Americanism, which gives their
+work individuality, and which will keep their memory green.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus187.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Joseph Rodman Drake" title="Joseph Rodman Drake" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Joseph Rodman Drake</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Drake was born in New York, in August 1795.  He was descended
+from the same family as the great admiral of Elizabethan days, the
+American branch of which had served their country honorably both
+in colonial and Revolutionary times.  The scenes of his boyhood
+were the same as those that formed the environment of Irving,
+memories of which are scattered thick through the literature of the
+day.  New York was still a picturesque, hospitable, rural capital, the
+centre of the present town being miles distant in the country.  The
+best families were all intimately associated in a social life that was
+cultivated and refined at the same time that it was gay and unconventional;
+and in this society Drake occupied a place which his lovable
+qualities and fine talents must have won, even had it been
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4852" id="Page_4852">[Pg 4852]</a></span>
+denied him by birth.  He was a precocious boy, for whom a career
+was anticipated by his friends while he was yet a mere child; and
+when he met Halleck, in his eighteenth year, he had already won
+some reputation.</p>
+
+<p>The friendship of Drake and Halleck was destined to prove infinitely
+valuable to both.  A discussion between Cooper, Halleck, and
+Drake, upon the poetic inspiration of American scenery, prompted
+Drake to write 'The Culprit Fay'&mdash;a poem without any human
+character.  This he completed in three days, and offered it as the
+argument on his side.  The scene of the poem is laid in the Highlands
+of the Hudson, but Drake added many pictures suggested by
+memories of Long Island Sound, whose waters he haunted with boat
+and rod.  He apologized for this by saying that the purposes of poetry
+alone could explain the presence so far up the Hudson of so many
+salt-water emigrants.  'The Culprit Fay' is a creation of pure fancy,
+full of delicate imagery, and handled with an ethereal lightness of
+touch.  Its exquisite grace, its delicate coloring, its prodigality of
+charm, explain its immediate popularity and its lasting fame.  But
+the Rip Van Winkle legend is a far more genuine product of fancy.</p>
+
+<p>Drake's few shorter lyrics throb with genuine poetic feeling, and
+show the loss sustained by literature in the author's early death.
+Best known of these is 'The American Flag,' which appeared in the
+Evening Post as one of a series of <i>jeux d'esprit</i>, the joint productions
+of Halleck and Drake, who either alternated in the composition of
+the numbers or wrote them together.  The last four lines only of
+'The American Flag' are Halleck's.  The entire series appeared between
+March and July, 1819, under the signature of "The Croakers."
+Literary New York was mystified as to the authorship of these skits,
+which hit off the popular fads, follies, and enthusiasms of the day
+with so easy and graceful a touch.  Politics, music, the drama, and
+domestic life alike furnished inspiration for the numbers; some of
+whose titles, as 'A Sketch of a Debate in Tammany' and 'The
+Battery War,' suggest the local political issues of the present day.
+There is now in existence a handsome edition of these verses, with
+the names of the authors of the several pieces appended, and in the
+case of the joint ownership with the initials D. and H. subscribed.</p>
+
+<p>Drake's complete poems were not published during his lifetime.
+Sixteen years after his death by consumption in his twenty-sixth
+year, his daughter issued a volume dedicated to Halleck, in which
+were included the best specimens of her father's work.  Many of the
+lesser known verses indicate his true place as a poet.  In the touching
+poem 'Abelard to Eloise,' in the third stanza of 'The American
+Flag,' and in innumerable beautiful lines scattered throughout his
+work, appears a genuine inspiration.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4853" id="Page_4853">[Pg 4853]</a></span>
+In his own day, Drake filled a place which his death left forever
+vacant. His rare and winning personality, his generous friendships,
+his joy in life, and his courage in the contemplation of his inevitable
+fate, still appeal to a generation to whom they are but traditions.
+The exquisite monody in which Halleck celebrated his loss, links their
+names and decorates their friendship with imperishable garlands.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="WINTER" id="WINTER"></a>A WINTER'S TALE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The Croakers'</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><div class="poem">
+<span class="i0">"<i>A merry heart goes all the way,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>A sad one tires in a mile-a.</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Winter's Tale.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The man who frets at worldly strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Grows sallow, sour, and thin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give us the lad whose happy life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is one perpetual grin:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He, Midas-like, turns all to gold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He smiles when others sigh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enjoys alike the hot and cold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And laughs through wet and dry.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There's fun in everything we meet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The greatest, worst, and best<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Existence is a merry treat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And every speech a jest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be 't ours to watch the crowds that pass<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where mirth's gay banner waves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To show fools through a quizzing glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bastinade the knaves.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The serious world will scold and ban,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In clamor loud and hard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hear Meigs<a name="FNanchor_A_3" id="FNanchor_A_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_3" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> called a Congressman,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Paulding called a bard:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But come what may, the man's in luck<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who turns it all to glee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laughing, cries with honest Puck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Good Lord! what fools ye be!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_3" id="Footnote_A_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_3"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Henry Meigs of New York, a Congressman from 1819 to 1821
+in the Sixteenth Congress.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4854" id="Page_4854">[Pg 4854]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CULPRIT" id="CULPRIT"></a>THE CULPRIT FAY</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><div class="poem">
+<span class="i0">My visual orbs are purged from film, and lo!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Instead of Anster's turnip-bearing vales,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see old Fairyland's miraculous show!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Her trees of tinsel kissed by freakish gales,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her ouphs that, cloaked in leaf-gold, skim the breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fairies, swarming....<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tennant's 'Anster Fair'</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Naught is seen in the vault on high<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the flood which rolls its milky hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A river of light on the welkin blue.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moon looks down on old Cronest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seems his huge gray form to throw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a silver cone on the wave below;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His sides are broken by spots of shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the walnut bough and the cedar made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through their clustering branches dark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like starry twinkles that momently break<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The stars are on the moving stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fling, as its ripples gently flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A burnished length of wavy beam<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In an eel-like, spiral line below;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The winds are whist, and the owl is still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And naught is heard on the lonely hill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the gauze-winged katydid;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ever a note of wail and woe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till morning spreads her rosy wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And earth and sky in her glances glow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4855" id="Page_4855">[Pg 4855]</a></span><span class="i0">He has counted them all with click and stroke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep in the heart of the mountain oak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he has awakened the sentry elve<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bid him ring the hour of twelve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And call the fays to their revelry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Midnight comes, and all is well!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hither, hither, wing your way!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis the dawn of the fairy day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They come from beds of lichen green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They creep from the mullein's velvet screen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some on the backs of beetles fly<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And rocked about in the evening breeze;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some from the hum-bird's downy nest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They had driven him out by elfin power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Had slumbered there till the charm&egrave;d hour;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With glittering ising-stars inlaid;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some had opened the four-o'clock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And stole within its purple shade.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now they throng the moonlight glade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Above, below, on every side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their little minim forms arrayed<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They come not now to print the lea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In freak and dance around the tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or at the mushroom board to sup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drink the dew from the buttercup;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A scene of sorrow waits them now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has loved an earthly maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And left for her his woodland shade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has lain upon her lip of dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sunned him in her eye of blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Played in the ringlets of her hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nestling on her snowy breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forgot the lily-king's behest.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4856" id="Page_4856">[Pg 4856]</a></span><span class="i0">For this the shadowy tribes of air<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To the elfin court must haste away:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now they stand expectant there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To hear the doom of the culprit fay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The throne was reared upon the grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of spice-wood and of sassafras;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On pillars of mottled tortoise-shell<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hung the burnished canopy&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And o'er it gorgeous curtains fell<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of the tulip's crimson drapery.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The monarch sat on his judgment seat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On his brow the crown imperial shone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prisoner fay was at his feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And his peers were ranged around the throne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He waved his sceptre in the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He looked around and calmly spoke;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His brow was grave and his eye severe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But his voice in a softened accent broke:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fairy! Fairy! list and mark:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thou hast broke thine elfin chain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast scorned our dread decree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But well I know her sinless mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is pure as the angel forms above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Such as a spirit well might love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fairy! had she spot or taint,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bitter had been thy punishment:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or seven long ages doomed to dwell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or every night to writhe and bleed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath the tread of the centipede;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your jailer a spider, huge and grim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the carrion bodies to lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4857" id="Page_4857">[Pg 4857]</a></span><span class="i0">These it had been your lot to bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now list, and mark our mild decree&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fairy, this your doom must be:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou shalt seek the beach of sand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the water bounds the elfin land;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou shalt watch the oozy brine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then dart the glistening arch below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And catch a drop from his silver bow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The water-sprites will wield their arms<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And dash around, with roar and rave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And vain are the woodland spirits' charms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They are the imps that rule the wave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet trust thee in thy single might:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou shalt win the warlock fight.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If the spray-bead gem be won,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The stain of thy wing is washed away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But another errand must be done<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ere thy crime be lost for aye:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou must re-illume its spark.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mount thy steed and spur him high<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the heaven's blue canopy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when thou seest a shooting star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Follow it fast, and follow it far&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The last faint spark of its burning train<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall light the elfin lamp again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast heard our sentence, fay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hence! to the water-side, away!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The goblin marked his monarch well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He spake not, but he bowed him low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then plucked a crimson colen-bell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And turned him round in act to go.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The way is long; he cannot fly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His soil&egrave;d wing has lost its power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he winds adown the mountain high<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For many a sore and weary hour.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through dreary beds of tangled fern,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4858" id="Page_4858">[Pg 4858]</a></span><span class="i0">Over the grass and through the brake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now o'er the violet's azure flush<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He skips along in lightsome mood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now he thrids the bramble-bush,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Till its points are dyed in fairy blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has leaped the bog, he has pierced the brier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has swum the brook and waded the mire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till his spirits sank and his limbs grew weak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the red waxed fainter in his cheek.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had fallen to the ground outright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For rugged and dim was his onward track,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But there came a spotted toad in sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And he laughed as he jumped upon her back;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He lashed her sides with an osier thong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now, through evening's dewy mist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With leap and spring they bound along,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the mountain's magic verge is past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the beach of sand is reached at last.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up, fairy! quit thy chickweed bower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cricket has called the second hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twice again, and the lark will rise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To kiss the streaking of the skies&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up! thy charm&egrave;d armor don;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou'lt need it ere the night be gone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He put his acorn helmet on:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The corselet plate that guarded his breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was once the wild bee's golden vest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was formed of the wings of butterflies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Studs of gold on a ground of green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the quivering lance which he brandished bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swift he bestrode his firefly steed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And away like a glance of thought he flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To skim the heavens, and follow far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fiery trail of the rocket-star.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4859" id="Page_4859">[Pg 4859]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The moth-fly, as he shot in air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crept under the leaf and hid her there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The katydid forgot its lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prowling gnat fled fast away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fell mosquito checked his drone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And folded his wings till the fay was gone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wily beetle dropped his head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fell on the ground as if he were dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They crouched them close in the darksome shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they had felt the blue-bent blade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many a time, on a summer's night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the sky was clear, and the moon was bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had been roused from the haunted ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the needle-shaft through air was borne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now they deemed the courier ouphe<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Some hunter-sprite of the elfin ground;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they watched till they saw him mount the roof<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That canopies the world around;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then glad they left their covert lair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And freaked about in the midnight air.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up to the vaulted firmament<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His path the firefly courser bent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at every gallop on the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He flung a glittering spark behind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He flies like a feather in the blast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the first light cloud in heaven is past.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But the shapes of air have begun their work,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a drizzly mist is round him cast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He cannot see through the mantle murk;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shivers with cold, but he urges fast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through storm and darkness, sleet and shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He lashes his steed, and spurs amain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For shadowy hands have twitched the rein,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And flame-shot tongues around him played,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And near him many a fiendish eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glared with a fell malignity,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4860" id="Page_4860">[Pg 4860]</a></span><span class="i0">And yells of rage, and shrieks of fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came screaming on his startled ear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His wings are wet around his breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The plume hangs dripping from his crest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes are blurred with the lightning's glare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his ears are stunned with the thunder's blare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he gave a shout, and his blade he drew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He thrust before and he struck behind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he pierced their cloudy bodies through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And gashed their shadowy limbs of wind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Howling the misty spectres flew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They rend the air with frightful cries;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he has gained the welkin blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the land of clouds beneath him lies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up to the cope careering swift,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In breathless motion fast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or the sea-roc rides the blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The sphered moon is past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The earth but seems a tiny blot<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On a sheet of azure cast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! it was sweet, in the clear moonlight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To tread the starry plain of even!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To meet the thousand eyes of night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And feel the cooling breath of heaven!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the elfin made no stop or stay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he came to the bank of the Milky Way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then he checked his courser's foot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And watched for the glimpse of the planet-shoot.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sudden along the snowy tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That swelled to meet their footsteps' fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Attired in sunset's crimson pall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around the fay they weave the dance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They skip before him on the plain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one has taken his wasp-sting lance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And one upholds his bridle rein;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With warblings wild they lead him on<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To where, through clouds of amber seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Studded with stars, resplendent shone<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The palace of the sylphid queen.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4861" id="Page_4861">[Pg 4861]</a></span><span class="i0">Its spiral columns, gleaming bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were streamers of the northern light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its curtain's light and lovely flush<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was of the morning's rosy blush;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the ceiling fair that rose aboon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The white and feathery fleece of noon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Borne afar on the wings of the blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Northward away he speeds him fast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his courser follows the cloudy wain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the hoof-strokes fall like pattering rain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clouds roll backward as he flies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each flickering star behind him lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he has reached the northern plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And backed his firefly steed again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ready to follow in its flight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The streaming of the rocket-light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The star is yet in the vault of heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But it rocks in the summer gale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now 'tis fitful and uneven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And now 'tis deadly pale;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now 'tis wrapped in sulphur-smoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And quenched is its rayless beam;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now with a rattling thunder-stroke<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It bursts in flash and flame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That the storm spirit flings from high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The star-shot flew o'er the welkin blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As it fell from the sheeted sky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As swift as the wind in its train behind<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The elfin gallops along:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fiends of the clouds are bellowing loud.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But the sylphid charm is strong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gallops unhurt in the shower of fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While the cloud-fiends fly from the blaze;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He watches each flake till its sparks expire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And rides in the light of its rays.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But he drove his steed to the lightning's speed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And caught a glimmering spark;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then wheeled around to the fairy ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And sped through the midnight dark.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4862" id="Page_4862">[Pg 4862]</a></span><span class="i0">Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Elf of eve! and starry fay!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye that love the moon's soft light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hither, hither, wend your way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twine ye in a jocund ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sing and trip it merrily,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hand to hand, and wing to wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Round the wild witch-hazel tree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hail the wanderer again<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With dance and song, and lute and lyre;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pure his wing and strong his chain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And doubly bright his fairy fire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twine ye in an airy round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Brush the dew and print the lea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Skip and gambol, hop and bound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Round the wild witch-hazel tree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The beetle guards our holy ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He flies about the haunted place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if mortal there be found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He hums in his ears and flaps his face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The owlet's eyes our lanterns be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus we sing and dance and play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Round the wild witch-hazel tree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But hark! from tower on tree-top high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The sentry elf his call has made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A streak is in the eastern sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hill-tops gleam in Morning's spring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The skylark shakes his dappled wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cock has crowed, and the fays are gone.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4863" id="Page_4863">[Pg 4863]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="FLAG" id="FLAG"></a>THE AMERICAN FLAG</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When Freedom from her mountain height<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Unfurled her standard to the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She tore the azure robe of night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And set the stars of glory there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She mingled with its gorgeous dyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The milky baldric of the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And striped its pure celestial white<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With streakings of the morning light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then from his mansion in the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She called her eagle-bearer down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gave unto his mighty hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The symbol of her chosen land.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Majestic monarch of the cloud!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And see the lightning lances driven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When strive the warriors of the storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To guard the banner of the free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hover in the sulphur-smoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To ward away the battle-stroke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bid its blendings shine afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like rainbows on the cloud of war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The harbingers of victory!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sign of hope and triumph high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When speaks the signal trumpet-tone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the long line comes gleaming on:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each soldier eye shall brightly turn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To where the sky-born glories burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as his springing steps advance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Catch war and vengeance from the glance;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when the cannon-mouthings loud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gory sabres rise and fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4864" id="Page_4864">[Pg 4864]</a></span><span class="i0">Then shall thy meteor-glances glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And cowering foes shall sink beneath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each gallant arm that strikes below<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That lovely messenger of death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Flag of the seas! on ocean wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When death, careering on the gale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And frighted waves rush wildly back<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the broadside's reeling rack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each dying wanderer of the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall look at once to heaven and thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smile to see thy splendors fly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In triumph o'er his closing eye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Flag of the free heart's hope and home!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By angel hands to valor given;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And all thy hues were born in heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forever float that standard sheet!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where breathes the foe but falls before us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4865" id="Page_4865">[Pg 4865]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="JOHN_WILLIAM_DRAPER" id="JOHN_WILLIAM_DRAPER"></a>JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER</h2>
+<h4>(1811-1882)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capt201.png" width="90" height="90" alt="T" title="T" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">he subject of this sketch was born at St. Helen's, near Liverpool,
+England, on the 5th of May, 1811. His earliest education was obtained
+at a Wesleyan Methodist school, but after a time he came under private
+teachers, with whose help he made rapid progress in the physical
+sciences, thus showing in his boyhood the natural bent of his mind and
+the real strength of his intellect. He afterwards studied for a time
+at the University of London, but in 1833 came to the United States,
+and three years later graduated at the University of Pennsylvania with
+the degree of M. D. In 1839 he was elected to the chair of chemistry
+in the University of New York, a position which he held until his
+death in 1882.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus201.png" width="180" height="220" alt="John William Draper" title="John William Draper" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">John William Draper</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Draper's contributions to science were of a high order. He discovered
+some of the facts that lie at the basis of spectrum analysis; he was
+one of the first successful experimenters in the art of photography;
+and he made researches in radiant energy and other scientific
+phenomena. He published in 1858 a treatise on 'Human Physiology,'
+which is a highly esteemed and widely used text-book. He died on the
+4th of January, 1882.</p>
+
+<p>Draper's chief contributions to literature are three works: 'History
+of the Intellectual Development of Europe' (1863), a 'History of the
+American Civil War' (1867-1870), and 'The History of the Conflict
+between Religion and Science,' which appeared in the International
+Scientific Series in 1873. Of these works, the one on the intellectual
+development of Europe is the ablest, and takes a place beside the
+works of Lecky and Buckle as a contribution to the history of
+civilization. The history of the Civil War was written too soon after
+the events described to have permanent historical value. 'The History
+of the Conflict between Religion and Science' is a judicial
+presentation of the perennial controversy from the standpoint of the
+scientist.</p>
+
+<p>Draper's claims to attention as a philosophic historian rest mainly
+on his theory of the influence of climate on human character and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4866" id="Page_4866">[Pg 4866]</a></span>
+development. He maintains that "For every climate, and indeed for
+every geographical locality, there is an answering type of humanity";
+and in his history of the American Civil War, as well as in his work
+on the intellectual development of Europe, he endeavored to prove
+that doctrine.  Another theory which is prominent in his principal
+work is, that the intellectual development of every people passes
+through five stages; namely, 1, the Age of Credulity; 2, the Age of
+Inquiry; 3, the Age of Faith; 4, the Age of Reason; 5, the Age of
+Decrepitude.  Ancient Greece, he thinks, passed through all those
+stages, the age of reason beginning with the advent of physical
+science.  Europe as a whole has now also entered the age of reason,
+which as before he identifies with the age of physical science; so that
+everywhere in his historical works, physical influences and the scientific
+knowledge of physical phenomena are credited with most of the
+progress that mankind has made. Draper has left a distinct mark
+upon the scientific thought of his generation, and made a distinct and
+valuable contribution to the literature of his adopted country.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="VEDAS" id="VEDAS"></a>THE VEDAS AND THEIR THEOLOGY</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright 1876,
+by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+<p>The Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, and of which there are
+four,&mdash;the Rig, Yagust, Saman, and Atharvan,&mdash;are asserted
+to have been revealed by Brahma. The fourth is however rejected by
+some authorities, and bears internal evidence of a later composition,
+at a time when hierarchical power had become greatly consolidated.
+These works are written in an obsolete Sanskrit, the parent of the
+more recent idiom. They constitute the basis of an extensive
+literature, Upavedas, Angas, etc., of connected works and
+commentaries. For the most part they consist of hymns suitable for
+public and private occasions, prayers, precepts, legends, and dogmas.
+The Rig, which is the oldest, is composed chiefly of hymns; the other
+three of liturgical formulas. They are of different periods and of
+various authorship, internal evidence seeming to indicate that if the
+later were composed by priests, the earlier were the production of
+military chieftains. They answer to a state of society advanced from
+the nomad to the municipal condition. They are based upon an
+acknowledgment of a universal Spirit, pervading all things.
+Of this God they therefore necessarily acknowledge the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4867" id="Page_4867">[Pg 4867]</a></span>
+unity: "There is in truth but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit, the Lord
+of the universe, whose work is the universe." "The God above all gods,
+who created the earth, the heavens, and waters." The world, thus
+considered as an emanation of God, is therefore a part of him; it is
+kept in a visible state by his energy, and would instantly disappear
+if that energy were for a moment withdrawn. Even as it is, it is
+undergoing unceasing transformations, everything being in a transitory
+condition. The moment a given phase is reached, it is departed from,
+or ceases. In these perpetual movements the present can scarcely be
+said to have any existence, for as the Past is ending, the Future has
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>In such a never-ceasing career all material things are urged, their
+forms continually changing, and returning as it were through revolving
+cycles to similar states. For this reason it is that we may regard our
+earth and the various celestial bodies as having had a moment of
+birth, as having a time of continuance, in which they are passing
+onward to an inevitable destruction; and that after the lapse of
+countless ages similar progresses will be made, and similar series of
+events will occur again and again.</p>
+
+<p>But in this doctrine of universal transformation there is something
+more than appears at first. The theology of India is underlaid with
+Pantheism. "God is One because he is All." The Vedas, in speaking of
+the relation of nature to God, make use of the expression that he is
+the material as well as the cause of the universe, "the clay as well
+as the Potter." They convey the idea that while there is a pervading
+spirit existing everywhere, of the same nature as the soul of man,
+though differing from it infinitely in degree, visible nature is
+essentially and inseparably connected therewith; that as in man the
+body is perpetually undergoing changes, perpetually decaying and being
+renewed,&mdash;or as in the case of the whole human species, nations come
+into existence and pass away,&mdash;yet still there continues to exist what
+may be termed the universal human mind, so forever associated and
+forever connected are the material and the spiritual. And under this
+aspect we must contemplate the Supreme Being, not merely as a
+presiding intellect, but as illustrated by the parallel case of man,
+whose mental principle shows no tokens except through its connection
+with the body: so matter, or nature, or the visible universe, is to be
+looked upon as the corporeal manifestation of God.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4868" id="Page_4868">[Pg 4868]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="BELIEFS" id="BELIEFS"></a>PRIMITIVE BELIEFS DISMISSED BY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+<p>As man advances in knowledge, he discovers that of his primitive
+conclusions some are doubtless erroneous, and many require better
+evidence to establish their truth incontestably. A more prolonged and
+attentive examination gives him reason, in some of the most important
+particulars, to change his mind. He finds that the earth on which he
+lives is not a floor covered over with a starry dome, as he once
+supposed, but a globe self-balanced in space. The crystalline vault,
+or sky, is recognized to be an optical deception. It rests upon the
+earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all; there is no kingdom of
+happiness above it, but a limitless space adorned with planets and
+suns. Instead of a realm of darkness and woe in the depths on the
+other side of the earth, men like ourselves are found there, pursuing,
+in Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures and encountering
+the ordinary labors of life. By the aid of such lights as knowledge
+gradually supplies, he comes at last to discover that this our
+terrestrial habitation, instead of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is
+only one of similar myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea,
+and prodigally scattered through space.</p>
+
+<p>Never, perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. All the visible
+evidence was in direct opposition to it. The earth, which had hitherto
+seemed to be the very emblem of immobility, was demonstrated to be
+carried with a double motion, with prodigious velocity, through the
+heavens; the rising and setting of the stars were proved to be an
+illusion; and as respects the size of the globe, it was shown to be
+altogether insignificant when compared with multitudes of other
+neighboring ones&mdash;insignificant doubly by reason of its actual
+dimensions, and by the countless numbers of others like it in form,
+and doubtless like it the abodes of many orders of life.</p>
+
+<p>And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about twenty-five
+thousand miles in circumference. The voyager who circumnavigates it
+spends no inconsiderable portion of his life in accomplishing his
+task. It moves round the sun in a year, but at so great a distance
+from that luminary that if seen from him, it would look like a little
+spark traversing the sky. It is thus
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4869" id="Page_4869">[Pg 4869]</a></span>
+recognized as one of the members of the solar system. Other similar
+bodies, some of which are of larger, some of smaller dimensions,
+perform similar revolutions round the sun in appropriate periods of
+time.</p>
+
+<p>If the magnitude of the earth be too great for us to attach to it any
+definite conception, what shall we say of the compass of the solar
+system? There is a defect in the human intellect, which incapacitates
+us for comprehending distances and periods that are either too
+colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight into the matter,
+when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond the bounds of
+the system may perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a
+thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our
+grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination; the
+one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no
+conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.</p>
+
+<p>But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there are other
+worlds like our solar system. There are self-luminous suns, exceeding
+in number all computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into
+nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, and
+that system in its turn is only an invisible point if placed in
+relation with the countless hosts of other systems, which form with it
+clusters of stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the
+universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound by common
+laws and subject to like influences. Even on the very verge of
+creation, where imagination might lay the beginning of the realms of
+chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity in the
+arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are other
+intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the
+abysses of space.</p>
+
+<p>Though it may take a beam of light a million years to bring to our
+view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths
+of space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our
+own. The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast
+distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their
+movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which
+they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky
+glow.</p>
+
+<p>Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar system,
+from the solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4870" id="Page_4870">[Pg 4870]</a></span>
+which we belong, we behold a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up
+one after another, and forming greater and greater colonies of worlds. No
+numbers can express them, for they make the firmament a haze of stars.
+Uniformity, even though it be the uniformity of magnificence, tires at
+last, and we abandon the survey; for our eyes can only behold a
+boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own unspeakable
+insignificance.</p>
+
+<p>But what has become of the time-honored doctrine of the human destiny
+of the universe?&mdash;that doctrine for the sake of which the controversy
+I have described in this chapter was raised? It has disappeared. In
+vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo imprisoned; the truth forced its way,
+in spite of all opposition, at last. The end of the conflict was a
+total rejection of authority and tradition, and the adoption of
+scientific truth.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="KORAN" id="KORAN"></a>THE KORAN</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+<p>Arabian influence, thus imposing itself on Africa and Asia by military
+successes, and threatening even Constantinople, rested essentially on
+an intellectual basis, the value of which it is needful for us to
+consider. The Koran, which is that basis, has exercised a great
+control over the destinies of mankind, and still serves as a rule of
+life to a very large portion of our race. Considering the asserted
+origin of this book,&mdash;indirectly from God himself,&mdash;we might justly
+expect that it would bear to be tried by any standard that man can
+apply, and vindicate its truth and excellence in the ordeal of human
+criticism. In our estimate of it, we must constantly bear in mind that
+it does not profess to be successive revelations made at intervals of
+ages and on various occasions, but a complete production delivered to
+one man. We ought therefore to look for universality, completeness,
+perfection. We might expect that it would present us with just views
+of the nature and position of this world in which we live, and that
+whether dealing with the spiritual or the material, it would put to
+shame the most celebrated productions of human genius, as the magnificent
+mechanism of the heavens and the beautiful living forms of the earth are
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4871" id="Page_4871">[Pg 4871]</a></span>
+superior to the vain contrivances of man. Far in advance
+of all that has been written by the sages of India, or the
+philosophers of Greece, on points connected with the origin, nature,
+and destiny of the universe, its dignity of conception and excellence
+of expression should be in harmony with the greatness of the subject
+with which it is concerned.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 490px;">
+<a name="MANUSCRIPT" id="MANUSCRIPT"></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>AFRICAN ARABIC MANUSCRIPT.</i><br /><br />
+Thirteenth Century. &nbsp;  &nbsp;  &nbsp;  &nbsp;  &nbsp;  &nbsp;  &nbsp;
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; National Library, Paris.<br /><br />
+Reduced fac-simile of part of a page of an Arabic Koran, in the
+African character, captured at Tunis by Charles V.</span>
+<p>The scribes of the East are distinguished by their efforts to acquire
+a perfect style of execution; and their success merits the greater
+praise, since they generally stand while writing, resting only on the
+left arm; and notwithstanding the inferiority of the reed to the
+modern pen, the Arabs have succeeded in producing the most excellent
+specimens of calligraphy.</p>
+<img src="images/Illus208.jpg" width="490" height="768" alt="THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE." title="THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE." />
+</div>
+
+<p>We might expect that it should propound with authority, and
+definitively settle, those all-important problems which have exercised
+the mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for so many
+centuries, and which are at the foundation of all faith and all
+philosophy; that it should distinctly tell us in unmistakable language
+what is God, what is the world, what is the soul, and whether man has
+any criterion of truth; that it should explain to us how evil can
+exist in a world the Maker of which is omnipotent and altogether good;
+that it should reveal to us in what the affairs of men are fixed by
+Destiny, in what by free-will; that it should teach us whence we came,
+what is the object of our continuing here, what is to become of us
+hereafter. And since a written work claiming a divine origin must
+necessarily accredit itself even to those most reluctant to receive
+it, its internal evidences becoming stronger and not weaker with the
+strictness of the examination to which they are submitted, it ought to
+deal with those things that may be demonstrated by the increasing
+knowledge and genius of man; anticipating therein his conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>Such a work, noble as may be its origin, must not refuse but court the
+test of natural philosophy, regarding it not as an antagonist but as
+its best support. As years pass on, and human science becomes more
+exact and more comprehensive, its conclusions must be found in unison
+therewith. When occasion arises, it should furnish us at least the
+foreshadowings of the great truths discovered by astronomy and
+geology, not offering for them the wild fictions of earlier ages,
+inventions of the infancy of man. It should tell us how suns and
+worlds are distributed in infinite space, and how in their successions
+they come forth in limitless time. It should say how far the dominion
+of God is carried out by law, and what is the point at which it is his
+pleasure to resort to his own good providence or his arbitrary will.
+How grand the description of this magnificent universe, written
+by the Omnipotent hand! Of man it should set forth his relations
+to other living beings, his place among them, his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4872" id="Page_4872">[Pg 4872]</a></span>
+privileges and responsibilities. It should not leave him to grope his way
+through the vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last;
+but it should teach him wherein true knowledge consists, anticipating the
+physical science, physical power, and physical well-being of our own
+times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that we are still
+ignorant of. The discussion of subjects so many and so high is not
+outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its manner of dealing
+with them is the only criterion it can offer of its authenticity to
+succeeding times.</p>
+
+<p>Tried by such a standard, the Koran altogether fails. In its
+philosophy it is incomparably inferior to the writings of Chakia
+Mouni, the founder of Buddhism; in its science it is absolutely
+worthless. On speculative or doubtful things it is copious enough; but
+in the exact, where a test can be applied to it, it totally fails. Its
+astronomy, cosmogony, physiology, are so puerile as to invite our
+mirth, if the occasion did not forbid. They belong to the old times of
+the world, the morning of human knowledge. The earth is firmly
+balanced in its seat by the weight of the mountains; the sky is
+supported over it like a dome, and we are instructed in the wisdom and
+power of God by being told to find a crack in it if we can. Ranged in
+stories, seven in number, are the heavens, the highest being the
+habitation of God, whose throne&mdash;for the Koran does not reject
+Assyrian ideas&mdash;is sustained by winged animal forms. The shooting
+stars are pieces of red-hot stone, thrown by angels at impure spirits
+when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of praise,
+setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it
+bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures them
+that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the Judgment Day they
+must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about whom
+ye disputed?"&mdash;though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
+mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
+merchandise of religion,&mdash;its ideas of the Deity are altogether
+anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man, living in a paradise. In
+this respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader
+rises from a perusal of the one hundred and fourteen chapters of the
+Koran with a final impression that they have given him low and
+unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising that one of the Mohammedan
+sects reads it in such a way as to find no difficulty in asserting that "from
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4873" id="Page_4873">[Pg 4873]</a></span>
+the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, and
+from the breast downward he is solid;" that he "has curled black hair,
+and roars like a lion at every watch of the night." The unity asserted
+by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction to the Trinity of
+the Christians, and the doctrine of a Divine generation. Our Savior is
+never called the Son of God, but always the Son of Mary. Throughout
+there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion of the human destiny
+of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse enough respecting a
+future state, speaking with clearness of a resurrection, the Judgment
+Day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm that never dies, the
+pains that never end; but with all this precise description of the
+future, there are many errors as to the past. If modesty did not
+render it unsuitable to speak of such topics here, it might be shown
+how feeble is his physiology when he has occasion to allude to the
+origin or generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond the ideas of
+Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things that are past
+cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.</p>
+
+<p>Of the literary execution of his work, it is perhaps scarcely possible
+to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the oldest prose
+composition among the Arabs, by whom Mohammed's boast of the
+unapproachable excellence of his work is almost universally sustained;
+but it must not be concealed that there have been among them very
+learned men who have held it in light esteem. Its most celebrated
+passages, as those on the nature of God, in Chapters ii., xxiv., will
+bear no comparison with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job.
+In the narrative style, the story of Joseph in Chapter xii., compared
+with the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
+Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends,
+derived probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he mixes
+with many of his own inventions the Scripture account of the
+temptation of Adam, the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, enriching the
+whole with stories like the later Night Entertainments of his country,
+the seven sleepers, Gog and Magog, and all the wonders of genii,
+sorcery, and charms.</p>
+
+<p>An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised that so
+feeble a production should serve its purpose so well. But the theory
+of religion is one thing, the practice another. The Koran abounds in
+excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so
+fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4874" id="Page_4874">[Pg 4874]</a></span>
+page without finding maxims of which all men must approve. This fragmentary
+construction yields texts and mottoes and rules complete in themselves,
+suitable for common men in any of the incidents of life. There is a
+perpetual insisting on the necessity of prayer, an inculcation of mercy,
+almsgiving, justice, fasting, pilgrimage, and other good works;
+institutions respecting conduct, both social and domestic, debts,
+witnesses, marriage, children, wine, and the like; above all, a
+constant stimulation to do battle with the infidel and blasphemer. For
+life as it passes in Asia, there is hardly a condition in which
+passages from the Koran cannot be recalled suitable for instruction,
+admonition, consolation, encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the
+African, such devotional fragments are of far more use than any
+sustained theological doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed
+did not enable him to handle important philosophical questions with
+the well-balanced ability of the great Greek and Indian writers; but
+he has never been surpassed in adaptation to the spiritual wants of
+humble life, making even his fearful fatalism administer thereto. A
+pitiless destiny is awaiting us; yet the prophet is uncertain what it
+may be. "Unto every nation a fixed time is decreed. Death will
+overtake us even in lofty towers, but God only knoweth the place in
+which a man shall die." After many an admonition of the resurrection
+and the Judgment Day, many a promise of Paradise and threat of hell,
+he plaintively confesses, "I do not know what will be done with you or
+me hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>The Koran thus betrays a human and not a very noble intellectual
+origin. It does not however follow that its author was, as is so often
+asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and again, "I am
+nothing more than a public preacher." He defends, not always without
+acerbity, his work from those who even in his own life stigmatized it
+as a confused heap of dreams, or what is worse, a forgery. He is not
+the only man who has supposed himself to be the subject of
+supernatural and divine communications, for this is a condition of
+disease to which any one, by fasting and mental anxiety, may be
+reduced.</p>
+
+<p>In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many millions of
+men as a revelation from God, I have endeavored to speak with respect
+and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in mind how deeply to this
+book Asia and Africa are indebted for daily guidance, how deeply
+Europe and America for the light of science.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4875" id="Page_4875">[Pg 4875]</a></span>
+As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have received many
+fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in the course of
+ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii largely figure. The
+latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink, propagate their kind,
+are of two sorts, good and bad, and existed long before men, having
+occupied the earth before Adam. Immediately after death, two greenish
+livid angels, Monkir and Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith
+in God and Mohammed; but the soul, having been separated from the body
+by the angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
+resurrection. There is however much diversity of opinion as to its
+precise disposal before the Judgment Day: some think that it hovers
+near the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem; some, that
+it retires into the trumpet of the angel of the resurrection; the
+difficulty apparently being that any final disposal before the Day of
+Judgment would be anticipatory of that great event, if indeed it would
+not render it needless. As to the resurrection, some believe it to be
+merely spiritual, others corporeal; the latter asserting that the <i>os
+coccygis</i>, or last bone of the spinal column, will serve as it were as
+a germ; and that, vivified by a rain of forty days, the body will
+sprout from it. Among the signs of the approaching resurrection will
+be the rising of the sun in the west. It will be ushered in by three
+blasts of a trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation,
+will shake the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars;
+the second, the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material
+things except Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years
+subsequently, the angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrection.
+From his trumpet there will be blown forth the countless myriads of
+souls who have taken refuge therein, or lain concealed. The Day of
+Judgment has now come. The Koran contradicts itself as to the length
+of this day; in one place making it a thousand, in another fifty
+thousand years. Most Mohammedans incline to adopt the longer period,
+since angels, genii, men, and animals have to be tried.</p>
+
+<p>As to men, they will rise in their natural state, but naked;
+white-winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting the saved.
+When the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with
+an intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called
+into existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a
+sweat to issue from them; and this, according to their demerits,
+will immerse them from the ankles to the mouth; but the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4876" id="Page_4876">[Pg 4876]</a></span>
+righteous will be screened by the shadow of the throne of God.
+The Judge will be seated in the clouds, the books open before
+him, and everything in its turn called on to account for its deeds.
+For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel will hold forth his balance,
+one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over hell.
+In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is delivered,
+the assembly, in a long file, will pass over the bridge
+Al-Sirat. It is as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid over
+the mouth of hell. Mohammed and his followers will successfully
+pass the perilous ordeal; but the sinners, giddy with terror, will
+drop into the place of torment. The blessed will receive their
+first taste of happiness at a pond which is supplied by silver
+pipes from the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of Paradise is of
+musk. Its rivers tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies and
+emeralds. From tents of hollow pearls the Houris, or girls of
+Paradise, will come forth, attended by troops of beautiful boys.
+Each saint will have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two
+girls. To these, some of the more merciful Mussulmans add the
+wives they have had upon earth; but the grimly orthodox assert
+that hell is already nearly filled with women. How can it be
+otherwise, since they are not permitted to pray in a mosque upon
+earth?</p>
+
+<p>I have not space to describe the silk brocades, the green
+clothing, the soft carpets, the banquets, the perpetual music and
+songs. From the glorified body all impurities will escape, not as
+they did during life, but in a fragrant perspiration of camphor
+and musk. No one will complain, "I am weary;" no one will
+say, "I am sick.".</p>
+
+<p>From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indicated
+in the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the
+faith of Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such
+it is said that not less than seventy-three may be numbered.
+Some, as the Sonnites, are guided by traditions; some occupy
+themselves with philosophical difficulties,&mdash;the existence of evil
+in the world, the attributes of God, absolute predestination and
+eternal damnation, the invisibility and non-corporeality of God,
+his capability of local motion.... But the great Mohammedan
+philosophers, simply accepting the doctrine of the oneness
+of God as the only thing of which man can be certain, look upon
+all the rest as idle fables&mdash;having however this political use: that
+they furnish contention and therefore occupation to disputatious
+sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4877" id="Page_4877">[Pg 4877]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MICHAEL_DRAYTON" id="MICHAEL_DRAYTON"></a>MICHAEL DRAYTON</h2>
+
+<h4>(1563-1631)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capw215.png" width="90" height="90" alt="W" title="W" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">hile London still crowded to the new "Theatre" in Shoreditch, the
+first built in England; while Ben Jonson was still soldiering in the
+Low Countries; while Marlowe was working out the tragedy that was to
+revolutionize all stage traditions, and Shakespeare was yet but a
+"looker-on at greatness,"&mdash;there came up from Warwickshire a young man
+of good family who had served as page in a noble house, who had
+studied possibly at Oxford, and who in the first flush of manhood
+aspired to a place among those prodigies who made the later
+Elizabethan period immortal. This was Michael Drayton, whose gentle
+birth and breeding, education and talents, knowledge of the world and
+of men, together with a most sweet and lovable disposition, made him
+at once welcome in the literary Bohemia of the day. He became the
+"deare and bosom friend" of Beaumont and Fletcher, and his work
+received unquestioned honor from his illustrious contemporaries.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus215.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Michael Drayton" title="Michael Drayton" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Michael Drayton</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As a child he had demanded of his
+elders to know what kind of beings poets
+were, had spent many hours in writing
+childishly fantastic verses, and had begged
+of his tutor to make a poet of him.  And although he seems to have
+been poor and to have lived by the gifts of wealthy patrons, he
+cast in his lot with literature, and cherished no other ambition than
+that of writing well.  His first book, a volume of spiritual poems, or
+metrical renderings of the Bible, was published in 1590 under the
+title 'The Harmony of the Church.'  It is difficult to see why this
+commonplace and orthodox performance should have given such
+umbrage that the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the entire
+edition to destruction.  Yet this was its fate, with the exception of
+forty copies which Archbishop Whitgift ordered to be reserved for
+the ecclesiastical library at Lambeth Palace.  Undiscouraged, the
+poet next produced a cycle of sixty-four sonnets and a collection of
+pastorals entitled 'Idea:  the Shepherd's Garland,' in which under the
+name "Rowland" he celebrated an early love.  It is strange that
+the intrinsic merit of these verses, and their undoubted popularity,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4878" id="Page_4878">[Pg 4878]</a></span>
+should not have urged Drayton to continue in the same vein.  Instead,
+however, he set about the composition of a series of historical
+poems which extended over the next twenty-four years, and to which
+he gave the best energies of his life.  Beginning with the epic
+'Matilda,' studied from English history, the series was continued by
+a poem on the 'Wars of the Roses,' afterward enlarged into 'The
+Barons' Wars.'  This was followed by the epic 'Robert, Duke of
+Normandy.' Destitute of imagination, prolix and tedious, these verses
+were yet so popular in Drayton's day that in 1612 he began the
+publication of a poem in thirty books, meant to include the entire
+chronology and topography of Great Britain, from the earliest times.
+This was the famous 'Poly-Olbion,' in which, in spite of the inspiring
+work of his contemporaries, Drayton harked back in spirit to the
+dreary monotony of the Saxon Chronicle; the detail is so minute,
+the matter so unimportant, and the absence of discrimination so apparent,
+that notwithstanding many noticeable beauties of thought
+and style, it is hard to realize that this poem was a favorite with
+that brilliant group which had known Shakespeare, and still delighted
+in Ben Jonson.  After issuing eighteen books of 'Poly-Olbion,' his
+publishers&mdash;with whom he was always quarreling, and whom he
+declared that he "despised and kicked at"&mdash;refused to undertake the
+remaining twelve books of the second part.  His friends, however,
+loyal in their love and praise of him, secured a more complaisant
+tradesman to bring out the rest of the already famous poem.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for his fame, Drayton had in the mean time produced
+two other volumes of verse, which displayed the real grace and fancifulness
+of his charming muse.  The first of these, 'Poems Lyrical
+and Pastoral,' included the satire 'The Man in the Moon'; while in
+the second were printed the 'Ballad of Agincourt,' the most spirited
+of English martial lyrics, and that delightful fantasy 'Nymphidia, or
+the Court of Faery,' in which the touch is so light, the fancy so
+dainty, and the conceit so delicate, that the poem remains immortally
+fresh and young.  Because everybody wrote plays, Drayton turned
+playwright, and is said to have collaborated with Massinger and Ford.
+Of his long works, the 'Heroicall Episodes' is perhaps the most
+readable.  His last effort was 'The Muses' Elizium,' published in 1630.
+A year later he died, and was buried in Westminster, where a monument
+was erected to him by the Countess of Dorset.</p>
+
+<p>Drayton's place in English literature is with that considerable and
+not unimportant band who have done somewhat, but whose repute is much
+more for what they were in their friends' eyes than for what they did.
+In an age of great intellectual achievement, he yet managed, in spite
+of the stimulus of kindred minds and his own undoubted gift, to
+produce little that has sustained the reputation accorded him
+by his acquaintances. Most of his work lives chiefly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4879" id="Page_4879">[Pg 4879]</a></span>
+to afford pleasing studies for the literary antiquary, to whom the tide of
+time brings nothing uninteresting. Yet in the art of living, in the unselfish
+devotion of his powers to his chosen calling, in the graces of
+affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so excellent and
+exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard of the most able men
+of the most brilliant period of English literature&mdash;men who felt a
+personal and unrequitable loss when he passed away, and who spoke of
+him always with admiring tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>In person he seems to have been small and dark.  He describes
+himself as of "swart and melancholy face."  Yet his talk was most
+delightful, and a strong proof of his wide popularity appears in the
+fact that he is quoted not less than one hundred and fifty times in
+'England's Parnassus,' published as early as 1600.  The tributes of
+his friends are innumerable, from the "good Rowland" of Barnfield
+to the "golden-mouthed Drayton, musicall," of Fitz-Geoffrey, the
+"man of vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-preserved
+carriage" of Meres, or the tender lines of his friend Ben Jonson:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Do, pious marble, let thy readers know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What they and what their children owe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Drayton's name; whose sacred dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We recommend unto thy trust.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Protect his memory, and preserve his story,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remain a lasting monument of his glory.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when thy ruins shall disclaim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To be the treasurer of his name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His name, that cannot die, shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An everlasting monument to thee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SONNET" id="SONNET"></a>SONNET</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That thus so clearly I myself can free:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And when we meet at any time again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be it not seen in either of our brows<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That we one jot of former love retain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Innocence is closing up his eyes,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4880" id="Page_4880">[Pg 4880]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="AGINCOURT" id="AGINCOURT"></a>THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fair stood the wind for France,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When we our sails advance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor now to prove our chance<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Longer will tarry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But putting to the main,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all his martial train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Landed King Harry.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And taking many a fort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Furnished in warlike sort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Marched towards Agincourt<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In happy hour&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Skirmishing day by day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With those that stopped his way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the French gen'ral lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With all his power.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Which in his height of pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">King Henry to deride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His ransom to provide<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the King sending;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which he neglects the while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As from a nation vile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, with an angry smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their fall portending.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And turning to his men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quoth our brave Henry then:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Though they to one be ten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Be not amazed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet have we well begun&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Battles so bravely won<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have ever to the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By fame been raised.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And for myself," quoth he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"This my full rest shall be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">England ne'er mourn for me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor more esteem me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Victor I will remain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or on this earth lie slain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never shall she sustain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Loss to redeem me.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4881" id="Page_4881">[Pg 4881]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Poitiers and Cressy tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When most their pride did swell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under our swords they fell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No less our skill is<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than when our grandsire great,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Claiming the regal seat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By many a warlike feat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lopped the French lilies."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Duke of York so dread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The eager vaward led;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the main Henry sped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Amongst his henchmen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excester had the rear&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A braver man not there:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Lord! how hot they were<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the false Frenchmen!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They now to fight are gone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Armor on armor shone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drum now to drum did groan&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To hear was wonder;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That with the cries they make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very earth did shake;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trumpet to trumpet spake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thunder to thunder.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well it thine age became,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O noble Erpingham!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which did the signal aim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To our hid forces;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When from a meadow by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a storm suddenly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The English archery<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Struck the French horses,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With Spanish yew so strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arrows a cloth-yard long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That like to serpents stung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Piercing the weather;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None from his fellow starts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But playing manly parts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like true English hearts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stuck close together.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4882" id="Page_4882">[Pg 4882]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When down their bows they threw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And forth their bilbows drew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on the French they flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not one was tardy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arms were from shoulders sent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scalps to the teeth were rent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down the French peasants went;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our men were hardy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This while our noble king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His broadsword brandishing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down the French host did ding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As to o'erwhelm it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a deep wound lent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His arm with blood besprent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a cruel dent<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bruis&egrave;d his helmet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Glo'ster, that duke so good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Next of the royal blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For famous England stood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With his brave brother&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clarence, in steel so bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though but a maiden knight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet in that furious fight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Scarce such another.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Warwick in blood did wade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oxford the foe invade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cruel slaughter made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Still as they ran up.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Suffolk his axe did ply;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beaumont and Willoughby<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bare them right doughtily,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ferrers and Fanhope.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upon Saint Crispin's day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fought was this noble fray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which fame did not delay<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To England to carry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, when shall Englishmen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With such acts fill a pen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or England breed again<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such a King Harry?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4883" id="Page_4883">[Pg 4883]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="MAB" id="MAB"></a>QUEEN MAB'S EXCURSION</h3>
+<h4>From 'Nymphidia, the Court of Faery'</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her chariot ready straight is made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each thing therein is fitting laid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That she by nothing might be stay'd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For naught must her be letting:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Four nimble gnats the horses were,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The harnesses of gossamer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fly Cranion, her charioteer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon the coach-box getting.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which for the colors did excel,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fair Queen Mab becoming well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So lively was the limning;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The seat the soft wool of the bee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cover (gallantly to see)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wing of a py'd butterflee,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I trow, 'twas simple trimming.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The wheels composed of crickets' bones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And daintily made for the nonce;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For fear of rattling on the stones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With thistle-down they shod it:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For all her maidens much did fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If Oberon had chanced to hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Mab his queen should have been there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He would not have abode it.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She mounts her chariot with a trice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor would she stay for no advice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until her maids, that were so nice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To wait on her were fitted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ran away herself alone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which when they heard, there was not one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But hasted after to be gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As she had been diswitted.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Mab their sovereign dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her special maids of honor;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4884" id="Page_4884">[Pg 4884]</a></span><span class="i0">Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The train that wait upon her.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upon a grasshopper they got,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what with amble and with trot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For hedge nor ditch they spar&egrave;d not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But after her they hie them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cobweb over them they throw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shield the wind if it should blow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Themselves they wisely could bestow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lest any should espy them.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4885" id="Page_4885">[Pg 4885]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GUSTAVE_DROZ" id="GUSTAVE_DROZ"></a>GUSTAVE DROZ</h2>
+
+<h4>(1832-1895)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capg223.png" width="90" height="90" alt="G" title="G" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">ustave Droz enjoyed for a time the distinction of being the most
+popular writer of light literature in France, and his fame extended
+throughout Europe and to America, several of his books having been
+translated into English. Essentially a Parisian of the day,&mdash;gay,
+droll, adroit,&mdash;he not only caught and reflected the humor of his
+countrymen, but with a new, fresh touch, reached below the surface of
+their volatile emotions. Occasionally striking the note of deeper
+feeling, he avoided as a rule the more serious sides of life, as well
+as the sensational tendencies of most of his contemporaries. His
+friends claimed for him a distinctive <i>genre</i>, and on that account
+presented him as a candidate for the Academy; but he failed of
+election.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus223.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Gustave Droz" title="Gustave Droz" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Gustave Droz</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The son of a well-known sculptor, he was born in Paris, and followed
+the traditions of his family in entering the &Eacute;cole des Beaux-Arts,
+where he developed some aptitude with his brush; but a preference for
+writing beguiled him from the studio, and an acquaintance with
+Marcellin the illustrator, founder of La Vie Parisienne, led him to
+follow literature. At first he was timid, dreading the test of
+publication, but presently he gave himself up unreservedly to his pen.
+Within a year he was established as a favorite of the people, and his
+friend's journal was on the highway to success. For this he wrote a
+series of sketches of every-day life that were subsequently collected
+and published in book form, under the titles 'Monsieur, Madame, et
+B&eacute;b&eacute;,' 'Entre Nous,' and 'La Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot.'
+Within two years these books had reached their twentieth edition, and of the
+first, nearly one hundred and fifty editions have been demanded since
+it was issued. He has written several novels, the best known of which
+are 'Babolein,' 'Les &Eacute;tangs' (The Ponds), and 'Autour d'une Source'
+(Around a Spring), but they did not fully sustain the reputation gained by
+his short sketches; a fact which induced him in 1884 to return to his
+earlier form in 'Tristesses et Sourires' (Sorrows and Smiles), a volume of light
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4886" id="Page_4886">[Pg 4886]</a></span>
+dissertations on things grave and gay that at once revived his popularity.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiarity of the work of Gustave Droz is its delicacy both
+in humor and pathos. He surprised the French by making them all
+laugh without making any of them wince; the sharp wits of his day
+were forgotten in the unalloyed enjoyment of his simple quaintness,
+in which there was neither affectation nor sarcasm. Yet as has been
+said, he was a Parisian of the Parisians, quick to perceive the ludicrous,
+ready to weep with the afflicted, and to laugh again with the
+happy. His studies of children are among his best, on account
+of their extreme naturalness, and are never uninteresting, despite
+the simplicity of the incidents and observations on which they are
+founded. In 'Le Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot' he has used striking
+colors to paint the petty afflictions that beset most lives; but lest
+these pictures should leave an unpleasant impression, they are set off
+by others of a happier sort, making a collection that constitutes a
+most effective lesson in practical philosophy.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BABY" id="BABY"></a>HOW THE BABY WAS SAVED</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Seamstress's Story'</h4>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ma'm'selle Ad&egrave;le," said the seamstress, "the real happiness of
+this world is not so unevenly distributed after all." Louise, as she
+said this, took from the reserve in the bosom of her dress a lot of
+pins, and applied them deftly to the trimming of a skirt which I was
+holding for her.</p>
+
+<p>"A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I answered; "but it
+does seem to me as if some people were born to live and to die
+unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"It is only folks who never find anybody to love enough; and
+I think it's nobody's fault but their own."</p>
+
+<p>"But my good Louise, wouldn't you have suffered much less
+last year, when you came so near losing your boy, if you hadn't
+cared so much for him?"</p>
+
+<p>I was only drawing her on, you see; Louise's chat was the
+greatest resource to me at that time.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ma'm'selle Ad&egrave;le, you are surely joking. You'd as
+well tell me to cut off my feet to save my shoes. You'll know
+one of these days&mdash;and not so far off neither, maybe&mdash;how
+mighty easy and sensible it would be not to love your children.
+They <i>are</i> a worry, too; but oh the delight of 'em! I'd like to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4887" id="Page_4887">[Pg 4887]</a></span>
+have had anybody tell me not to love my darling because it
+might grieve me, when he lay there in his mother's lap, with
+blue lips, gasping for his breath, and well-nigh dead, his face
+blackish, and his hands like this piece of wax. You could see
+that everything was going against him; and with his great big
+eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if the child was
+tugging at my very heart-strings. I kept smiling at him, though,
+through the tears that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them.
+Oh! such tears are bitter salt indeed, Ma'm'selle! And there
+was my poor husband on his knees, making paper figures to
+amuse him, and singing a funny song he used to laugh at. Now
+and then the corners of his mouth would pucker, and his cheeks
+would wrinkle a little bit under the eyes. You could tell he was
+still amused, but in such a dreamy way. Oh! our child seemed
+no longer with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait a minute.
+You must excuse me, for I can't help crying when I think of it."</p>
+
+<p>And the poor creature drew out her handkerchief and fairly
+sobbed aloud. In the midst of it however she smiled and said:
+"Well, that's over now; 'twas nothing, and I'm too silly. And
+Ma'm'selle, here I've gone and cried upon your mother's dress,
+and that's a pretty business."</p>
+
+<p>I took her hand in mine and pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you afraid you'll stick yourself, Ma'm'selle? I've got
+my needle in that hand," she said playfully. "But you did not
+mean what you said just now, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What did I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That it would be better not to love your children with all
+your heart, on account of the great anxiety. Don't you know
+such thoughts are wicked? When they come into your head
+your mind wants purifying. But I'm sure I beg your pardon
+for saying so."</p>
+
+<p>"You are entirely right, Louise," I returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! so I thought. And now let me see. Let's fix this
+ruche; pull it to the left a little, please."</p>
+
+<p>"But about the sick boy. Tell me about his recovery."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a miracle&mdash;I ought to say two miracles. It was
+a miracle that God restored him to us, and a miracle to find
+anybody with so much knowledge and feeling,&mdash;such talent, such
+a tender heart, and so much, so much&mdash;! I'm speaking of
+the doctor. A famous one he was, too, you must know; for it
+was no less than Doctor Faron. Heaven knows how he is run
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4888" id="Page_4888">[Pg 4888]</a></span>
+after, and how rich and celebrated he is! Aren't you surprised
+to hear that it was he who attended <i>our</i> little boy? Indeed, the
+wonders begin with that. You may imagine my husband was at
+his wits' end when he saw how it was with the child; and all of
+a sudden I saw him jump up, get out his best coat and hat, and
+put them on.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where are you going' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'To bring Doctor Faron.'</p>
+
+<p>"Why, if he had said, 'To bring the Prime Minister,' it
+would have seemed as likely.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you believe Doctor Faron is going to trouble himself
+about such as we. They will turn you out of doors.'</p>
+
+<p>"But 'twas no use talking, my dear. He was already on the
+stairs, and I heard him running away as if the house was on fire.
+Fire, indeed; worse, far worse than any fire!</p>
+
+<p>"And there I was, left alone with the child upon my knees.
+He wouldn't stay in bed, and was quieter so, wrapped up in his
+little blanket. 'Here will he die,' I thought. 'Soon will his
+eyes close, and then it will be all over;' and I held my own
+breath to listen to his feeble and oppressed pantings.</p>
+
+<p>"About an hour had passed, when I heard a rapid step upon
+the stairs (we are poor, and live in attic rooms). The door
+opened, and my husband came in, wet with perspiration and out
+of breath. If I live a century, I'll not forget his look when he
+said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Well?'</p>
+
+<p>"I answered, 'No worse. But the doctor?'</p>
+
+<p>"'He's coming.'</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, those blessed words! It actually seemed as if my child
+were saved already. If you but knew how folks love their little
+ones! I kissed the darling, I kissed his father, I laughed, I
+cried, and I no longer felt the faintest doubt. It is by God's
+mercy that such gleams of hope are sent to strengthen us in our
+trials. It was very foolish, too; for something might easily have
+prevented the doctor's coming, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"'You found him at home, then?' I asked my husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he told me in an undertone what he had done, stopping
+every now and then to wipe his face and gather breath.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"My husband had scarcely uttered these words," continued
+Louise, "when I heard a step on the stairs. It was he! it was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4889" id="Page_4889">[Pg 4889]</a></span>
+that blessed angel of a doctor, come to help us in our sore distress.</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you think he said in his deep voice when he
+got into the room?</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, my friends, but I nearly broke my neck on
+those stairs. Where's that child?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Here he is, my dear, darling doctor.' I knew no better
+way to speak to him, with his dress cravat showing over his
+greatcoat, and his decorations dangling like a little bunch of keys
+at his buttonhole.</p>
+
+<p>"He took off his wrappings, stooped over the child, turned
+him over, more gently even than his mother could have done,
+and laid his own head first against his back, then against his
+breast. How I tried to read his eyes! but they know how to
+hide their thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"'We must perform an operation here,' says he; 'and it is
+high time.'</p>
+
+<p>"Just at this moment the hospital doctor came in, and whispered
+to him, 'I'm afraid you didn't want to be disturbed, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, never mind. I am sorry it wasn't sooner, though. Get
+everything ready now.'</p>
+
+<p>"But Ma'm'selle Ad&egrave;le, why should I tell you all this? I'd
+better mind my work."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, go on, Louise, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, Ma'm'selle, if you believe me, those two doctors&mdash;neither
+of 'em kin, or even friends till then&mdash;went to work and made all the
+preparations, while my husband went off to borrow lights. The biggest
+one tied a mattress on the table, and the assistant spread out the
+bright little knives.</p>
+
+<p>"You who have not been through it all, Ma'm'selle, can't
+know what it is to have your own little one in your lap, to
+know that those things are to be used upon him to pierce his
+tender flesh, and if the hand that guides them be not sure, that
+they may kill him.</p>
+
+<p>"When all was ready, Doctor Faron took off his cravat, then
+lifted my child from my arms and laid him on the mattress, in
+the midst of the lamps, and said to my poor man:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'You will hold his head, and your wife his feet. Joseph
+will pass me the instruments. You've brought a breathing-tube
+with you, my son?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4890" id="Page_4890">[Pg 4890]</a></span>
+"My husband was as white as a sheet by this; and when I
+saw him about to take his place with his hands shaking so much,
+it scared me, so I said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Doctor, please let me hold his head!"</p>
+
+<p>"'But my poor woman, if you should tremble?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Please let me do it, doctor!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Be it so, then;' and then added with a bright look at me,
+and a cheering smile, 'we shall save him for you, my dear; you
+are a brave little woman and you deserve it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and save him he did! God bless him! saved him as
+truly as if he had snatched him from the depths of the river."</p>
+
+<p>"And you didn't tremble, Louise?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may depend on that. If I had, it would have been the
+last of my child."</p>
+
+<p>"How in the world did you keep yourself steady?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord knows; but I was like a rock. When you must,
+you must, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"And you had to behold every detail of that operation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it over since. His
+poor little neck laid open, and the veins, which the doctor pushed
+aside with his fingers, and the little silver tube which he inserted,
+and all that; and then the face of the child, changing as
+the air passed into his lungs. You've seen a lamp almost out,
+when you pour in oil? It was like that. They had laid him
+there but half alive, with his eyes all but set; and they gave
+him back to me, pale and with bloodless lips, it is true, but with
+life in his looks, and breathing&mdash;breathing the free, fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>"'Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, 'and put him to bed.
+Cover the place with some light thing or other, and Joseph must
+stay with you to-night; won't you, Joseph? Ah, well, that's all
+arranged.'</p>
+
+<p>"He put on his things and wrapped himself up to go. He
+was shaking hands with my husband, when I seized one hand,
+and kissed it&mdash;like a fool, as I was; but I didn't stop to think.
+He laughed heartily, and said to my husband, 'Are you not
+jealous, friend? Your wife is making great advances to me.
+But I must be off now. Good night, good people.'</p>
+
+<p>"And from that night he always talks so friendly and familiarly
+to us, not a bit contemptuously either, but as if he liked
+us, and was glad to be of service to us."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4891" id="Page_4891">[Pg 4891]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="FAMILY" id="FAMILY"></a>A FAMILY NEW-YEAR'S</h3>
+<h4>From 'Monsieur, Madame, and Baby'</h4>
+
+
+<p>It is barely seven o'clock. A pale ray of wan light filters
+through the double curtains, and some one is already at the
+door. In the next room I hear the stifled laughs and silvery
+voice of my little child, who trembles with impatience and begs
+to come.</p>
+
+<p>"But father dear," he cries, "it's Baby. It's your own little
+boy&mdash;to wish you 'Happy New Year.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, darling; come quick and give me a kiss," I cry.</p>
+
+<p>The door opens, and my boy, with shining eyes and his arms
+in the air, rushes toward the bed. Long curls, escaping from
+the nightcap which imprisons his blond head, fall over his forehead.
+His loose night-shirt, embarrassing his little feet, adds to
+his impatience and makes him trip at every step. He has
+crossed the room at last, and stretching his hands toward mine,
+"Baby wishes you a happy New Year," he says earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor darling, with his bare feet! Come, dear! Come and
+get warm under the covers; come and hide in the quilt."</p>
+
+<p>I draw him to me; but at this movement my wife wakes up
+suddenly.... "How you frightened me! I was dreaming
+that there was a fire, and these voices in the midst of it! You
+are indiscreet with your cries!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Our</i> cries! So you forget, dear mamma, that this is New-Year's
+day. Baby is waiting for you to wake up, and so am I."</p>
+
+<p>I wrap up my little man in the soft quilt, I bury him in the
+eiderdown, and warm his frozen feet with my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother dear, this is New Year," he cries. He draws our
+two heads together with his arms, and kisses us anywhere at
+random, with his fresh lips. I feel his dimpled hand wandering
+about my neck; his little fingers are entangled in my beard. My
+mustache pricks the end of his nose. He bursts out laughing,
+and throws his head back.</p>
+
+<p>His mother, who has recovered from her fright, draws him
+into her arms. She pulls the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"The year begins well, my dears," she says, "but we need a
+little light."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, mamma, do naughty children have presents at New-Year's?"
+says the young dissembler, with an eye on the mountain of boxes and
+packages visible in the corner, in spite of the gloom.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4892" id="Page_4892">[Pg 4892]</a></span>
+The curtains are drawn apart, the blinds are opened, there is
+a flood of daylight, the fire crackles gayly on the hearth, and two
+large packages, carefully wrapped up, are placed on the bed. One
+is for my wife; the other for the boy.</p>
+
+<p>What is it? What will it be? I have heaped up knots, and
+tripled the wrappings; and I watch with delight their nervous
+fingers, lost in the strings.</p>
+
+<p>My wife gets impatient, smiles, is vexed, kisses me, and asks
+for scissors. Baby on his side bites his lips, pulls with all his
+might, and at last asks me to help him. He longs to see through
+the paper. Desire and expectation are painted on his face. The
+convulsive movement of his hand in the folds of the quilt rustles
+the silk, and he makes a sound with his lips as though a savory
+fruit were approaching them.</p>
+
+<p>The last paper is off, finally the cover is lifted, there is an
+outcry of joy.</p>
+
+<p>"My tippet!"</p>
+
+<p>"My menagerie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like my muff,&mdash;my dear husband!"</p>
+
+<p>"With a real shepherd, on wheels, dear papa, <i>how</i> I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>They hug me, four arms at once wind round and press me
+close.  I am stirred&mdash;a tear comes to my eyes; two come to
+those of my wife; and Baby, who loses his head, utters a sob as
+he kisses my hand.</p>
+
+<p>How absurd! you will say. I don't know whether it is absurd
+or not, but it is charming, I promise you. After all, does not
+sorrow wring tears enough from us to make up for the solitary
+one which joy may call forth? Life is less happy when one
+chances it alone; and when the heart is empty, the way seems
+long. It is so good to feel one's self loved; to hear the regular
+steps of one's fellow travelers beside one; and to think, "They
+are there, our three hearts beat together;" and once a year,
+when the great clock strikes the first of January, to sit down beside
+the way with hands clasped together and eyes fixed upon
+the dusty unknown road stretching on to the horizon, and to
+embrace and say:&mdash;"We will always love each other, my dear
+ones; you depend upon me and I on you. Let us trust and keep
+straight on."</p>
+
+<p>And that is how I explain that we weep a little in looking at
+a tippet and opening a menagerie.</p>
+
+<p class="trans">Translated by Jane G. Cooke, for 'A Library of The World's Best
+Literature.'</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4893" id="Page_4893">[Pg 4893]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="EXCURSION" id="EXCURSION"></a>THEIR LAST EXCURSION</h3>
+<h4>From 'Making an Omelette': from Lippincott's Magazine, 1871, copyrighted</h4>
+
+
+<p>In this strange, rude interior, how refined and delicate Louise
+looked, with all her dainty appointments of long undressed
+kid gloves, jaunty boots, and looped-up petticoat! While I
+talked to the wood-cutters she shielded her face from the fire
+with her hands, and kept her eye on the butter beginning to
+sing in the pan.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she rose, and taking the pan-handle from the old
+woman, said, "Let me help you make the omelette, will you?"
+The good woman let go with a smile, and Louise found herself
+alone, in the attitude of a fisherman who has just had a nibble.
+She stood in the full light of the fire, her eyes fixed on the
+melted butter, her arms tense with effort; she was biting her
+lips, probably in order to increase her strength.</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather hard on madame's little hands," said the old
+man. "I bet it's the first time you ever made an omelette in a
+wood-cutter's hut&mdash;isn't it, my young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>Louise nodded yes, without turning her eyes from the omelette.</p>
+
+<p>"The eggs! the eggs!" she suddenly exclaimed, with such a
+look of uneasiness that we all burst out laughing&mdash;"hurry with
+the eggs! The butter is all puffing up! Be quick&mdash;or I can't
+answer for the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman beat the eggs energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"The herbs!" cried the old man. "The lard and salt!" cried the young
+ones. And they all set to work chopping, cutting, piling up, while
+Louise, stamping with excitement, called out, "Make haste! make
+haste!" Then there was a tremendous bubbling in the pan, and the great
+work began. We were all round the fire, gazing with an anxious
+interest inspired by our all having had a finger in the pie.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman, on her knees beside a large dish, slipped a knife under
+the edge of the omelette, which was turning a fine brown. "Now,
+madame, you've only got to turn it over," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Just one little quick blow," suggested the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Mustn't be violent," counseled the young one.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4894" id="Page_4894">[Pg 4894]</a></span>
+"All at once; tip with it, dear!" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"If you all talk at once&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Make haste, madame!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you all talk at once I never shall manage it. It is too awfully
+heavy."</p>
+
+<p>"One quick little blow."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't; it's going over. Oh gracious!"</p>
+
+<p>In the heat of action, her hood had fallen off. Her cheeks were like a
+peach, her eyes shone, and though she lamented her fate, she burst
+into peals of laughter. At last by a supreme effort the pan moved, and
+the omelette rolled over, somewhat heavily, I confess, into the large
+dish which the old woman was holding. Never did an omelette look
+better!</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure the young lady's arms must be tired," said the old man, as
+he began cutting a round loaf into enormous slices.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, not so very," my wife answered with a merry laugh; "only I am
+crazy to taste my&mdash;our omelette."</p>
+
+<p>We had seated ourselves round the table. When we had eaten and drunk
+with the good souls, we rose and made ready to go home. The sun had
+set, and the whole family came out of the cabin to see us off and say
+good-night.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want my son to go with you?" the old woman called after us.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing dark and chilly under the trees, and we gradually
+quickened our pace. "Those are happy people," said Louise. "We will
+come some morning and breakfast with them,&mdash;shan't we? We can put the
+baby in one of the donkey panniers, and in the other a large pasty and
+a bottle of wine.&mdash;You are not afraid of losing your way, George?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear; no fear of that."</p>
+
+<p>"A pasty and a bottle of wine&mdash;What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing; the stump of a tree."</p>
+
+<p>"The stump of a tree&mdash;the stump of a tree," she muttered. "Don't you
+hear something behind us?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is only the wind in the leaves, or the breaking of a dead branch."</p>
+
+<p>He is fortunate who at night, in the heart of a forest, feels as calm
+as at his own fireside. You do not tremble, but you feel the silence.
+Involuntarily you look for eyes peering out of the darkness, and you
+try to define the confused forms appearing and changing every minute.
+Something breaks and sounds beneath
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4895" id="Page_4895">[Pg 4895]</a></span>
+your tread, and if you stop you hear the distant melancholy howl of
+your watch-dog, the scream of an owl, and other noises, far and near,
+not so easily explained. A sense of strangeness surrounds you and
+weighs you down. If you are alone, you walk faster; if there are two
+of you, you draw close to your companion. My wife clung to my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us turn wood-cutters. We could build a pretty little hut, simple,
+but nice enough. I would have curtains to the windows, and a carpet,
+and put my piano in one corner." She spoke very low, and occasionally
+I felt my hand tremble on her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You would soon get enough of that, dearest."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't fair to say so." And in another minute she went on:&mdash;"You
+think I don't love you, you and our boy? Oh yes, dear, I love you.
+Yes, yes, yes! The happiness that comes every day can't be expressed:
+we live on it, so we don't think of it. Like our daily bread&mdash;who
+thinks of that? But when you are thinking of yourself, when you put
+your head down, and really think, then you say, 'I am ungrateful, for
+I am happy, and I give no thanks for it.' Or when we are alone
+together, and walking arm-in-arm, now, at this very moment,&mdash;not that
+I mean only this moment,&mdash;I love you, I love you." She put her head
+down on my arm and pressed it earnestly. "Oh," she said, "if I were to
+lose you!" She spoke very low, as if afraid. What had frightened her?
+The darkness and the forest, or her own words?</p>
+
+<p>She went on:&mdash;"I have often and often dreamed that I was saying
+good-by to you. You both cried, and I pressed you so close to my heart
+that there was only one of us. It was a nightmare, you know, but I
+don't mind it, for it showed me that my life was in your lives, dear.
+What is that cracking noise? Didn't you see something just in front of
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>I answered her by taking her in my arms and folding her to my heart.
+We walked on, but it was impossible to go on talking. Every now and
+then she would stop and say, "Hush! hark! No, it is nothing."</p>
+
+<p>At last we saw ahead of us a little light, now visible, now hidden by
+a tree. It was the lamp set for us in our parlor window. We crossed
+the stile and were at home. It was high time, for we were wet through.</p>
+
+<p>I brought a huge log, and when the fire had blazed up
+we sat down in the great chimney-place. The poor girl was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4896" id="Page_4896">[Pg 4896]</a></span>
+shivering. I took off her boots and held her feet to the fire, screening them with my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, dear George, thanks!" she said, leaning on my shoulder and
+looking at me so tenderly that I felt almost ready to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you saying to me in that horrid wood, my darling?" I asked
+her, when she was better.</p>
+
+<p>"You are thinking about that? I was frightened, that is all, and when
+you are frightened you see ghosts."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be wood-cutters, shan't we?"</p>
+
+<p>And kissing me, with a laugh, she replied: "It is bedtime, Jean of the
+Woods."</p>
+
+<p>I well remember that walk, for it was our last. Often and often since,
+at sunset on a dark day, I have been over the same ground; often and
+often I have stopped where she stood, and stooped and pulled aside the
+fern, seeking to find, poor fool that I am! the traces of her vanished
+footsteps. And I have often halted in the clearing under the birches
+which rained down on us, and there in the shadow I have fancied I
+caught the flutter of her dress; I have thought I heard her startled
+note of fright. And on my way home at night, at every step I have
+found a recollection of her in the distant barking and the breaking
+branches, as in the trembling of her hand on my arm and the kiss which
+I gave her.</p>
+
+<p>Once I went into the wood-hut. I saw it all as before,&mdash;the family,
+the smoky interior, the little bench on which we sat,&mdash;and I asked for
+something to drink, that I might see the glass her lips had touched.</p>
+
+<p>"The little lady who makes such good omelettes, she isn't sick, for
+sure?" asked the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>Probably she saw the tears in my eyes, for she said no more, and I
+came away.</p>
+
+<p>And so it is that except in my heart, where she lives and is, all that
+was my darling grows faint and dark and dim.</p>
+
+<p>It is the law of life, but it is a cruel law. Even my poor child is
+learning to forget, and when I say to him most unwillingly, "Baby
+dear, do you remember how your mother did this or that?" he answers
+"Yes"; but I see, alas! that he too is ceasing to remember.</p>
+
+<p class="trans">Translation of Agnes Irwin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4897" id="Page_4897">[Pg 4897]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="HENRY_DRUMMOND" id="HENRY_DRUMMOND"></a>HENRY DRUMMOND</h2>
+
+<h4>(1851-)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capo235.png" width="90" height="90" alt="O" title="O" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">ne of the most widely read of modern essayists, Henry Drummond, was
+born at Stirling, Scotland, in 1851. Educated for the ministry, he
+passed through the Universities of Edinburgh and T&uuml;bingen, and the
+Free Church Divinity Hall, and after ordination was appointed to a
+mission chapel at Malta. The beauty and the historic interest of the
+famous island roused in him a desire for travel, and in the intervals
+of his professional work he has made semi-scientific pilgrimages to
+the Rocky Mountains and to South Africa, as well as lecturing tours to
+Canada, Australia, and the United States, where his addresses on
+scientific, religious, and sociological subjects have attracted large
+audiences.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus235.png" width="180" height="220" alt="Henry Drummond" title="Henry Drummond" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Henry Drummond</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>A man of indefatigable industry, he has published many books, the most
+widely read of these being 'Natural Law in the Spiritual World' a
+study of psychological conditions from the point of view of the
+Evolutionist. This work has passed through a large number of editions,
+and been translated into French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian.
+Scarcely less popular were 'The Greatest Thing in the World' (love),
+and 'Pax Vobiscum.' In 1894 he published a volume called 'The Ascent
+of Man,' in which he insists that certain altruistic factors modify
+the process of Natural Selection. This doctrine elicited much critical
+commentary from the stricter sects of the scientists, but the new view
+commended itself at once to the general reader.</p>
+
+<p>The citations here given are selected from Mr. Drummond's book of
+travels, 'Tropical Africa,' a book whose simplicity and vividness
+enable the reader to see the Dark Continent exactly as it is.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4898" id="Page_4898">[Pg 4898]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="AFRICA" id="AFRICA"></a>THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Tropical Africa'</h4>
+
+<p>Nothing could more wildly misrepresent the reality than the idea of
+one's school days that the heart of Africa is a desert. Africa rises
+from its three environing oceans in three great tiers, and the general
+physical geography of these has been already sketched:&mdash;first, a coast
+line, low and deadly; farther in, a plateau the height of the Scottish
+Grampians; farther in still, a higher plateau, covering the country
+for thousands of miles with mountain and valley. Now fill in this
+sketch, and you have Africa before you. Cover the coast belt with rank
+yellow grass; dot here and there a palm; scatter through it a few
+demoralized villages; and stock it with the leopard, the hyena, the
+crocodile, and the hippopotamus. Clothe the mountainous plateaux next,
+both of them, with endless forests; not grand umbrageous forest like
+the forests of South America, nor matted jungle like the forests of
+India, but with thin, rather weak forest,&mdash;with forest of low trees,
+whose half-grown trunks and scanty leaves offer no shade from the
+tropical sun. Nor is there anything in these trees to the casual eye
+to remind you that you are in the tropics. Here and there one comes
+upon a borassus or fan-palm, a candelabra-like euphorbia, a mimosa
+aflame with color, or a sepulchral baobab. A close inspection also
+will discover curious creepers and climbers; and among the branches
+strange orchids hide their eccentric flowers. But the outward type of
+tree is the same as we have at home&mdash;trees resembling the ash, the
+beech, and the elm, only seldom so large except by the streams, and
+never so beautiful. Day after day you may wander through these
+forests, with nothing except the climate to remind you where you are.
+The beasts to be sure are different, but unless you watch for them you
+will seldom see any; the birds are different, but you rarely hear
+them; and as for the rocks, they are our own familiar gneisses and
+granites, with honest basalt dikes boring through them, and
+leopard-skin lichens staining their weathered sides. Thousands and
+thousands of miles, then, of vast thin forest, shadeless, trackless,
+voiceless,&mdash;forest in mountain and forest in plain,&mdash;this is East
+Central Africa.</p>
+
+<p>The indiscriminate praise, formerly lavished on tropical
+vegetation, has received many shocks from recent travelers. In
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4899" id="Page_4899">[Pg 4899]</a></span>
+Kaffir-land, South Africa, I have seen one or two forests fine enough to justify
+the enthusiasm of arm-chair word-painters of the tropics; but so far as
+the central plateau is concerned, the careful judgment of Mr. Alfred
+Russell Wallace respecting the equatorial belt in general (a judgment
+which has at once sobered all modern descriptions of tropical lands
+and made imaginative people more content to stay at home) applies
+almost to this whole area. The fairy labyrinth of ferns and palms, the
+festoons of climbing plants blocking the paths and scenting the
+forests with their resplendent flowers, the gorgeous clouds of
+insects, the gayly plumaged birds, the paroquets, the monkey swinging
+from his trapeze in the shaded bowers&mdash;these are unknown to Africa.
+Once a week you will see a palm; once in three months the monkey will
+cross your path; the flowers on the whole are few; the trees are poor;
+and to be honest, though the endless forest-clad mountains have a
+sublimity of their own, and though there are tropical bits along some
+of the mountain streams of exquisite beauty, nowhere is there anything
+in grace and sweetness and strength to compare with a Highland glen.
+For the most part of the year these forests are jaded and
+sun-stricken, carpeted with no moss or alchemylla or scented woodruff,
+the bare trunks frescoed with few lichens, their motionless and
+unrefreshed leaves drooping sullenly from their sapless boughs.
+Flowers there are, small and great, in endless variety; but there is
+no display of flowers, no gorgeous show of blossom in the mass, as
+when the blazing gorse and heather bloom at home. The dazzling glare
+of the sun in the torrid zone has perhaps something to do with this
+want of color effect in tropical nature; for there is always about ten
+minutes just after sunset when the whole tone of the landscape changes
+like magic, and a singular beauty steals over the scene. This is the
+sweetest moment of the African day, and night hides only too swiftly
+the homelike softness and repose so strangely grateful to the
+over-stimulated eye.</p>
+
+<p>Hidden away in these endless forests, like birds' nests in a wood, in
+terror of one another and of their common foe the slaver, are small
+native villages; and here in his virgin simplicity dwells primeval
+man, without clothes, without civilization, without learning, without
+religion&mdash;the genuine child of nature, thoughtless, careless, and
+contented. This man is apparently quite happy; he has practically no wants.
+One stick, pointed, makes him a spear; two sticks rubbed together make him a fire; fifty
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4900" id="Page_4900">[Pg 4900]</a></span>
+sticks tied together make him a house. The bark he peels from them
+makes his clothes; the fruits which hang on them form his food. It is
+perfectly astonishing, when one thinks of it, what nature can do for
+the animal man, to see with what small capital after all a human being
+can get through the world. I once saw an African buried. According to
+the custom of his tribe, his entire earthly possessions&mdash;and he
+was an average commoner&mdash;were buried with him. Into the grave,
+after the body, was lowered the dead man's pipe, then a rough knife,
+then a mud bowl, and last his bow and arrows&mdash;the bowstring cut
+through the middle, a touching symbol that its work was done. This was
+all. Four items, as an auctioneer would say, were the whole belongings
+for half a century of this human being. No man knows what a man is
+till he has seen what a man can be without, and be withal a man. That
+is to say, no man knows how great man is till he has seen how small he
+has been once.</p>
+
+<p>The African is often blamed for being lazy, but it is a misuse of
+words. He does not need to work; with so bountiful a Nature round him
+it would be gratuitous to work. And his indolence, therefore, as it is
+called, is just as much a part of himself as his flat nose, and as
+little blameworthy as slowness in a tortoise. The fact is, Africa is a
+nation of the unemployed.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="LAKE" id="LAKE"></a>THE EAST-AFRICAN LAKE COUNTRY</h3>
+<h4>From 'Tropical Africa'</h4>
+
+<p>Somewhere in the Shir&eacute; Highlands, in 1859, Livingstone saw a large
+lake&mdash;Lake Shirwa&mdash;which is still almost unknown. It lies away to the
+east, and is bounded by a range of mountains whose lofty summits are
+visible from the hills round Blantyre. Thinking it might be a useful
+initiation to African travel if I devoted a short time to its exploration,
+I set off one morning, accompanied by two members of the Blantyre
+staff and a small retinue of natives. Steering across country in the
+direction in which it lay, we found, two days before seeing the actual
+water, that we were already on the ancient bed of the lake. Though now
+clothed with forest, the whole district has obviously been under water
+at a comparatively recent period, and the shores of Lake Shirwa probably
+reached at one time to within a few miles of Blantyre itself. On reaching the lake a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4901" id="Page_4901">[Pg 4901]</a></span>
+very aged female chief came to see us, and told us how, long, long
+ago, a white man came to her village and gave her a present of cloth.
+Of the white man, who must have been Livingstone, she spoke very
+kindly; and indeed, wherever David Livingstone's footsteps are crossed
+in Africa, the fragrance of his memory seems to remain.</p>
+
+<p>The waters of Shirwa are brackish to the taste, and undrinkable; but
+the saltness must have a peculiar charm for game, for nowhere else in
+Africa did I see such splendid herds of the larger animals as here.
+The zebra was especially abundant; and so unaccustomed to be disturbed
+are these creatures, that with a little care one could watch their
+movements safely within a very few yards. It may seem unorthodox to
+say so, but I do not know if among the larger animals there is
+anything handsomer in creation than the zebra. At close quarters his
+striped coat is all but as fine as the tiger's, while the form and
+movement of his body are in every way nobler. The gait, certainly, is
+not to be compared for gracefulness with that of the many species of
+antelope and deer who nibble the grass beside him, and one can never
+quite forget that scientifically he is an ass; but taking him all in
+all, this fleet and beautiful animal ought to have a higher place in
+the regard of man than he has yet received.</p>
+
+<p>We were much surprised, considering that this region is almost
+uninhabited, to discover near the lake shore a native path so beaten,
+and so recently beaten, by multitudes of human feet, that it could
+only represent some trunk route through the continent. Following it
+for a few miles, we soon discovered its function. It was one of the
+great slave routes through Africa. Signs of the horrid traffic became
+visible on every side; and from symmetrical arrangements of small
+piles of stones and freshly cut twigs, planted semaphore-wise upon the
+path, our native guides made out that a slave caravan was actually
+passing at the time. We were in fact between two portions of it, the
+stones and twigs being telegraphic signals between front and rear. Our
+natives seemed much alarmed at this discovery, and refused to proceed
+unless we promised not to interfere&mdash;a proceeding which, had we
+attempted it, would simply have meant murder for ourselves and slavery
+for them. Next day from a hill-top we saw the slave encampment far
+below, and the ghastly procession marshaling for its march to the
+distant coast, which many of the hundreds who composed it would never
+reach alive.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4902" id="Page_4902">[Pg 4902]</a></span>
+Talking of native foot-paths leads me to turn aside for a moment, to
+explain to the uninitiated the true mode of African travel. In spite
+of all the books that have been lavished upon us by our great
+explorers, few people seem to have any accurate understanding of this
+most simple process. Some have the impression that everything is done
+in bullock wagons; an idea borrowed from the Cape, but hopelessly
+inapplicable to Central Africa, where a wheel at present would be as
+great a novelty as a polar bear. Others, at the opposite extreme,
+suppose that the explorer works along solely by compass, making a
+bee-line for his destination, and steering his caravan through the
+trackless wilderness like a ship at sea. Now, it may be a surprise to
+the unenlightened to learn that probably no explorer in forcing his
+passage through Africa has ever, for more than a few days at a time,
+been off some beaten track. Probably no country in the world,
+civilized or uncivilized, is better supplied with paths than this
+unmapped continent. Every village is connected with some other
+village, every tribe with the next tribe, every State with its
+neighbor, and therefore with all the rest. The explorer's business is
+simply to select from this network of tracks, keep a general
+direction, and hold on his way. Let him begin at Zanzibar, plant his
+foot on a native foot-path, and set his face towards Tanganyika. In
+eight months he will be there. He has simply to persevere. From
+village to village he will be handed on, zig-zagging it may be,
+sometimes, to avoid the impassable barriers of nature or the rarer
+perils of hostile tribes; but never taking to the woods, never guided
+solely by the stars, never in fact leaving a beaten track, till
+hundreds and hundreds of miles are between him and the sea, and his
+interminable foot-path ends with a canoe on the shores of Tanganyika.
+Crossing the lake, landing near some native village, he picks up the
+thread once more. Again he plods on and on, now on foot, now by canoe,
+but always keeping his line of villages, until one day suddenly he
+sniffs the sea-breeze again, and his faithful foot-wide guide lands
+him on the Atlantic seaboard.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is there any art in finding out these successive villages with
+their intercommunicating links. He <i>must</i> find them out. A whole army
+of guides, servants, carriers, soldiers, and camp-followers accompany him
+in his march, and this nondescript regiment must be fed. Indian corn, cassava,
+mawere, beans, and bananas&mdash;these do not grow wild even in Africa. Every meal
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4903" id="Page_4903">[Pg 4903]</a></span>
+has to be bought and paid for in cloth and
+beads; and scarcely three days can pass without a call having to be
+made at some village where the necessary supplies can be obtained. A
+caravan, as a rule, must live from hand to mouth, and its march
+becomes simply a regulated procession through a chain of markets. Not
+however that there are any real markets&mdash;there are neither bazaars nor
+stores in native Africa. Thousands of the villages through which the
+traveler eats his way may never have victualed a caravan before. But
+with the chief's consent, which is usually easily purchased for a
+showy present, the villagers unlock their larders, the women flock to
+the grinding-stones, and basketfuls of food are swiftly exchanged for
+unknown equivalents in beads and calico.</p>
+
+<p>The native tracks which I have just described are the same in
+character all over Africa. They are veritable foot-paths, never over a
+foot in breadth, beaten as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath the
+level of the forest bed by centuries of native traffic. As a rule
+these foot-paths are marvelously direct. Like the roads of the old
+Romans, they run straight on through everything, ridge and mountain
+and valley, never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to
+breathe. Yet within this general straightforwardness there is a
+singular eccentricity and indirectness in detail. Although the African
+foot-path is on the whole a bee-line, no fifty yards of it are ever
+straight. And the reason is not far to seek. If a stone is
+encountered, no native will ever think of removing it. Why should he?
+It is easier to walk round it. The next man who comes that way will do
+the same. He knows that a hundred men are following him; he looks at
+the stone; a moment, and it might be unearthed and tossed aside, but
+no&mdash;he also holds on his way. It is not that he resents the trouble,
+it is the idea that is wanting. It would no more occur to him that
+that stone was a displaceable object, and that for the general weal he
+might displace it, than that its feldspar was of the orthoclase
+variety. Generations and generations of men have passed that stone,
+and it still waits for a man with an altruistic idea. But it would be
+a very stony country indeed&mdash;and Africa is far from stony&mdash;that would
+wholly account for the aggravating obliqueness and indecision of the
+African foot-path. Probably each four miles, on an average path, is
+spun out, by an infinite series of minor sinuosities, to five or six.
+Now, these deflections are not meaningless. Each has some history&mdash;a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4904" id="Page_4904">[Pg 4904]</a></span>
+history dating back perhaps a thousand years, but to which all clue
+has centuries ago been lost. The leading cause probably is fallen
+trees. When a tree falls across a path no man ever removes it. As in
+the case of the stone, the native goes round it. It is too green to
+burn in his hut; before it is dry and the white ants have eaten it,
+the new detour has become part and parcel of the path. The smaller
+irregularities, on the other hand, represent the trees and stumps of
+the primeval forest where the track was made at first. But whatever
+the cause, it is certain that for persistent straightforwardness in
+the general, and utter vacillation and irresolution in the particular,
+the African roads are unique in engineering.</p>
+
+<p>Though one of the smaller African lakes, Shirwa is probably larger
+than all the lakes of Great Britain put together. With the splendid
+environment of mountains on three of its sides, softened and distanced
+by perpetual summer haze, it reminds one somewhat of the Great Salt
+Lake simmering in the July sun. We pitched our tent for a day or two
+on its western shore, among a harmless and surprised people who had
+never gazed on the pallid countenances of Englishmen before. Owing to
+the ravages of the slaver, the people of Shirwa are few, scattered,
+and poor, and live in abiding terror. The densest population is to be
+found on the small island, heavily timbered with baobabs, which forms
+a picturesque feature of the northern end. These Wa-Nyassa, or people
+of the lake, as they call themselves, have been driven away by fear,
+and they rarely leave their lake dwelling unless under cover of night.
+Even then they are liable to capture by any man of a stronger tribe
+who happens to meet them, and numbers who have been kidnapped in this
+way are to be found in the villages of neighboring chiefs. This is an
+amenity of existence in Africa that strikes one as very terrible. It
+is impossible for those at home to understand how literally savage man
+is a chattel, and how much his life is spent in the mere safeguarding
+of his main asset, <i>i. e.</i>, himself. There are actually districts in
+Africa where <i>three</i> natives cannot be sent on a message, in case two
+should combine and sell the third before they return.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4905" id="Page_4905">[Pg 4905]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="ANTS" id="ANTS"></a>WHITE ANTS</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Tropical Africa'</h4>
+
+<p>The termite or white ant is a small insect, with a bloated,
+yellowish-white body, and a somewhat large thorax, oblong-shaped, and
+colored a disagreeable oily brown. The flabby, tallow-like body makes
+this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is for quite another reason
+that the white ant is the worst abused of all living vermin in warm
+countries. The termite lives almost exclusively upon wood; and the
+moment a tree is cut or a log sawn for any economical purpose, this
+insect is upon its track. One may never see the insect, possibly, in
+the flesh, for it lives underground; but its ravages confront one at
+every turn. You build your house perhaps, and for a few months fancy
+you have pitched upon the one solitary site in the country where there
+are no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and
+lintel and rafters come down together with a crash. You look at a
+section of the wrecked timbers, and discover that the whole inside is
+eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which the rest of the
+house is built are now mere cylinders of bark, and through the
+thickest of them you could push your little finger. Furniture, tables,
+chairs, chests of drawers, everything made of wood, is inevitably
+attacked, and in a single night a strong trunk is often riddled
+through and through, and turned into matchwood. There is no limit, in
+fact, to the depredation by these insects, and they will eat books, or
+leather, or cloth, or anything; and in many parts of Africa I believe
+if a man lay down to sleep with a wooden leg, it would be a heap of
+sawdust in the morning. So much feared is this insect now, that no one
+in certain parts of India and Africa ever attempts to travel with such
+a thing as a wooden trunk. On the Tanganyika plateau I have camped on
+ground which was as hard as adamant, and as innocent of white ants
+apparently as the pavement of St. Paul's; and wakened next morning to
+find a stout wooden box almost gnawed to pieces. Leather portmanteaus
+share the same fate, and the only substances which seem to defy the
+marauders are iron and tin.</p>
+
+<p>But what has this to do with earth or with agriculture? The most
+important point in the work of the white ant remains to be
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4906" id="Page_4906">[Pg 4906]</a></span>
+noted. I have already said that the white ant is never seen. Why he
+should have such a repugnance to being looked at is at first sight a
+mystery, seeing that he himself is stone blind. But his coyness is
+really due to the desire for self-protection; for the moment his juicy
+body shows itself above ground there are a dozen enemies waiting to
+devour it. And yet the white ant can never procure any food until it
+comes above ground. Nor will it meet the case for the insect to come
+to the surface under the shadow of night. Night in the tropics, so far
+as animal life is concerned, is as the day. It is the great
+feeding-time, the great fighting-time, the carnival of the carnivores,
+and of all beasts, birds, and insects of prey, from the least to the
+greatest. It is clear then that darkness is no protection to the white
+ant; and yet without coming out of the ground it cannot live. How does
+it solve the difficulty? It takes the ground out along with it. I have
+seen white ants working on the top of a high tree, and yet they were
+underground. They took up some of the ground with them to the
+tree-top; just as the Esquimaux heap up snow, building it into the low
+tunnel-huts in which they live, so the white ants collect earth, only
+in this case not from the surface, but from some depth underneath the
+ground, and plaster it into tunneled ways. Occasionally these run
+along the ground, but more often mount in endless ramifications to the
+top of trees, meandering along every branch and twig, and here and
+there debouching into large covered chambers which occupy half the
+girth of the trunk. Millions of trees in some districts are thus
+fantastically plastered over with tubes, galleries, and chambers of
+earth, and many pounds' weight of subsoil must be brought up for the
+mining of even a single tree. The building material is conveyed by the
+insects up a central pipe with which all the galleries communicate,
+and which at the downward end connects with a series of subterranean
+passages leading deep into the earth. The method of building the
+tunnels and covered ways is as follows: At the foot of a tree the
+tiniest hole cautiously opens in the ground close to the bark. A small
+head appears, with a grain of earth clasped in its jaws. Against the
+tree trunk this earth-grain is deposited, and the head is withdrawn.
+Presently it reappears with another grain of earth; this is laid
+beside the first, rammed tight against it, and again the builder
+descends underground for more. The third grain is not placed against
+the tree, but against the former grain; a fourth, a fifth,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4907" id="Page_4907">[Pg 4907]</a></span>
+and a sixth follow, and the plan of the foundation begins to suggest
+itself as soon as these are in position. The stones or grains or
+pellets of earth are arranged in a semicircular wall; the termite, now
+assisted by three or four others, standing in the middle between the
+sheltering wall and the tree, and working briskly with head and
+mandible to strengthen the position. The wall in fact forms a small
+moon-rampart, and as it grows higher and higher it soon becomes
+evident that it is going to grow from a low battlement into a long
+perpendicular tunnel running up the side of the tree. The workers,
+safely ensconced inside, are now carrying up the structure with great
+rapidity, disappearing in turn as soon as they have laid their stone,
+and rushing off to bring up another. The way in which the building is
+done is extremely curious, and one could watch the movement of these
+wonderful little masons by the hour. Each stone as it is brought to
+the top is first of all covered with mortar. Of course, without this
+the whole tunnel would crumble into dust before reaching the height of
+half an inch; but the termite pours over the stone a moist sticky
+secretion, turning the grain round and round with its mandibles until
+the whole is covered with slime. Then it places the stone with great
+care upon the top of the wall, works it about vigorously for a moment
+or two till it is well jammed into its place, and then starts off
+instantly for another load.</p>
+
+<p>Peering over the growing wall, one soon discovers one, two, or more
+termites of a somewhat larger build, considerably longer, and with a
+very different arrangement of the parts of the head, and especially of
+the mandibles. These important-looking individuals saunter about the
+rampart in the most leisurely way, but yet with a certain air of
+business, as if perhaps the one was the master of works and the other
+the architect. But closer observation suggests that they are in no
+wise superintending operations, nor in any immediate way contributing
+to the structure, for they take not the slightest notice either of the
+workers or the works. They are posted there in fact as sentries; and
+there they stand, or promenade about, at the mouth of every tunnel,
+like Sister Anne, to see if anybody is coming. Sometimes somebody does
+come, in the shape of another ant; the real ant this time, not the
+defenseless <i>Neuropteron</i>, but some valiant and belted knight
+from the warlike <i>Formicid&aelig;</i>. Singly or in troops, this
+rapacious little insect, fearless in its chitinous coat of mail,
+charges down the tree trunk, its antenn&aelig; waving defiance
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4908" id="Page_4908">[Pg 4908]</a></span>
+to the enemy and its cruel mandibles thirsting for termite blood. The
+worker white ant is a poor defenseless creature, and blind and
+unarmed, would fall an immediate prey to these well-drilled banditti,
+who forage about in every tropical forest in unnumbered legion. But at
+the critical moment, like Goliath from the Philistines, the soldier
+termite advances to the fight. With a few sweeps of its scythe-like
+jaws it clears the ground, and while the attacking party is carrying
+off its dead, the builders, unconscious of the fray, quietly continue
+their work. To every hundred workers in a white-ant colony, which
+numbers many thousands of individuals, there are perhaps two of these
+fighting men. The division of labor here is very wonderful; and the
+fact that besides these two specialized forms there are in every nest
+two other kinds of the same insect, the kings and queens, shows the
+remarkable height to which civilization in these communities has
+attained.</p>
+
+<p>But where is this tunnel going to, and what object have the insects in
+view in ascending this lofty tree? Thirty feet from the ground, across
+innumerable forks, at the end of a long branch, are a few feet of dead
+wood. How the ants know it is there, how they know its sap has dried
+up, and that it is now fit for the termites' food, is a mystery.
+Possibly they do not know, and are only prospecting on the chance. The
+fact that they sometimes make straight for the decaying limb argues in
+these instances a kind of definite instinct; but on the other hand,
+the fact that in most cases the whole tree, in every branch and limb,
+is covered with termite tunnels, would show perhaps that they work
+most commonly on speculation, while the number of abandoned tunnels,
+ending on a sound branch in a <i>cul de sac</i>, proves how often they must
+suffer the usual disappointments of all such adventurers. The extent
+to which these insects carry on their tunneling is quite incredible,
+until one has seen it in nature with his own eyes. The tunnels are
+perhaps about the thickness of a small-sized gas-pipe, but there are
+junctions here and there of large dimensions, and occasionally patches
+of earthwork are found, embracing nearly the whole trunk for some
+feet. The outside of these tunnels, which are never quite straight,
+but wander irregularly along stem and branch, resembles in texture a
+coarse sandpaper; and the color, although this naturally varies with
+the soil, is usually a reddish brown. The quantity of earth
+and mud plastered over a single tree is often enormous; and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4909" id="Page_4909">[Pg 4909]</a></span>
+when one thinks that it is not only an isolated specimen here and there that is
+frescoed in this way, but often all the trees of a forest, some idea
+will be formed of the magnitude of the operations of these insects,
+and the extent of their influence upon the soil which they are thus
+ceaselessly transporting from underneath the ground.</p>
+
+<p>In traveling through the great forests of the Rocky Mountains or of
+the Western States, the broken branches and fallen trunks, strewing
+the ground breast-high with all sorts of decaying litter, frequently
+make locomotion impossible. To attempt to ride through these Western
+forests, with their meshwork of interlocked branches and decaying
+trunks, is often out of the question, and one has to dismount and drag
+his horse after him as if he were clambering through a wood-yard. But
+in an African forest not a fallen branch is seen. One is struck at
+first at a certain clean look about the great forests of the interior,
+a novel and unaccountable cleanness, as if the forest bed was
+carefully swept and dusted daily by unseen elves. And so indeed it is.
+Scavengers of a hundred kinds remove decaying animal matter, from the
+carcass of a fallen elephant to the broken wing of a gnat; eating it,
+or carrying it out of sight and burying it in the deodorizing earth.
+And these countless millions of termites perform a similar function
+for the vegetable world, making away with all plants and trees, all
+stems, twigs, and tissues, the moment the finger of decay strikes the
+signal. Constantly in these woods one comes across what appear to be
+sticks and branches and bundles of fagots, but when closely examined
+they are seen to be mere casts in mud. From these hollow tubes, which
+preserve the original form of the branch down to the minutest knot or
+fork, the ligneous tissue is often entirely removed, while others are
+met with in all stages of demolition. There is the section of an
+actual specimen, which is not yet completely destroyed, and from which
+the mode of attack may be easily seen. The insects start apparently
+from two centres. One company attacks the inner bark, which is the
+favorite morsel, leaving the coarse outer bark untouched, or more
+usually replacing it with grains of earth, atom by atom, as they eat
+it away. The inner bark is gnawed off likewise as they go along, but
+the woody tissue beneath is allowed to remain, to form a protective
+sheath for the second company, who begin work at the centre. This
+second contingent eats its way outward and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4910" id="Page_4910">[Pg 4910]</a></span>
+onward, leaving a thin tube of the outer wood to the last, as props to
+the mine, till they have finished the main excavation. When a fallen
+trunk lying upon the ground is the object of attack, the outer
+cylinder is frequently left quite intact, and it is only when one
+tries to drag it off to his camp-fire that he finds to his disgust
+that he is dealing with a mere hollow tube, a few lines in thickness,
+filled up with mud.</p>
+
+<p>But the works above ground represent only a part of the labors of
+these slow-moving but most industrious of creatures. The arboreal
+tubes are only the prolongation of a much more elaborate system of
+subterranean tunnels, which extend over large areas and mine the earth
+sometimes to a depth of many feet or even yards.</p>
+
+<p>The material excavated from these underground galleries and from the
+succession of domed chambers&mdash;used as nurseries or granaries&mdash;to which
+they lead, has to be thrown out upon the surface. And it is from these
+materials that the huge ant-hills are reared, which form so
+distinctive a feature of the African landscape. These heaps and mounds
+are so conspicuous that they may be seen for miles, and so numerous
+are they and so useful as cover to the sportsman, that without them in
+certain districts hunting would be impossible. The first things,
+indeed, to strike the traveler in entering the interior are the mounds
+of the white ant, now dotting the plain in groups like a small
+cemetery, now rising into mounds, singly or in clusters, each thirty
+or forty feet in diameter and ten or fifteen in height; or again,
+standing out against the sky like obelisks, their bare sides carved
+and fluted into all sorts of fantastic shapes. In India these
+ant-heaps seldom attain a height of more than a couple of feet, but in
+Central Africa they form veritable hills, and contain many tons of
+earth. The brick houses of the Scotch mission-station on Lake Nyassa
+have all been built out of a single ants' nest, and the quarry from
+which the material has been derived forms a pit beside the settlement
+some dozen feet in depth. A supply of bricks as large again could
+probably still be taken from this convenient depot; and the
+missionaries on Lake Tanganyika and onwards to Victoria Nyanza have
+been similarly indebted to the labors of the termites. In South Africa
+the Zulus and Kaffirs pave all their huts with white-ant earth; and
+during the Boer war our troops in Pretoria, by scooping out the
+interior from the smaller beehive-shaped ant-heaps and covering
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4911" id="Page_4911">[Pg 4911]</a></span>
+the top with clay, constantly used them as ovens. These ant-heaps may be
+said to abound over the whole interior of Africa, and there are
+several distinct species. The most peculiar, as well as the most
+ornate, is a small variety from one to two feet in height, which
+occurs in myriads along the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It is built in
+symmetrical tiers, and resembles a pile of small rounded hats, one
+above another, the rims depending like eaves, and sheltering the body
+of the hill from rain. To estimate the amount of earth per acre raised
+from the waterline of the subsoil by white ants, would not in some
+districts be an impossible task; and it would be found probably that
+the quantity at least equaled that manipulated annually in temperate
+regions by the earthworm.</p>
+
+<p>These mounds, however, are more than mere waste-heaps. Like the
+corresponding region underground, they are built into a meshwork of
+tunnels, galleries, and chambers, where the social interests of the
+community are attended to. The most spacious of these chambers,
+usually far underground, is very properly allocated to the head of the
+society, the queen. The queen termite is a very rare insect, and as
+there are seldom more than one or at most two to a colony, and as the
+royal apartments are hidden far in the earth, few persons have ever
+seen a queen; and indeed most, if they did happen to come across it,
+from its very singular appearance would refuse to believe that it had
+any connection with white ants. It possesses indeed the true termite
+head, but there the resemblance to the other members of the family
+stops; for the size of the head bears about the same proportion to the
+rest of the body as does the tuft on his Glengarry bonnet to a
+six-foot Highlander. The phenomenal corpulence of the royal body in
+the case of the queen termite is possibly due in part to want of
+exercise; for once seated upon her throne, she never stirs to the end
+of her days. She lies there, a large, loathsome, cylindrical package,
+two or three inches long, in shape like a sausage, and as white as a
+bolster. Her one duty in life is to lay eggs; and it must be confessed
+she discharges her function with complete success, for in a single day
+her progeny often amounts to many thousands, and for months this
+enormous fecundity never slackens. The body increases slowly in size,
+and through the transparent skin the long folded ovary may be seen,
+with the eggs, impelled by a peristaltic motion, passing onward for
+delivery to the workers, who are waiting to carry them to the nurseries, where they
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4912" id="Page_4912">[Pg 4912]</a></span>
+are hatched. Assiduous attention meantime is paid to the queen by
+other workers, who feed her diligently, with much self-denial stuffing
+her with morsel after morsel from their own jaws. A guard of honor in
+the shape of a few of the larger soldier ants is also in attendance,
+as a last and almost unnecessary precaution. In addition finally to
+the soldiers, workers, and queen, the royal chamber has also one other
+inmate&mdash;the king. He is a very ordinary-looking insect, about the
+same size as the soldiers, but the arrangement of the parts of the
+head and body is widely different, and like the queen he is furnished
+with eyes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4913" id="Page_4913">[Pg 4913]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="WILLIAM_DRUMMOND_OF_HAWTHORNDEN" id="WILLIAM_DRUMMOND_OF_HAWTHORNDEN"></a>WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN</h2>
+
+<h4>(1585-1649)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capi251.png" width="90" height="90" alt="I" title="I" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">t seems to be the mission of many writers to illuminate contemporary
+literature and so to light the way for future students, rather than to
+make any vital contribution to the achievement of their time. Such
+writers reflect the culture of their own day and represent its ideals;
+and although their creative work may be slight, their loss to
+literature would be serious. Among these lesser men stands that
+sincere poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. In Scotland under the Stuarts,
+when the vital energy of the land was concentrated upon politics and
+theology, native literature was reduced to a mere reflection of the
+pre-Spenserian classicism of England. Into this waste of correct
+mediocrity entered the poetry of William Drummond, an avowed and
+enthusiastic follower of the Elizabethan school, a finished scholar,
+one of the typical Scottish gentlemen who were then making Scottish
+history. Courtier and trifler though he was, however, he showed
+himself so true a poet of nature that his felicities of phrase seem to
+anticipate the sensuous realism of Keats and his successors.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/Illus251.png" width="180" height="220" alt="William Drummond" title="William Drummond" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">William Drummond</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>William Drummond, born in 1585, was a cadet of the historic house
+which in 1357 gave in marriage to King Robert III. the beautiful
+Annabella Drummond, who was destined to become the ancestress of the
+royal Stuarts of Scotland and England. In his own day the family,
+whose head was the Earl of Perth, was powerful in Scottish affairs,
+and the history of the clan Drummond would be largely a history of the
+events which led to the Protectorate. Throughout the storm and stress
+that preceded the civil war Drummond was a loyalist, though at one
+time he appeared to be identified with the Covenanters. His literary
+influence, which was considerable, was always thrown on the side of
+the King, while the term "Drummondism" was a popular synonym for the
+conservative policy. Throughout the struggle, however, Drummond seems
+to have been forced into activity by circumstances rather than by choice.
+He had the instincts of a recluse and a scholar. He delighted in the society
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4914" id="Page_4914">[Pg 4914]</a></span>
+of literary men, and he was much engrossed in philosophical speculations.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the difficulties of distance, he managed to keep abreast
+of the thought of literary London, the London of Drayton and Webster,
+of Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, and Ford. His chief satisfaction was
+to know that his own work was not unacceptable to this brilliant
+group, and one of the great pleasures of his life was a visit from Ben
+Jonson, who, making a walking tour to Scotland, found at Hawthornden
+that congenial hospitality in which his soul delighted. Of this famous
+visit, as of other important events, Drummond kept a record, in which
+he set down his guest's behavior, opinions, and confidential sayings.
+Warmly as he admired Jonson's genius, he found his personality
+oppressive, and intrusted his criticisms to his diary. When this was
+published, more than a century later, the gentle Scot was accused of
+bad taste, breach of confidence, and disloyalty to friendship. But his
+defense lies in the fact that the book was meant for no eyes but his
+own, and that the intimacy and candor of its revelations were intended
+to preserve his recollections of a memorable experience.</p>
+
+<p>If his environment was not entirely favorable to literary excellences,
+it is yet very likely that Drummond developed the full measure
+of his gift. He expressed the spirit of the more imaginative
+generation which succeeded a hard and fettered predecessor, and it
+is for this that literature owes him its peculiar debt.</p>
+
+<p>His career began in his twenty-ninth year with the publication of
+an elegy on the death of Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I.
+This poem, under the title 'Tears on the Death of Moeliades,' appeared
+in 1613, and reached a third edition within a twelvemonth.
+Its two hundred lines show the finished versification of the scholar,
+with much poetic grace. It was a product of the Spenserian school,
+and emphasized the fact that the representative literature of the land
+had abandoned the Scottish dialect for English forms. Drummond's
+second volume of poems commemorated the death of his wife and his
+love of her. It is in this work that the ultimate mood of the poet
+appears. Much beauty of form, a delightful sensitiveness to nature, a
+luxuriance of color, and a finely tempered thoughtfulness pervade the
+poems. His next production, celebrating the visit of James I. to his
+native land, was entitled 'Forth Feasting,' and represented the
+Forth and all its borders as rejoicing in the presence of their King.
+To the reader of to-day the panegyric sounds fulsome and the poetry
+stilted, and the once famous book has now merely an archaic interest.</p>
+
+<p>Drummond's reputation is based upon the 'Poems,' and upon the
+Jeremy-Taylor-like 'Cypress Grove,' published in 1623 in connection
+with the religious verses called 'Flowers of Sion.' 'Cypress Grove'
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4915" id="Page_4915">[Pg 4915]</a></span>
+is an essay on death, akin in spirit to the religious temper of the
+Middle Ages, and in philosophic breadth to the diviner mood of Plato.
+Only a mind of a high order would have conceived so beautiful and
+lofty a meditation on the Final Mystery. This brief essay marks the
+utmost reach of Drummond's mind, and shows the strength of that serene
+spirituality, which could thus hold its way undisturbed by the
+sectarian bitterness that fixed a great gulf between England and
+Scotland. 'The History of the Five Jameses,' which Drummond was ten
+years in compiling and which was not published until six years after
+his death, added nothing to his reputation. It lacked alike the
+diligent minuteness of the chronicler and the broader view of the
+historian. Many minor papers on the state of religion and politics,
+chief of which is the political tract 'Irene,' show Drummond's
+aggressive interest in contemporary affairs. It is not generally known
+that this gentle scholar was also an inventor of military engines. In
+1626 Charles I. engaged him to produce sixteen machines and "not a few
+inventions besides." The biographers have remained curiously ignorant
+of this phase of his activity, but the State papers show that the King
+named him "our faithful subject, William Drummond of Hawthornden." He
+died in 1649, his death being hastened, it was said, by his passion of
+grief over the martyrdom of King Charles.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="SEXTAIN" id="SEXTAIN"></a>SEXTAIN</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The heaven doth not contain so many stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So many leaves not prostrate lie in woods<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When autumn's old and Boreas sounds his wars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So many waves have not the ocean floods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As my rent mind hath torments all the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heart spends sighs when Phoebus brings the light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Why should I have been partner of the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who, crost in birth by bad asp&eacute;ct of stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have never since had happy day or night?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why was not I a liver in the woods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or citizen of Thetis's crystal floods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than made a man, for love and fortune's wars?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I look each day when death should end the wars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Uncivil wars, 'twixt sense and reason's light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My pains I count to mountains, meads, and floods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of my sorrow partners make the stars;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All desolate I haunt the fearful woods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When I should give myself to rest at night.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4916" id="Page_4916">[Pg 4916]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With watchful eyes I ne'er behold the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Mother of peace, but ah! to me of wars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Cynthia, queen-like, shining through the woods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When straight those lamps come in my thought, whose light<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My judgment dazzled, passing brightest stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And then mine eyes en-isle themselves with floods.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Turn to their springs again first shall the floods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Clear shall the sun the sad and gloomy night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To dance about the pole cease shall the stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The elements renew their ancient wars<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall first, and be deprived of place and light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E'er I find rest in city, fields, or woods.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">End these my days, indwellers of the woods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take this my life, ye deep and raging floods;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sun, never rise to clear me with thy light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Horror and darkness, keep a lasting night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Consume me, care, with thy intestine wars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stay your influence o'er me, bright stars!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In vain the stars, indwellers of the woods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Care, horror, wars, I call, and raging floods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For all have sworn no night shall dim my sight.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="MADRIGAL" id="MADRIGAL"></a>MADRIGAL</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">This world a-hunting is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is Death;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">His speedy greyhounds are<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Lust, sickness, envy, care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Strife that ne'er falls amiss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Now if by chance we fly<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Of these the eager chase,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Old age with stealing pace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Casts up his nets, and there we panting die.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4917" id="Page_4917">[Pg 4917]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="REASON" id="REASON"></a>REASON AND FEELING</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I know that all beneath the moon decays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And what by mortals in this world is brought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In Time's great periods shall return to naught;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That fairest States have fatal nights and days.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With toil of spirit, which are so dearly bought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I know frail beauty like the purple flower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To which one morn oft birth and death affords;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That love a jarring is of minds' accords,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where sense and will envassal Reason's power:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Know what I list, all this cannot me move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But that, alas! I both must write and love.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="DEGENERACY" id="DEGENERACY"></a>DEGENERACY OF THE WORLD</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What hapless hap had I for to be born<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In these unhappy times, and dying days<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of this now doting World, when Good decays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love's quite extinct, and Virtue's held a-scorn!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When such are only prized, by wretched ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who with a golden fleece them can adorn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When avarice and lust are counted praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bravest minds live orphan-like forlorn!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why was not I born in that golden age<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When gold was not yet known? and those black arts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By which base worldlings vilely play their parts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With horrid acts staining Earth's stately stage?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To have been then, O Heaven! 't had been my bliss;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But bless me now, and take me soon from this.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BRIEFNESS" id="BRIEFNESS"></a>THE BRIEFNESS OF LIFE</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Look, how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As high as it did raise, bows low the head:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Right so my life, contentment being dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or in their contraries but only seen,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4918" id="Page_4918">[Pg 4918]</a></span><span class="i0">With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By darkness would imprison on his way,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of what's yet left thee of life's wasting day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy sun posts westward, pass&egrave;d is thy morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And twice it is not given thee to be born.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="UNIVERSE" id="UNIVERSE"></a>THE UNIVERSE</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of this fair volume which we World do name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">If we the leaves and sheets could turn with care&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Him who it corrects and did it frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Find out his power, which wildest powers doth tame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His providence, extending everywhere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His justice, which proud rebels doth not spare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every page and period of the same.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But silly we, like foolish children, rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is some picture on the margin wrought.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="DEATH" id="DEATH"></a>ON DEATH</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'Cypress Grove'</h4>
+
+<p>Death is a piece of the order of this all, a part of the life of this
+world; for while the world is the world, some creatures must die and
+others take life. Eternal things are raised far above this orb of
+generation and corruption where the First Matter, like a still flowing
+and ebbing sea, with diverse waves but the same water, keepeth a
+restless and never tiring current; what is below in the universality
+of its kind doth not in itself abide.... If thou dost complain there
+shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too
+grieve that there was a time in which thou wast not, and so that thou
+art not as old as the enlivening planet of Time?... The excellent
+fabric of the universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or change
+like ruin, and poor earthlings, thus to be handled, complain!</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4919" id="Page_4919">[Pg 4919]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="JOHN_DRYDEN" id="JOHN_DRYDEN"></a>JOHN DRYDEN</h2>
+
+<h4>(1631-1700)</h4>
+
+<h4>BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 89px;">
+<img src="images/capj257.png" width="89" height="91" alt="J" title="J" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">ohn Dryden, the foremost man of letters of the period following the
+Restoration, was born at Aldwinkle, a village of Northamptonshire, on
+August 9th, 1631. He died May 1st, 1700. His life was therefore coeval
+with the closing period of the fierce controversies which culminated
+in the civil war and the triumph of the Parliamentary party; that, in
+turn, to be followed successively by the iron rule of Cromwell, by the
+restoration of the exiled Stuarts, and the reactionary tendencies in
+politics that accompanied that event; and finally with the effectual
+exclusion from the throne of this same family by the revolution of
+1688, leaving behind, however, to their successors a smoldering
+Jacobite hostility that perpetually plotted the overthrow of the new
+government and later broke out twice into open revolt. All these
+changes of fortune, with their changes of opinion, are faithfully
+reflected in the productions of Dryden. To understand him thoroughly
+requires therefore an intimate familiarity with the civil and
+religious movements which characterize the whole period. Equally also
+do his writings, both creative and critical, represent the revolution
+of literary taste that took place in the latter half of the
+seventeenth century. It was while he was in the midst of his
+intellectual activity that French canons of criticism became largely
+the accepted rules, by which the value of English productions was
+tested. This was especially true of the drama. The study of Dryden is
+accordingly a study of the political and literary history of his times
+to an extent that is correspondingly true of no other English author
+before or since.</p>
+
+<p>His family, both on the father's and the mother's side, was in full
+sympathy with the party opposed to the court. The son was educated
+at Westminster, then under the mastership of Richard Busby,
+whose relentless use of the rod has made his name famous in that
+long line of flagellants who have been at the head of the great English
+public schools. From Westminster he went to Trinity College,
+Cambridge. There he received the degree of A. B. in January 1654.
+Later in that same decade&mdash;the precise date is not known&mdash;he took
+up his residence in London; and in London the rest of his life was
+almost entirely spent.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4920" id="Page_4920">[Pg 4920]</a></span>
+Dryden's first published literary effort appeared in a little volume
+made up of thirty-three elegies, by various authors, on the death of
+a youth of great promise who had been educated at Westminster.
+This was Lord Hastings, the eldest son of the Earl of Huntingdon.
+He had died of the small-pox. Dryden's contribution was written in
+1649, and consisted of but little over a hundred lines. No one expects
+great verse from a boy of eighteen; but the most extravagant
+anticipations of sorry performance will fail to come up to the reality
+of the wretchedness which was here attained. It was in words like
+these that the future laureate bewailed the death of the young nobleman
+and depicted the disease of which he died:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Was there no milder way but the small-pox,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The very filthiness of Pandora's box?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So many spots, like naeves, our Venus soil?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">One jewel set off with so many a foil?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blisters with pride swelled, which through his flesh did sprout<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Like rosebuds, stuck in the lily-skin about.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Each little pimple had a tear in it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To wail the fault its rising did commit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The cabinet of a richer soul within?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">No comet need foretell his change drew on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whose corps might seem a constellation."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Criticism cannot be rendered sufficiently vituperative to characterize
+properly such a passage. It is fuller of conceits than ever Cowley
+crowded into the same space; and lines more crabbed and inharmonious
+Donne never succeeded in perpetrating. Its production upsets
+all principles of prophecy. The wretchedest of poetasters can
+take courage, when he contemplates the profundity of the depth out
+of which uprose the greatest poet of his time.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 670px;">
+<a name="DRYDEN" id="DRYDEN"></a>
+<img src="images/Illus0423.jpg" width="670" height="1024" alt="JOHN DRYDEN" title="JOHN DRYDEN" />
+<span class="caption">JOHN DRYDEN.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dryden is, in fact, an example of that somewhat rare class of
+writers who steadily improve with advancing years. Most poets write
+their best verse before middle life. Many of them after that time go
+through a period of decline, and sometimes of rapid decline; and if
+they live to reach old age, they add to the quantity of their production
+without sensibly increasing its value. This general truth is conspicuously
+untrue of Dryden. His first work gave no promise of his
+future excellence, and it was by very slow degrees that he attained
+to the mastery of his art. But the older he grew, the better he
+wrote; and the volume published a few months before his death, and
+largely composed almost under its shadow, so far from showing the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4921" id="Page_4921">[Pg 4921]</a></span>
+slightest sign of failing power, contains a great deal of the best
+poetry he ever produced.</p>
+
+<p>As Dryden's relatives were Puritans, and some of them held place
+under the government, it was natural that upon coming to London
+he should attach himself to that party. Accordingly it is no surprise
+to find him duly mourning the death of the great Protector in certain
+'Heroic Stanzas Consecrated to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell.'
+The first edition bears the date of 1659, and so far as we know, the
+production was Dryden's second venture in poetry. It was written
+in the measure of Davenant's 'Gondibert,' and is by no means a poor
+piece of work, though it has been sometimes so styled. It certainly
+pays not simply a high but a discerning tribute to the genius of
+Cromwell. Before two years had gone by, we find its author greeting
+the return of Charles with effusive loyalty, and with predictions
+of prosperity and honor to attend his reign, which events were soon
+woefully to belie. The poet has been severely censured for this
+change of attitude. It is a censure which might be bestowed with as
+much propriety upon the whole population of England. The joyful
+expectations to which he gave utterance were almost universal; and
+no other charge can well be brought against him than that he had
+the ability and took the occasion to express sentiments which were
+felt by nearly the entire nation.</p>
+
+<p>From this time on, Dryden appears more and more in the public eye, and
+slowly but steadily forged his way to the front as the representative
+man of letters of his time. In 1670 he was appointed to the two
+distinct offices of poet laureate and historiographer royal.
+Thenceforward his relations with the court became close, and so they
+did not cease to be until the expulsion of James II. In 1683 he
+received a further mark of royal favor, in being made collector of
+customs of the port of London. In the political controversies which
+subsequently arose, Dryden's writings faithfully represented the
+sentiments of the side he had chosen, and expressed their prejudices
+and aversions not merely with force but also with virulence. His first
+literary activity, however, was on neutral ground. After eighteen
+years of compulsory closing, the Restoration opened wide once more the
+doors of the theatre. Dryden, like every one else possessed of
+literary ability, began to write for the stage. His first play, a
+comedy entitled 'The Wild Gallant,' was brought out in February 1663;
+and for the eighteen years following, it was compositions of such
+nature that occupied the main portion of his literary life. During
+that time he produced wholly or in part twenty-two comedies and
+tragedies. His pieces must from the outset have met with a fair degree
+of success, otherwise the King's Company would not have entered into a
+contract with him, as it did in 1667, to furnish for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4922" id="Page_4922">[Pg 4922]</a></span>
+them each year a fixed number of plays, in consideration of his receiving
+a certain share of the profits of the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it cannot be said that Dryden was in any respect a dramatist
+of a high order. As a writer of comedy he was not only inferior to
+contemporaries and immediate successors like Wycherley, Congreve,
+Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, but in certain ways he was surpassed by
+Shadwell, the very man whom he himself has consigned to a disagreeable
+immortality as the hero of the 'MacFlecknoe.' His comedies
+are not merely full of obscenity,&mdash;which seems to have been a necessary
+ingredient to suit them to the taste of the age,&mdash;but they are
+full of a peculiarly disagreeable obscenity. One of his worst offenses in
+this direction, and altogether his most impudent one, was his adaptation
+for the stage of Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' The two plays are
+worth reading together for the sake of seeing how easily a pure and
+perfect creation of genius can be vulgarized in language and spirit
+almost beyond the possibility of recognition. In his tragedies,
+however, Dryden was much more successful. Yet even these, in spite
+of the excellence of occasional passages, do not attain to a high rank.
+Indeed, thought and expression are at times extravagant, not to say
+stilted, to an extent which afterward led him himself to make them
+the subject of ridicule. It was in them, however, during these years
+that he perfected by degrees his mastery of heroic verse, of which
+later he was to display the capabilities in a way that had never previously
+been seen and has never since been surpassed.</p>
+
+<p>A controversy in regard to the proper method of composing plays
+brought forward Dryden, at an early period in his literary career, as
+a writer of prose. In this he at once attained unusual eminence. In
+him appear for the first time united the two characters of poet and
+of critic. Ben Jonson had in a measure preceded him in this respect;
+but Jonson's criticism was not so much devoted to the examination
+of general principles as to the exposure of the hopeless, helpless
+obtuseness of the men who had a different opinion of his works from
+what he himself entertained. The questions discussed by Dryden were
+of a more general nature. With the Stuarts had come in French
+literary tastes and French literary methods. The age was supposed
+to be too refined to be pleased with what had satisfied the coarse
+palates of preceding generations. In stage-writing in particular, the
+doctrine of the unities, almost uniformly violated by Shakespeare and
+most of the Elizabethans, was now held up as the only correct
+method of composition that could be employed by any writer who
+sought to conform to the true principles of art. Along with this
+came the substitution in the drama of rhyme for blank verse. Upon
+the comparative merits of these two as employed in tragedy, arose
+the first controversy in which Dryden was engaged. This one was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4923" id="Page_4923">[Pg 4923]</a></span>
+with his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard; for in 1663 Dryden had
+become the husband of the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, thus
+marrying, as Pope expressed it, "misery in a noble wife." Dryden
+was an advocate of rhyme; and the controversy on this point began
+with the publication in 1668 of his 'Essay of Dramatic Poesy.' It
+was afterward carried on by both parties, in prefaces to the plays
+they successively published. The prefaces to these productions regularly
+became later the place where Dryden laid down his critical
+doctrines on all points that engaged his attention; and whether we
+agree with his views or not, we are always sure to be charmed with
+the manner in which they are expressed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1667 Dryden published a long poem entitled 'Annus Mirabilis.'
+It was in the same measure as the stanzas on Oliver Cromwell. It
+gave him a good deal of reputation at the time; but though it is far
+from being a despicable performance, few there are now who read it
+and still fewer who re-read it. Far different has been the fate of
+his next work. It was not until 1681, when England was beginning
+to emerge slowly from the excitement and agitation growing out of
+the alleged Popish plot, that he brought out his 'Absalom and Achitophel,'
+without question the greatest combined poetical and political
+satire to be found in our tongue. Here it was that for the first time
+he fully displayed his mastery over heroic verse. The notion once
+so widely prevalent&mdash;for the vogue of which, indeed, Dryden himself
+is mainly responsible&mdash;that Waller and Denham brought this
+verse to perfection, it now requires both extensive and special ignorance
+of our earlier authors to entertain; but on the other hand,
+there is no question that he himself imparted to the line a variety,
+vigor, and sustained majesty of movement such as the verse in its
+modern form had never previously received. There is therefore a
+fairly full measure of truth in the lines in which he was characterized
+by Pope:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The varying verse, the full resounding line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The long majestic march and energy divine."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These lines of Pope, it may be added, exemplify purposely two peculiarities
+of Dryden's versification,&mdash;the occasional use of the triplet
+instead of the regular couplet, and of the Alexandrine, or line of six
+feet, in place of the usual line of five.</p>
+
+<p>The poem is largely an attack upon the Earl of Shaftesbury,
+who in it bears the title of Achitophel. The portrayal of this statesman,
+which is given in this volume, is ample evidence of that skill of
+the poet in characterization which has made the pictures he drew
+immortal. Perhaps even more effective was the description of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4924" id="Page_4924">[Pg 4924]</a></span>
+Duke of Buckingham, under the designation of Zimri. For attacking
+that nobleman Dryden had both political and personal reasons. Buckingham
+had now joined the opponents of the court. Ten years previously
+the poet himself had been brought by him on the stage, with
+the aid of others, in the play called "The Rehearsal." His usual
+actions had been mimicked, his usual expressions had been put into
+the mouth of the character created to represent him, who was styled
+Bayes. This title had been given him because Dryden figuratively
+wore the bays, or laurel, as poet laureate. The name henceforward
+stuck. Dryden's turn had now come; and it was in these following
+lines that he drew the unfaded and fadeless picture of this nobleman,
+whose reputation even then was notorious rather than famous,
+and whose intellect was motley-minded rather than versatile:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the front rank of these did Zimri stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man so various that he seemed to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not one, but all mankind's epitome.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was everything by starts and nothing long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the course of one revolving moon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blest madman, who could every hour employ<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With something new to wish or to enjoy!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Railing and praising were his usual themes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So over-violent or over-civil<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That every man with him was God or Devil.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nothing went unrewarded but desert.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had his jest, and they had his estate."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As an example of the loftier and more majestic style occasionally
+found in this poem, is the powerful appeal of Achitophel to Absalom.
+The latter, it is to be said, stands for the Duke of Monmouth, the
+eldest of the illegitimate sons of Charles II. Him many of the
+so-called country party, now beginning to be styled Whigs, were
+endeavoring to have recognized as the next successor to the throne, in
+place of the Roman Catholic brother of the king, James, Duke of York.
+As a favorite son of the monarch, he, though then in opposition, is
+treated tenderly by Dryden throughout; and this feeling is plainly
+visible in the opening of the address to him put into the mouth of
+Achitophel, in these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4925" id="Page_4925">[Pg 4925]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Auspicious prince, at whose nativity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some royal planet ruled the southern sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy longing country's darling and desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their second Moses, whose extended wand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Divides the seas and shows the promised land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose dawning day in every distant age<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The young men's vision and the old men's dream,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thee savior, thee the nation's vows confess,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never satisfied with seeing, bless."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Dryden followed up the attack upon Shaftesbury with a poem entitled
+'The Medal.' This satire, which appeared in March 1682, was called
+forth by the action of the partisans of the Whig leader in having a
+medal struck commemorating his release from the Tower, after the grand
+jury had thrown out the charge of treason which had been brought
+against him. Both of these pieces were followed by a host of replies.
+Some of them did not refrain from personal attack, which indeed had a
+certain justification in the poet's own violence of denunciation. The
+most abusive of these was a poem by Thomas Shadwell, entitled 'The
+Medal of John Bayes.' Such persons as fancy Dryden's subsequent
+punishment of that dramatist unwarranted in its severity should in
+justice read this ferociously scurrilous diatribe, in which every
+charge against the poet that malice or envy had concocted and rumor
+had set afloat, was here industriously raked together; and to the
+muck-heap thus collected, the intimacy of previous acquaintance was
+doubtless enabled to contribute its due quota of malignant assertion
+and more malignant insinuation. Shadwell was soon supplied, however,
+with ample reason to regret his action. Dryden's first and best known
+rejoinder is 'MacFlecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant
+Poet T. S.' This production has always had the reputation in
+literature of being the severest personal satire in the language; but
+it requires now for its appreciation an intimate acquaintance with
+Shadwell's plays, which very few possess. It is further disfigured in
+places by a coarseness from which, indeed, none of the poet's writings
+were certain to be free. Its general spirit can be indicated by a
+brief extract from its opening paragraph. Flecknoe, it is to be said,
+was a feeble poet who had died a few years before. He is here
+represented as having long reigned over the kingdom of dullness, but
+knowing that his end was close at hand, determines to settle the
+succession to the State. Accordingly he fixes upon his son Shadwell as
+the one best fitted to take his place in ruling over the realm of
+nonsense, and in continuing the war with wit and sense. The
+announcement of his intention he begins in the following words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4926" id="Page_4926">[Pg 4926]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">"&mdash;Tis resolved, for Nature pleads that he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should only rule who most resembles me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mature in dullness from his tender years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shadwell alone of all my sons is he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Shadwell never deviates into sense."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Far more bitter, however, was the renewed attack which a month
+later Dryden inserted in the two hundred lines he contributed to the
+continuation of 'Absalom and Achitophel' that was written by Nahum
+Tate. In this second part, which came out in November 1682, he devoted
+himself in particular to two of his opponents, Settle and Shadwell,
+under the names respectively of Doeg and Og&mdash;"two fools," he
+says, in his energetic way,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"That crutch their feeble sense on verse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who by my Muse to all succeeding times<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall live in spite of their own doggerel rhymes."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Of Settle, whose poetry was possessed of much smoothness but
+little sense, he spoke in a tone of contemptuous good-nature, though
+the object of the attack must certainly have deemed the tender mercies
+of Dryden to be cruel. It was in this way he was described, to
+quote a few lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let him be gallows-free by my consent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nothing suffer, since he nothing meant;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hanging supposes human soul and reason,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This animal's below committing treason:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That's a preferment for Achitophel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let him rail on; let his invective Muse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indict him of a capital offense."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But it was not till he came to the portraiture of Shadwell that he
+gave full vent to the ferocity of his satire. He taunted him with the
+unwieldiness of his bulk, the grossness of his habits, with his want
+of wealth, and finally closed up with some lines into which he concentrated
+all the venom of his previous attacks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But though Heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He never was a poet of God's making<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4927" id="Page_4927">[Pg 4927]</a></span><span class="i0">The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With this prophetic blessing&mdash;<i>Be thou dull</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A strong nativity&mdash;but for the pen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For writing treason and for writing dull;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To die for faction is a common evil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hadst thou the glories of thy King exprest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy praises had been satires at the best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But thou in clumsy verse, unlicked, unpointed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of King David's foes be this the doom,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May all be like the young man Absalom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for my foes may this their blessing be,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To talk like Doeg and to write like thee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Refinement of tone is not the distinguishing characteristic of satire
+of this sort. It does not attack its object by delicate insinuation or
+remote suggestion. It operates by heavy downright blows which
+crush by the mere weight and power of the stroke. There was in
+truth in those days a certain brutality not only permitted but expected
+in the way men spoke of each other, and Dryden conformed
+in this as in other respects to the manners and methods of his age.
+But of its kind the attack is perfect. The blows of a bludgeon which
+make of the victim a shapeless mass kill as effectively as the steel
+or poison which leaves every feature undisturbed, and to the common
+apprehension it serves to render the killing more manifest. At any
+rate, so long as a person has been done to death, it makes comparatively
+little difference how the death was brought about; and the
+object in this instance of Dryden's attack, though a man of no mean
+abilities, has never recovered from the demolition which his reputation
+then underwent.</p>
+
+<p>In 1685 Charles II. died, and his brother James ascended the throne.
+In the following year Dryden went over to the Roman Catholic
+Church. No act of his life has met with severer censure. Nor can
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4928" id="Page_4928">[Pg 4928]</a></span>
+there be any doubt that the time he took to change his religion
+afforded ground for distrusting the sincerity of his motives. A king
+was on the throne who was straining every nerve to bring the Church
+of England once more under the sway of the Church of Rome. Obviously
+the adoption of the latter faith would recommend the poet to
+the favor of the bigoted monarch, and tend to advance his personal
+interests. There is no wonder, therefore, that he should at the time
+have been accused of being actuated by the unworthiest of reasons,
+and that the charge should continue to be repeated to our day. Yet
+a close study of Dryden's life and writings indicates that the step he
+took was a natural if not an inevitable outcome of the processes
+through which his opinions had been passing. He had been early
+trained in the strict tenets of the Puritan party. From these he had
+been carried over to the loose beliefs and looser life that followed
+everywhere hard upon the Restoration. By the sentiments then prevailing
+he was profoundly affected. Nothing in the writings of the
+first half of his literary life is more marked&mdash;not even his flings at
+matrimony&mdash;than the scoffing way in which he usually spoke of the
+clergy. His tone towards them is almost always contemptuous, where
+it is not positively vituperative. His famous political satire began
+with this line&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin;"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and a little later in the course of the same poem he observed that&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>the "sacrificer" here denoting the priest. This feeling toward the
+clergy never in truth deserted him entirely. But no one who reads
+carefully his 'Religio Laici,' a poem published in 1682, can fail to
+perceive that even then he had not only drifted far away from the
+faith of his childhood, but had begun to be tormented and perplexed
+by the insoluble problems connected with the life and destiny of
+man, and with his relations to his Creator. The subject was not
+likely to weigh less heavily upon him in the years that followed.
+To Dryden, as to many before and since, it may have seemed the
+easiest method of deliverance from the difficulties in which he found
+himself involved, to cast the burden of doubts which disquieted the
+mind and depressed the heart, upon a Church that undertakes to
+assume the whole responsibility for the man's future on condition of
+his yielding to it an unquestioning faith in the present.</p>
+
+<p>An immediate result of his conversion was the production in 1687 of
+one of his most deservedly famous poems, 'The Hind and the Panther.'
+He began it with the idea of assisting in bringing about the
+reconciliation between the Panther, typifying the Church of England,
+and the Hind, typifying the Church of Rome. It is apparent
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4929" id="Page_4929">[Pg 4929]</a></span>
+that before he finished it he saw that the project was hopeless. It is a
+poem of over twenty-five hundred lines, of which the opening up to
+line 150 is printed in this volume. Part of the passage here cited
+contains, without professing it as an object, and probably without
+intending it, the best defense that could be made for his change of
+religion. The production in its entirety is remarkable for the skill
+which its author displayed in carrying on an argument in verse. In
+this he certainly had no superior among poets, perhaps no equal. The
+work naturally created a great sensation in those days of fierce
+political and religious controversy. Both it and its writer were made
+the object of constant attack. A criticism, in particular, appeared
+upon it in the shape of a dialogue in prose with snatches of verse
+interspersed. It is usually known by the title of 'The Town Mouse and
+the Country Mouse,' and was exalted at the time by unreasoning
+partisanship into a wonderful performance. Even to the present day,
+this dreary specimen of polemics is described as a very witty work by
+those who have never struggled to read it. It was the production of
+Charles Montagu, the future Earl of Halifax, and of Matthew Prior. A
+story too is still constantly repeated that Dryden was much hurt by
+the attacks of these two young men, to whom he had been kind, and wept
+over their ingratitude. If he shed any tears at all upon the occasion,
+they must have been due to the mortification he felt that any two
+persons who had been admitted to his friendship should have been
+guilty of twaddle so desperately tedious.</p>
+
+<p>The flight of James and the accession of William and Mary threw
+Dryden at once out of the favor of the court, upon which to a large
+extent he had long depended for support. As a Jacobite he could
+not take the oath of allegiance; but there is hardly any doubt that
+under any circumstances he would have been deprived of the offices
+of place and profit he held. In the laureateship he was succeeded by
+his old antagonist Shadwell; and within a few years he saw the
+dignity of the position still further degraded by the appointment to
+it of Nahum Tate, one of the worst of the long procession of poetasters
+who have filled it. Dryden henceforth belonged to the party out
+of power. His feelings about his changed relations are shown plainly
+in the fine epistle with which he consoled Congreve for the failure
+of his comedy of the 'Double Dealer.' Yet displaced and unpensioned,
+and sometimes the object of hostile attack, his literary supremacy
+was more absolute than ever. All young authors, whether
+Whigs or Tories, sought his society and courted his favor; and his
+seat at Will's coffee-house was the throne from which he swayed the
+literary sceptre of England.</p>
+
+<p>After the revolution of 1688 Dryden gave himself entirely up to
+authorship. He first turned to the stage; and between 1690 and 1694
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4930" id="Page_4930">[Pg 4930]</a></span>
+he produced five plays. With the failure in the last-mentioned year
+of his tragi-comedy called 'Love Triumphant,' he abandoned writing
+for the theatre. The period immediately following he devoted mainly
+to his translation of Virgil, which was published in 1697. It was
+highly successful; but far more reputation came to him from a large
+folio volume that was brought out in November 1699, under the title
+of 'Fables.' Its contents consisted mainly of poetical narratives
+founded upon certain stories of the 'Decameron,' and of the modernization
+of some of the 'Canterbury Tales.' In certain ways these have
+been his most successful pieces, and have made his name familiar to
+successive generations of readers. Of the tales from Boccaccio, that
+of 'Cymon and Iphigenia' is on the whole the most pleasing. The
+modernizations of Chaucer were long regarded as superior to the
+original; and though superior knowledge of the original has effectually
+banished that belief, there is on the other hand no justification
+for the derogatory terms which are now sometimes applied to Dryden's
+versions.</p>
+
+<p>The verse in this volume was preceded by a long critical essay in
+prose. Many of its views, especially those about the language of
+Chaucer, have been long discarded; but the criticism will always be
+read with pleasure for the genial spirit and sound sense which pervade
+it, and the unstudied ease with which it is written. Cowley
+and Dryden are in fact the founders of modern English prose; and
+the influence of the latter has been much greater than that of the
+former, inasmuch as he touched upon a far wider variety of topics,
+and for that reason obtained a far larger circle of readers in the
+century following his death. There was also the same steady improvement
+in Dryden's critical taste that there was in his poetical
+expression. His admiration for Shakespeare constantly improved during
+his whole life; and it is to be noticed that in what is generally
+regarded as the best of his plays&mdash;'All for Love,' brought out in the
+winter of 1677-78&mdash;he of his own accord abandoned rhyme for blank
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>The publication of the 'Fables' was Dryden's last appearance
+before the public. In the following year he died, and was buried in
+Westminster Abbey by the side of Chaucer and Cowley. After his
+death his fame steadily increased instead of diminishing. For a long
+period his superiority in his particular line was ungrudgingly conceded
+by all, or if contested, was contested by Pope alone. His
+poetry indeed is not of the highest kind, though usually infinitely
+superior to that of his detractors. Still his excellences were those of
+the intellect and not of the spirit. On the higher planes of thought
+and feeling he rarely moves; to the highest he never aspires. The
+nearest he ever approaches to the former is in his later work, where
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4931" id="Page_4931">[Pg 4931]</a></span>
+religious emotion or religious zeal has lent to expression the aid of
+its intensity. There is a striking example of this in the personal
+references to his own experiences in the lines cited below from 'The
+Hind and the Panther.' Something too of the same spirit can be
+found, expressed in lofty language, in the following passage from the
+same poem, descriptive of the unity of the Church of Rome as contrasted
+with the numerous warring sects into which the Protestant
+body is divided:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entire, one solid shining diamond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not sparkles shattered into sects like you:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One is the Church, and must be to be true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One central principle of unity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As undivided, so from errors free;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As one in faith, so one in sanctity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of heretics opposed from age to age;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still when the giant brood invades her throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She stoops from heaven and meets them half-way down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with paternal thunders vindicates her crown.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From east to west triumphantly she rides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All shores are watered by her wealthy tides.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gospel sound diffused from Pole to Pole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where winds can carry and where waves can roll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The selfsame doctrine of the sacred page<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conveyed to every clime, in every age."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But though Dryden's poetry is not of the highest class, it is of the
+very highest kind in its class. Wherever the pure intellect comes into
+play, there he is invariably excellent. There is never any weakness;
+there is never any vagueness; there is never any deviation from the
+true path into aimless digression. His words invariably go straight to
+the mark, and not unfrequently with a directness and force that fully
+merit the epithet of "burning" applied to them by the poet Gray.
+His thoughts always rise naturally out of the matter in hand; and in
+the treatment of the meanest subjects he is not only never mean, but
+often falls without apparent effort into a felicity of phrase which
+holds the attention and implants itself in the memory. The benefit
+of exercise, for instance, is not a topic that can be deemed highly
+poetical; but in his epistle on country life addressed to his cousin
+John Driden, the moment he comes to speak of hunting and its salutary
+results his expression at once leaves the commonplace, and embodies
+the thought in these pointed lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4932" id="Page_4932">[Pg 4932]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So lived our sires, ere doctors learned to kill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And multiply with theirs the weekly bill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first physicians by debauch were made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Toil strung the nerves and purified the blood:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we their sons, a pampered race of men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better to hunt in fields for health unbought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wise for cure on exercise depend;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God never made his work for man to mend."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In a similar way in 'Cymon and Iphigenia' the contempt which
+Dryden, in common with the Tories of his time, felt for the English
+militia force, found vent in the following vigorous passage, really
+descriptive of them and their conduct though the scene is laid in
+Rhodes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The country rings around with loud alarms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mouths without hands; maintained at vast expense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In peace a charge, in war a weak defense;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ever, but in times of need, at hand:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This was the morn when, issuing on the guard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drawn up in rank and file they stood prepared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of seeming arms to make a short essay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In a world where what is feeble in expression is so often supposed
+to indicate peculiar delicacy; where what is vague is so often deemed
+peculiarly poetical; and where what is involved and crabbed and
+hard to comprehend is thought to denote peculiar profundity,&mdash;it is
+a pleasure to turn to a writer with a rank settled by the consensus
+of successive generations, who thought clearly and wrote forcibly,
+who knew always what he had to say and then said it with directness
+and power. There are greater poets than he; but so long as men
+continue to delight in vividness of expression, in majesty of numbers,
+in masculine strength and all-abounding vigor, so long will Dryden
+continue to hold his present high place among English authors.</p>
+
+<p>The writings of Dryden constitute of themselves a literature.
+They treat of a vast variety of topics in many different departments
+of intellectual activity. The completest edition of his works was first
+published in 1808 under the editorship of Walter Scott. It fills twenty-one
+volumes, the first of which however is devoted to a biography.
+The notes to this edition are generally excellent; the text is very
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4933" id="Page_4933">[Pg 4933]</a></span>
+indifferent. A revised edition of it has been recently published under
+the editorship of George Saintsbury. But easily accessible is
+a single-volume edition of the poems alone, edited by W. D. Christie,
+which furnishes a superior text, and is amply supplied with all
+necessary annotations.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 513px;">
+<img src="images/sign273.png" width="513" height="92" alt="Thomas R. Lounsbury" title="Thomas R. Lounsbury" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="HIND" id="HIND"></a>FROM 'THE HIND AND THE PANTHER'</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without unspotted, innocent within,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And doomed to death, though fated not to die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not so her young; for their unequal line<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was hero's make, half human, half divine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their earthly mold obnoxious was to fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The immortal part assumed immortal state.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So captive Israel multiplied in chains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her martyred offspring and their race renewed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their corps to perish, but their kind to last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Panting and pensive now she ranged alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wandered in the kingdoms once her own.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The common hunt, though from their rage restrained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By sovereign power, her company disdained,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had not time to take a steady sight;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4934" id="Page_4934">[Pg 4934]</a></span><span class="i0">For truth has such a face and such a mien<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As to be loved needs only to be seen.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bloody Bear, an independent beast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Professed neutrality, but would not swear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mimicked all sects and had his own to chuse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And paid at church a courtier's compliment.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But whitened with the foam of sanctity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With fat pollutions filled the sacred place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mountains leveled in his furious race;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So first rebellion founded was in grace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But since the mighty ravage which he made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In German forests had his guilt betrayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With broken tusks and with a borrowed name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The graceless beast by Athanasius first<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His impious race their blasphemy renewed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor in an infant could a God descry.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">New swarming sects to this obliquely tend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hence they began, and here they all will end.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What weight of ancient witness can prevail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If private reason hold the public scale?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But gracious God, how well dost thou provide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For erring judgments an unerring guide!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O teach me to believe thee thus concealed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And search no farther than thy self revealed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But her alone for my director take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom thou hast promised never to forsake!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Followed false lights; and when their glimpse was gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such was I, such by nature still I am;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be thine the glory and be mine the shame!<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4935" id="Page_4935">[Pg 4935]</a></span><span class="i0">Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What more could fright my faith than Three in One?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can I believe eternal God could lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Disguised in mortal mold and infancy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the great Maker of the world could die?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And after that, trust my imperfect sense<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which calls in question his omnipotence?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can I my reason to my faith compel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Superior faculties are set aside;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall their subservient organs be my guide?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And winking tapers show the sun his way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For what my senses can themselves perceive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I need no revelation to believe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can they, who say the Host should be descried<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By sense, define a body glorified,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impassible, and penetrating parts?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let them declare by what mysterious arts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shot that body through the opposing might<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of bolts and bars impervious to the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stood before his train confessed in open sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For since thus wondrously he passed, 'tis plain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One single place two bodies did contain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sure the same omnipotence as well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can make one body in more places dwell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let Reason then at her own quarry fly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But how can finite grasp infinity?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis urged again, that faith did first commence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By miracles, which are appeals to sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thence concluded, that our sense must be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The motive still of credibility.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For latter ages must on former wait,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what began belief must propagate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But winnow well this thought, and you shall find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were all those wonders wrought by power Divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As means or ends of some more deep design?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To prove the Godhead of the Eternal Son.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God thus asserted:  Man is to believe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for mysterious things of faith rely<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the proponent Heaven's authority.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4936" id="Page_4936">[Pg 4936]</a></span><span class="i0">If then our faith we for our guide admit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vain is the farther search of human wit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As when the building gains a surer stay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We take the unuseful scaffolding away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reason by sense no more can understand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The game is played into another hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why choose we then like bilanders to creep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the coast, and land in view to keep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When safely we may launch into the deep?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the same vessel which our Savior bore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with a better guide a better world explore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not veil these again to be our food?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His grace in both is equal in extent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first affords us life, the second nourishment.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And if he can, why all this frantic pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To construe what his clearest words contain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And make a riddle what he made so plain?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To take up half on trust and half to try,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pay great sums and to compound the small,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bank above must fail before the venture miss.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="FRIEND" id="FRIEND"></a>TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">On His Comedy Called 'The Double Dealer'</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well then, the promised hour is come at last;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The present age of wit obscures the past:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conquering with force of arms and dint of wit:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Theirs was the giant race before the flood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And boisterous English wit with art endued.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4937" id="Page_4937">[Pg 4937]</a></span><span class="i0">Our age was cultivated thus at length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But what we gained in skill we lost in strength.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our builders were with want of genius curst;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The second temple was not like the first;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Firm Doric pillars found your solid base,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He moved the mind, but had not power to raise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In differing talents both adorned their age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One for the study, t'other for the stage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But both to Congreve justly shall submit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In him all beauties of this age we see:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherley.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All this in blooming youth you have achieved;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So much the sweetness of your manners move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We cannot envy you, because we love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A beardless Consul made against the law,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though he with Hannibal was overcome.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scholar to the youth he taught became.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O that your brows my laurel had sustained!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The father had descended for the son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For only you are lineal to the throne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus, when the State one Edward did depose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A greater Edward in his room arose:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But now, not I, but poetry, is curst;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But let them not mistake my patron's part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor call his charity their own desert.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet this I prophesy:  Thou shalt be seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though with some short parenthesis between,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High on the throne of wit, and seated there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not mine&mdash;that's little&mdash;but thy laurel wear.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4938" id="Page_4938">[Pg 4938]</a></span><span class="i0">Thy first attempt an early promise made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That early promise this has more than paid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That your least praise is to be regular.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But genius must be born, and never can be taught.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is your portion, this your native store:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Maintain your post:  that's all the fame you need;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For 'tis impossible you should proceed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Already I am worn with cares and age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I live a rent-charge on His providence:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But you, whom every Muse and grace adorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom I foresee to better fortune born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against your judgment, your departed friend!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But shade those laurels which descend to you:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And take for tribute what these lines express;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You merit more, nor could my love do less.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="ODE" id="ODE"></a>ODE</h3>
+
+<h4>TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY</h4>
+
+<h3>MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW,</h3>
+
+<h4>EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Made in the last promotion of the blest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In spreading branches more sublimely rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Rich with immortal green above the rest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whether, adopted to some neighboring star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or in procession fixed and regular<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Moved with the heaven's majestic pace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Or called to more superior bliss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whatever happy region be thy place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cease thy celestial song a little space;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4939" id="Page_4939">[Pg 4939]</a></span><span class="i2">Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">In no ignoble verse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But such as thy own voice did practice here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">When thy first fruits of poesy were given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To make thyself a welcome inmate there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">While yet a young probationer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And candidate of Heaven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">If by traduction came thy mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Our wonder is the less to find<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A soul so charming from a stock so good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy father was transfused into thy blood:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So wert thou born into the tuneful strain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(An early, rich, and inexhausted vein).<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">But if thy pre-existing soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was formed at first with myriads more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">It did through all the mighty poets roll<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">May we presume to say that at thy birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For sure the milder planets did combine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And even the most malicious were in trine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thy brother angels at thy birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That all the people of the sky<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Might know a poetess was born on earth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And then, if ever, mortal ears<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Had heard the music of the spheres.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And if no clustering swarm of bees<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">'Twas that such vulgar miracles<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Heaven had not leisure to renew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For all the blest fraternity of love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4940" id="Page_4940">[Pg 4940]</a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">O gracious God! how far have we<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Debased to each obscene and impious use,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose harmony was first ordained above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">This lubric and adulterate age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">To increase the steaming ordures of the stage?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What can we say to excuse our second fall?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unmixed with foreign filth and undefiled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">Art she had none, yet wanted none,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For Nature did that want supply:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">So rich in treasures of her own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">She might our boasted stores defy:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such noble vigor did her verse adorn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her morals too were in her bosom bred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">By great examples daily fed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to be read herself she need not fear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Each test and every light her Muse will bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Light as the vapors of a morning dream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One would have thought she should have been content<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To manage well that mighty government;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">But what can young ambitious souls confine?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To the next realm she stretched her sway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For Painture near adjoining lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">A plenteous province and alluring prey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">A Chamber of Dependences was framed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As conquerors will never want pretense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">(When armed to justify the offense,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the whole fief in right of Poetry she claimed.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4941" id="Page_4941">[Pg 4941]</a></span><span class="i2">The country open lay without defense;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">For poets frequent inroads there had made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And perfectly could represent<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The shape, the face, with every lineament,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the large demains which the dumb Sister swayed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All bowed beneath her government.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And fruitful plains and barren rocks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The bottom did the top appear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Of deeper too and ampler floods<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Which, as in mirrors, showed the woods;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Of lofty trees, with sacred shades<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And perspectives of pleasant glades,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Where nymphs of brightest form appear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And shaggy satyrs standing near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Which them at once admire and fear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The ruins too of some majestic piece,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her forming hand gave feature to the name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But when the peopled Ark the whole creation bore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">The scene then changed; with bold erected look<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our martial King the sight with reverence strook:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For, not content to express his outward part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her hand called out the image of his heart:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His high-designing thoughts were figured there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As when by magic ghosts are made appear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Our ph&#339;nix Queen was portrayed too so bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beauty alone could beauty take so right:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With such a peerless majesty she stands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Before a train of heroines was seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In beauty foremost, as in rank the Queen.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4942" id="Page_4942">[Pg 4942]</a></span><span class="i2">Thus nothing to her genius was denied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">But like a ball of fire, the farther thrown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Still with a greater blaze she shone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And her bright soul broke out on every side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What next she had designed, Heaven only knows:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To such immoderate growth her conquest rose<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That Fate alone its progress could oppose.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Now all those charms, that blooming grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The well-proportioned shape and beauteous face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not wit nor piety could Fate prevent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor was the cruel Destiny content<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To finish all the murder at a blow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To sweep at once her life and beauty too;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">But, like a hardened felon, took a pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To work more mischievously slow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And plundered first, and then destroyed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O double sacrilege on things divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">But thus Orinda died:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heaven by the same disease did both translate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His waving streamers to the winds displays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And vows for his return with vain devotion pays.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The winds too soon will waft thee here!<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alas! thou knowest not, thou art wrecked at home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou hast already had her last embrace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Among the Pleiads, a new-kindled star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If any sparkles than the rest more bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">To raise the nations under ground;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When in the Valley of Jehoshaphat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The judging God shall close the book of Fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And there the last assizes keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">For those who wake and those who sleep;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4943" id="Page_4943">[Pg 4943]</a></span><span class="i3">When rattling bones together fly<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">From the four corners of the sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And foremost from the tomb shall bound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For they are covered with the lightest ground;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shalt go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The way which thou so well hast learned below.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="ASONG" id="ASONG"></a>A SONG</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Reserved for your victorious eyes:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From crowds whom at your feet you see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Oh pity and distinguish me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As I from thousand beauties more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Distinguish you, and only you adore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Your face for conquest was designed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Your every motion charms my mind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Angels, when you your silence break,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Forget their hymns to hear you speak;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But when at once they hear and view,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">No graces can your form improve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But all are lost, unless you love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While that sweet passion you disdain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Your veil and beauty are in vain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In pity then prevent my fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For after dying all reprieve's too late.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="LINES" id="LINES"></a>LINES PRINTED UNDER MILTON'S PORTRAIT</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">In Tonson's Folio Edition of the 'Paradise Lost</span>,' 1688</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Three poets, in three distant ages born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The next in majesty, in both the last:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The force of Nature could no farther go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To make a third she joined the former two.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4944" id="Page_4944">[Pg 4944]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="ALEXANDER" id="ALEXANDER"></a>ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC</h3>
+
+<h4>A SONG IN HONOR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY: 1697</h4>
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">By Philip's warlike son:<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Aloft in awful state<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">The godlike hero sate<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">On his imperial throne;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">His valiant peers were placed around;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">(So should desert in arms be crowned.)<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The lovely Thais, by his side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Sate like a blooming Eastern bride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">In flower of youth and beauty's pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Happy, happy, happy pair!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">None but the brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">None but the brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">None but the brave deserves the fair.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7">Happy, happy, happy pair!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">None but the brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">None but the brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">None but the brave deserves the fair.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>II</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9">Timotheus, placed on high<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Amid the tuneful quire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">With flying fingers touched the lyre:<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">The trembling notes ascend the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">And heavenly joys inspire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">The song began from Jove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Who left his blissful seats above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">(Such is the power of mighty love.)<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">A dragon's fiery form belied the god:<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Sublime on radiant spires he rode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">When he to fair Olympia pressed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And while he sought her snowy breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Then round her slender waist he curled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4945" id="Page_4945">[Pg 4945]</a></span><span class="i2">The listening crowd admire the lofty sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A present deity, they shout around;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">With ravished ears<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">The monarch hears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Assumes the god,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Affects to nod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And seems to shake the spheres.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">With ravished ears<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">The monarch hears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Assumes the god,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Affects to nod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And seems to shake the spheres.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>III</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The jolly god in triumph comes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Flushed with a purple grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">He shows his honest face:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Bacchus, ever fair and young,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Drinking joys did first ordain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Rich the treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Sweet the pleasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Sweet is pleasure after pain.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Rich the treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">Sweet the pleasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Sweet is pleasure after pain.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>IV</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Fought all his battles o'er again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4946" id="Page_4946">[Pg 4946]</a></span><span class="i3">The master saw the madness rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And while he heaven and earth defied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Changed his hand, and checked his pride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">He chose a mournful Muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Soft pity to infuse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">He sung Darius great and good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">By too severe a fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Fallen from his high estate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And weltering in his blood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Deserted at his utmost need<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">By those his former bounty fed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">On the bare earth exposed he lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">With not a friend to close his eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Revolving in his altered soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The various turn of chance below;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And now and then a sigh he stole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And tears began to flow.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">Revolving in his altered soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The various turns of chance below;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And now and then a sigh he stole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And tears began to flow.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>V</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">The mighty master smiled to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">That love was in the next degree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">'Twas but a kindred sound to move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">For pity melts the mind to love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">War, he sung, is toil and trouble;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Honor but an empty bubble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Never ending, still beginning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Fighting still, and still destroying:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">If the world be worth thy winning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Think, oh think it worth enjoying:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Lovely Thais sits beside thee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Take the good the gods provide thee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The many rend the skies with loud applause;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4947" id="Page_4947">[Pg 4947]</a></span><span class="i0">The prince, unable to conceal his pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Gazed on the fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Who caused his care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Sighed and looked, and sighed again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The prince, unable to conceal his pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Gazed on the fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Who caused his care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Sighed and looked, and sighed again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>VI</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">Now strike the golden lyre again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Break his bands of sleep asunder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Hark, hark, the horrid sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Has raised up his head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">As awaked from the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">And amazed, he stares around.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">See the Furies arise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">See the snakes that they rear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">How they hiss in their hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Behold a ghastly band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Each a torch in his hand!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And unburied remain<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Inglorious on the plain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Give the vengeance due<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">To the valiant crew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behold how they toss their torches on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">How they point to the Persian abodes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And glittering temples of their hostile gods!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The princes applaud with a furious joy;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4948" id="Page_4948">[Pg 4948]</a></span><span class="i0">And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Thais led the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">To light him to his prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like another Helen, fired another Troy.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<h4>CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Thais led the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">To light him to his prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like another Helen, fired another Troy.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9">Thus long ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">While organs yet were mute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Timotheus, to his breathing flute<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And sounding lyre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">At last divine Cecilia came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Inventress of the vocal frame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Enlarged the former narrow bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And added length to solemn sounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Let old Timotheus yield the prize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Or both divide the crown:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">He raised a mortal to the skies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">She drew an angel down.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4>GRAND CHORUS</h4>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">At last divine Cecilia came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Inventress of the vocal frame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Enlarged the former narrow bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And added length to solemn sounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Let old Timotheus yield the prize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Or both divide the crown:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">He raised a mortal to the skies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">She drew an angel down.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4949" id="Page_4949">[Pg 4949]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="ACHITOPHELA" id="ACHITOPHELA"></a>ACHITOPHEL<a name="FNanchor_A_4" id="FNanchor_A_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_4" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></h3>
+<h4>From 'Absalom and Achitophel'</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This plot, which failed for want of common-sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For as when raging fevers boil the blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The standing lake soon floats into a flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every hostile humor, which before<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So several factions from this first ferment<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Work up to foam, and threat the government.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Opposed the power to which they could not rise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like fiends were hardened in impenitence.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were raised in power and public office high;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of these the false Achitophel was first;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A name to all succeeding ages curst:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For close designs and crooked councils fit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Restless, unfixed in principles and place;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fiery soul, which, working out its way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fretted the pigmy body to decay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A daring pilot in extremity;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great wits are sure to madness near allied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thin partitions do their bounds divide;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Punish a body which he could not please;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all to leave what with his toil he won,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Got while his soul did huddled notions try,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4950" id="Page_4950">[Pg 4950]</a></span><span class="i0">In friendship false, implacable in hate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Resolved to ruin or to rule the State.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To compass this the triple bond he broke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pillars of the public safety shook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, seized with fear yet still affecting fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So easy still it proves in factious times,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With public zeal to cancel private crimes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where none can sin against the people's will!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where crowds can wink, and no offense be known,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since in another's guilt they find their own!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With virtues only proper to the gown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or had the rankness of the soil been freed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From cockle that oppressed the noble seed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">David for him his tuneful harp had strung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heaven had wanted one immortal song.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Achitophel, grown weary to possess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He stood at bold defiance with his prince;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Held up the buckler of the people's cause<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the Crown, and skulked behind the laws.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wished occasion of the plot he takes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some circumstances finds, but more he makes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By buzzing emissaries fills the ears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And proves the king himself a Jebusite.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_4" id="Footnote_A_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_4"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Lord Shaftesbury.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4951" id="Page_4951">[Pg 4951]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MAXIME_DU_CAMP" id="MAXIME_DU_CAMP"></a>MAXIME DU CAMP</h2>
+
+<h4>(1822-1894)</h4>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capw291.png" width="90" height="91" alt="W" title="W" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">hy have I always felt happy, filled with the spirit of content and
+of infinite independence, whenever I have slept in the tent or in the
+ruins of foreign lands?" The love of change and adventure has been the
+spring of Du Camp's life, a life whose events are blended so
+intimately with his literary achievement, that to know the one is to
+know the other. This practical man of the world has an imaginative,
+beauty-loving side to his nature, which craves stimulus from tropical
+unfamiliar nature and exotic ways.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 178px;">
+<img src="images/Illus291.png" width="178" height="222" alt="Maxime Du Camp" title="Maxime Du Camp" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Maxime Du Camp</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>So, after the usual training of French boys in lyc&eacute;e and college,&mdash;"in
+those hideous houses where they wearied our childhood," as he
+says,&mdash;the just-emancipated youth of twenty-two left his home in Paris
+for an eighteen-months' trip in the far East. The color and variety of
+the experience whetted his love of travel, and very soon after his
+return he began a serious study of photography in view of future
+plans.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the revolution of 1848, the overthrow of Louis Philippe; and
+Du Camp had an opportunity to prove his courage and patriotism in the
+ranks of the National Guard. In his 'Souvenirs de l'Ann&eacute;e
+1848,' he tells the story with color and interest, and with the
+forceful logic of an eye-witness.</p>
+
+<p>His bravery and a serious wound won him the red ribbon of the
+Legion of Honor, bestowed by General Cavaignac. This drew attention
+to him, and led the minister of public instruction to intrust him
+a few months later with a mission of exploration to Egypt, Nubia,
+Palestine, and Asia Minor; a result of which trip was his first literary
+success. Utilizing his photographic knowledge, he collected a great
+many negatives for future development. Upon his return he published
+a volume of descriptive sketches, 'Le Nil, Egypte, et Nubie,'
+generously illustrated with printed reproductions of these pictures.
+This first combination of photography and typography was popular,
+and was speedily imitated, initiative of many illustrated books.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4952" id="Page_4952">[Pg 4952]</a></span>
+Later, Du Camp's warlike and exploring instincts led him at his own
+expense into Sicily with Garibaldi, where he collected matter and
+photographs for 'Les Deux Siciles', another successful volume. In 1851
+he associated with others to found the Revue de Paris, for which he
+wrote regularly until its suspension in 1858. He has also written a
+great deal for the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which for several years
+he continued a series of historical studies upon the government of
+Paris. The six volumes upon 'Paris: its Organs, its Functions, its
+Life, during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,' form one of
+his chief achievements. His personal knowledge on the subject, and his
+access to valuable unpublished documents, give it authoritative value.</p>
+
+<p>In 'Les Anc&ecirc;tres de la Commune,' and 'Les Convulsions de Paris,'
+he has accomplished much more in the same line. The latter, a brilliant
+circumstantial exposition of the Commune, a logical condemnation
+of its folly and ignorance, brought him gratitude from the French
+Academy, and aided his election to that body in 1880. For this extensive
+work on contemporary politics, for his illustrated travels, and his
+artistic and literary criticism, he is better known than for his two or
+three novels and volumes of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Du Camp's may be characterized as a soldierly style, strong, direct,
+and personal. He loves to retrace old scenes with the later visible
+sequence of cause and effect. Always straightforward, sometimes
+bluntly self-assertive, he is sometimes eloquent. Perhaps his great
+charm is spontaneity.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="STREET" id="STREET"></a>A STREET SCENE DURING THE COMMUNE</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The Convulsions of Paris'</h4>
+
+<p>There were strange episodes during this terrible evening. At half-past
+eight, M. Rouville, a Protestant minister, was at home in a house he
+owns on the Rue de Lille. He heard an alarm, the cry, "Everything is
+burning! Escape!" Then he went down, saw the street in flames, and the
+poor people weeping as they escaped. Just as he was returning to
+rescue a few valuables, some federates rushed into the court, crying,
+"Hurry! They are setting the place on fire!" He took some money and
+the manuscript of the sermons he had preached. Mechanically he seized
+his hat and cane. Then, throwing a last look around the apartment
+where he had long lived, invoking the memory of the great Biblical
+destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4953" id="Page_4953">[Pg 4953]</a></span>
+weak and trembling with emotion, he descended the staircase from his home.</p>
+
+<p>There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by the cry of
+women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror, vibrating above
+the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no supernatural power
+replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house next his own was in
+flames. They were setting fire to the one opposite. The houses between
+the Rue de Beaune and the Rue du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were
+vomiting flame from all the broken windows.</p>
+
+<p>The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a faithful
+maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubtless determined
+his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all to save his house.
+If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he would have thought only
+of their safety, and would have hastened to get them away from the
+place, where, he said, "One could die of horror."</p>
+
+<p>Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps him young
+and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong race of Southern
+Protestants, which has resisted everything to guard its faith. I
+should not be surprised if he has had some nimble C&eacute;vennole, companion
+of Jean Cavalier, among his ancestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the
+Seine, accustomed to sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts
+some intact fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in
+faith, eloquent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
+knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound that
+light cannot be made to penetrate it,&mdash;he had remained on duty at his
+post during the Commune; for the prisoners had more need of spiritual
+aid, now that the regular administration no longer watched over them.
+He had been indignant at the incarceration of Catholic priests, and
+had signed the fine protest demanding the liberty of the archbishop,
+which the ministers had carried to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville.</p>
+
+<p>Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened him, he
+commended his spirit to God, remembering that the little stone of
+David had killed the giant Philistine, and he decided to fight for his
+home. He encamped energetically before the door, to forbid access; and
+using the weapons bestowed upon him by Providence and study, he spoke.
+The federates stopped before this man, whose simplicity rendered him
+heroic. One may guess what he said to them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4954" id="Page_4954">[Pg 4954]</a></span>
+"Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execrable? Why be
+enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose religion, founded on the
+dogma of free examination, is naturally allied to republican ideas?
+The faith he teaches is that promulgated by Christ: Christ said to
+Peter, 'Sheathe thy sword;' he said to men,'Love one another!' No, the
+people of Paris, this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose
+unfortunates have been succored during the siege; this people, so good
+when not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the house
+of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in the exercise
+of charity."</p>
+
+<p>The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with profound
+conviction, for the federates who were listening to him began to weep,
+then seized and embraced him. Meantime the tenants of the shops in his
+house had lowered the iron curtains, which at least was an obstacle
+against the first throwing of petroleum. This lasted an hour. The
+federates, evidently softened and touched by the pastor's despair,
+remained near him and had pity upon him. An old sergeant of the
+National Guard stayed beside him, as if to bring him help in case of
+need, and to maintain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope
+revived in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that
+perhaps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing the
+braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires. Seeing
+one house intact, emerging like a little island from an ocean of
+flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and wanted to argue
+with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these young scamps said to
+him, "You are an old reactionist: you bore us with your talking. If
+you don't like it, we will pin you to the wall." Then, turning toward
+the federates and pointing to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he
+cried, "All that belongs to the people. The people have the right to
+burn every thing."</p>
+
+<p>This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when
+the sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer
+said to him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here."
+"Show me your order," answered the officer. The sergeant replied,
+"It is a verbal order." Then there was a lively quarrel
+between the two men. The sergeant was firm. The officer insisted,
+and according to the custom of the moment, threatened to
+have the rebel shot.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved
+it. A mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4955" id="Page_4955">[Pg 4955]</a></span>
+to retreat, because they were about to be surrounded by the
+troops from Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant
+who had remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry,
+father! You will get yourself killed, and that will not save your
+camp."</p>
+
+<p>The other officers passed, commanded everything to be
+burned, and when the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave.
+For half an hour the unhappy pastor remained alone, holding
+back the incendiaries, passing from supplications to threats, and
+gaining time by every possible artifice. The sergeant returned
+with tearful eyes, and showed the dismayed pastor a written
+order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs. Not yet discouraged,
+the pastor roused the compassion of the old sergeant, and so
+moved him that the rebel cried, "Ah, well! so much the worse!
+I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
+shoot me. It's all the same. I deserve to be." Then raising
+his hand toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks
+through the veil of wind-driven smoke, he cried "O my father, I
+believe in God! Fear nothing; I will stay here. They shan't
+touch your house. I shall know how to keep off plunderers!"</p>
+
+<p>O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all
+good actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and
+the emotion which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed
+thy likeness, and one need not despair of thee, although thou
+dishearten those who love thee best!</p>
+
+<p>The brandy at the wine merchants'; the ether at the druggists';
+the powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in
+cellars, burst with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals.
+The pastor looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He
+gave it a last look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock.
+For three hours in the midst of this furnace he had resisted the
+incendiaries. His strength was exhausted. The faithful servant,
+who went back again and again to rescue one thing more from
+the burning, dragged him away. In the Rue des Saints-P&egrave;res
+they plunged into darkness, all the deeper for the brazier of
+sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way over the
+barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
+fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved,
+they reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where
+they found refuge in a lodging-house.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4956" id="Page_4956">[Pg 4956]</a></span>
+Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His
+house was standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word.
+What became of this brave man, who at the risk of his life
+saved the property of a man whose speech had touched him?
+Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he received his due reward. Perhaps
+he drags out a wretched life in some workshop of a penitentiary.
+I know not his fate, nor even his name.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4957" id="Page_4957">[Pg 4957]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="ALEXANDRE_DUMAS_SENIOR" id="ALEXANDRE_DUMAS_SENIOR"></a>ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR</h2>
+
+<h4>(1803?-1870)</h4>
+
+<h4>BY ANDREW LANG</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 89px;">
+<img src="images/capn297.png" width="89" height="95" alt="N" title="N" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">o author is less capable of being illustrated by extracts than
+Alexandre Dumas. Writers like Prosper M&eacute;rim&eacute;e or Mr. Robert Louis
+Stevenson can be not inadequately represented by a short story or a
+brief scene. Even from Scott's work we can detach 'Wandering Willie's
+Tale,' or 'The Tapestried Chamber,' or the study of Effie Deans in
+prison, or of Jeanie Deans before the Queen. But Dumas is invariably
+diffuse; though, unlike other diffuse talkers and writers, he is
+seldom tedious. He is long without <i>longueurs</i>. A single example will
+explain this better than a page of disquisition. The present selector
+had meant to extract Dumas's first meeting with Charles Nodier at the
+theatre. In memory, that amusing scene appeared to occupy some six
+pages. In fact, it covers nearly a hundred and thirty pages of the
+Brussels edition of the 'Memoirs' of Dumas. One reads it with such
+pleasure that looked back upon, it seems short, while it is infinitely
+too long to be extracted. In dialogue Dumas is both excellent and
+copious, so that he cannot well be abbreviated. He is the Porthos of
+novelists, gigantic, yet (at his best) muscular and not overgrown. For
+these reasons, extracts out of his romances do no justice to Dumas. To
+read one of his novels, say 'The Three Musketeers,' even in a slovenly
+translation, is to know more of him than a world of critics and
+essayists can teach. It is also to forget the world, and to dwell in a
+careless Paradise. Our object therefore is not to give an "essence of
+Dumas," but to make readers peruse him in his own books, and to save
+them trouble by indicating, among these books, the best.</p>
+
+<p>It is notorious that Dumas was at the head of a "Company" like that
+which Scott laughingly proposed to form "for writing and publishing
+the class of books called Waverley Novels." In legal phrase, Dumas
+"deviled" his work; he had assistants, "researchers," collaborators.
+He would briefly sketch a plot, indicate the authorities to be
+consulted, hand his notes to Maquet or Fiorentino, receive their
+draught, and expand that into a romance. Work thus executed cannot be
+equal to itself. Many books signed by Dumas may be neglected without
+loss. Even to his best works, one or other of his assistants was apt
+to assert a claim. The answer is convincing. Not one of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4958" id="Page_4958">[Pg 4958]</a></span>
+these ingenious men ever produced, by himself, anything that could be
+mistaken for the work of the master. All his good things have the same
+stamp and the same spirit, which we find nowhere else. Again, nobody
+contests his authorship of his own 'Memoirs,' or of his book about his
+dogs, birds, and other beasts&mdash;'The Story of My Pets.' Now, the merit
+of these productions is, in kind, identical with many of the merits of
+his best novels. There is the same good-humor, gayety, and fullness of
+life. We may therefore read Dumas's central romances without much fear
+of being grateful to the wrong person. Against the modern theory that
+the Iliad and Odyssey are the work of many hands in many ages, we can
+urge that these supposed "hands" never did anything nearly so good for
+themselves; and the same argument applies in the case of Alexandre
+Dumas.</p>
+
+<p>A brief sketch of his life must now be given. "No man has had
+so many of his possessions disputed as myself," says Dumas. Not
+only his right to his novels, but his right to his name and to legitimate
+birth, was contested. Here we shall follow his own account of
+himself in his 'Memoirs,' which do not cover nearly the whole of his
+life. Alexandre Dumas was born at Villers-Cotterets-sur-Aisne, on
+July 24th, 1803(?). He lived to almost exactly the threescore and ten
+years of the Psalmist. He saw the fall of Napoleon, the restoration
+of the rightful king, the expulsion of the Legitimate monarch in
+1830, the Orleans rule, its overthrow in 1848, the Republic, the
+Empire, and the Terrible Year, 1870-1871. Then he died, in the
+hour of the sorrow of his</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Immortal and indomitable France."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 610px;">
+<a name="SENIOR" id="SENIOR"></a>
+<img src="images/Illus0424.jpg" width="610" height="1024" alt="ALEXANDRE DUMAS" title="ALEXANDRE DUMAS" />
+<span class="caption">ALEXANDRE DUMAS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dumas's full name was noble: he was Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la
+Pailleterie. His family estate, La Pailleterie, was made a marquisate
+by Louis XIV. in 1707. About 1760 the grandfather of Dumas sold his
+lands in France, and went to Hayti. There in 1762 was born his father,
+son of Louise Cossette Dumas and of the Marquis de la Pailleterie. The
+mother must have been a woman of color; Dumas talks of his father's
+"mulatto hue," and he himself had undoubted traces of African blood.
+Yet it appears that the grandparents were duly married. In 1772, his
+wife having died, the old marquis returned to France. The Revolution
+broke out, and the father of Alexandre Dumas fought in the armies of
+the Republic. The cruel mob called him by way of mockery, "Monsieur
+Humanity," because he endeavored to rescue the victims of their
+ferocity. He was a man of great courage and enormous physical strength.
+Napoleon, in honor of one of his feats of arms, called him in a dispatch
+"The Horatius Cocles of the Republic." He was with Napoleon in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4959" id="Page_4959">[Pg 4959]</a></span>
+Egypt, where a quarrel arose, as he suspected and opposed
+the ambition of the future emperor. Though Dumas found a treasure in a
+bey's house, he honorably presented it to his government. He died in
+France, a poor man, in 1806.</p>
+
+<p>Dumas was not at home when his father died. He was staying, a
+child of four, with his cousin Marianne.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"At midnight I was awakened, or rather my cousin and I were awakened,
+by a great blow struck on the door of our room. By the light of a night
+lamp I saw my cousin start up, much alarmed. No mortal could have
+knocked at our chamber door, for the outer doors were locked. [He gives a
+plan of the house.] I got out of bed to open the door. 'Where are you
+going, Alexandre?' cried my cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"'To let in papa, who is coming to say adieu.'</p>
+
+<p>"The girl dragged me back to bed; I cried, 'Adieu, papa, adieu!' Something
+like a sighing breath passed over my face.... My father had died
+at the hour when we heard the knock!"</p></div>
+
+<p>This anecdote may remind the reader of what occurred at Abbotsford
+on the night when Mr. Bullock died in London. Dumas tells
+another tale of the same kind ('Memoirs,' Vol. xi., page 255: Brussels,
+1852). On the night of his mother's death he in vain sought a
+similar experience. These things "come not by observation"; but
+Dumas, like Scott, had a mind not untuned to such themes, though
+not superstitious.</p>
+
+<p>Young Dumas, like most men of literary genius, taught himself to
+read. A Buffon with plates was the treasure of the child, already a
+lover of animals. To know more about the beasts he learned to read
+for his own pleasure. Of mythology he was as fond as Keats. His
+intellectual life began (like the imaginative life of our race) in legends
+of beasts and gods. For Dumas was born <i>un primitif</i>, as the French
+say; his taste was the old immortal human taste for romance, for
+tales of adventure, love, and war. This predilection is now of course
+often scouted by critics who are over-civilized and under-educated.
+Superior persons will never share the love of Dumas which was common
+to Thackeray and Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. From Buffon he
+went on to the 'Letters to &Eacute;mil' (letters on mythology), and to the
+'Arabian Nights.' An imaginative child, he knew the "pains of
+sleep" as Coleridge did, and the terrors of vain imagination. Many
+children whose manhood is not marked by genius are visionaries. A
+visionary too was little Dumas, like Scott, Coleridge, and George
+Sand in childhood. To the material world he ever showed a bold
+face. "I have never known doubt or despair," he says; his faith in
+God was always unshaken; the doctrine of immortality he regarded
+rather with hope than absolute belief. Yet surely it is a corollary to
+the main article of his creed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4960" id="Page_4960">[Pg 4960]</a></span>
+At ten, Dumas went to a private school kept by an Abb&eacute; Gr&eacute;goire.
+At the Restoration, a boy of twelve, he made and he adhered to an
+important resolution. He chose to keep his grandmaternal name of
+Dumas, like his father, and to drop the name and arms of De la
+Pailleterie, with all the hopes of boons from the restored Royalists.
+Dumas remained a man of the popular party, though he had certain
+relations of friendship with the house of Orl&eacute;ans. But he entertained
+no posthumous hatred of the old monarchy and the old times. His
+kings are nearly as good, in his romances, as Sir Walter's own, and
+his Henri III. and Henri IV. may be named with Scott's Gentle King
+Jamie and Louis XI.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Dumas, marquise as she was by marriage, kept a tobacconist's
+shop; and in education, Dumas was mainly noted for his calligraphy.
+Poaching was now the boy's favorite amusement; all through his life he
+was very fond of sport. Napoleon returned from Elba; Dumas saw him
+drive through Villers-Cotterets on his way to Waterloo. Soon
+afterwards came in stragglers; the English, they said, had been
+defeated at five o'clock on June 18th, but the Prussians arrived at
+six o'clock and won the battle. What the English were doing between
+five and six does not appear; it hardly seems that they quitted the
+field. The theory of that British defeat at Waterloo was never
+abandoned by Dumas. He saw Napoleon return through Villers-Cotterets.
+"Wellington, B&uuml;low, Bl&uuml;cher, were but masks of men; really they were
+spirits sent by the Most High to defeat Napoleon." It is a pious
+opinion!</p>
+
+<p>At the age of fifteen Dumas, like Scott, became a notary's clerk.
+About this time he saw 'Hamlet' played, in the version of Ducis.
+Corneille and Racine had always been disliked by this born romanticist.
+'Hamlet' carried him off his feet. Soon afterwards he read
+B&uuml;rger's 'Lenore,' the ballad which Scott translated at the very
+beginning of his career as an author.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Splash! splash! along the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The flashing pebbles flee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This German ballad, says Scott, "struck him as the kind of thing
+he could do himself." And Dumas found that the refrain</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hurrah, fant&ocirc;me, les morts vont vite,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>was more to his taste than the French poetry of the eighteenth century.
+He tried to translate 'Lenore.' Scott finished it in a night;
+Dumas gave up in despair. But this, he says, was the beginning of
+his authorship. He had not yet opened a volume of Scott or Cooper,
+"ces deux grands romanciers." With a friend named Leuven he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4961" id="Page_4961">[Pg 4961]</a></span>
+began to try to write plays (1820-1821). He now poached his way to
+Paris, defraying his expenses with the game he shot on the road.
+Shakespeare too was a poacher; let us excuse the eccentricities of
+genius. He made Talma's acquaintance; he went to the play; he
+resigned his clerkship: "Paris was my future." Thither he went; his
+father's name served him with General Foy, and he obtained a little
+post in the household of the Duc D'Orl&eacute;ans&mdash;a supernumerary secretaryship
+at &pound;60 a year. At the play he met Charles Nodier, reading
+the rarest of Elzevirs, and at intervals (like Charles Lamb) hissing
+his own piece! This delightful scene, with its consequences, occupies
+one hundred and thirty pages!</p>
+
+<p>Dumas now made the acquaintance of Frederic Souli&eacute;, and became
+a pillar of theatres. He began to read with a purpose: first he read
+Scott; "The clouds lifted, and I beheld new horizons." Then he
+turned to Cooper; then to Byron. One day he entered his office, crying
+aloud, "Byron is dead!" "Who is Byron?" said one of his chiefs.
+Here Dumas breaks off in his 'Memoirs' to give a life of Byron! He
+fought his first duel in the snow, and won an easy, almost a bloodless
+victory. For years he and Leuven wrote plays together,&mdash;plays
+which were never accepted.</p>
+
+<p>At last he, Rousseau (not Jean Jacques!), and Leuven composed a
+piece together. Refused at one house, it was accepted at another:
+'La Chasse et l'Amour' (The Chase and Love) was presented on
+September 22d, 1823. It succeeded. A volume of three short stories
+sold to the extent of four copies. Dumas saw that he must "make a
+name" before he could make a livelihood. "I do not believe in neglected
+talent and unappreciated genius," says he. Like Mr. Arthur
+Pendennis, he wrote verses "up to" pictures. Thackeray did the
+same. "Lady Blessington once sent him an album print of a boy and
+girl fishing, with a request that he would make some verses for it.
+'And,' he said, 'I liked the idea, and set about it at once. I was
+two entire days at it,&mdash;was so occupied with it, so engrossed by it,
+that I did not shave during the whole time.'" So says Mr. Locker-Lampson.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot all be Dumas or Thackeray. But if any literary beginner
+reads these lines, let him take Dumas's advice; let him disbelieve
+in neglected genius, and do the work that comes in his way, as best
+he can. Dumas had a little anonymous success in 1826, a vaudeville
+at the Porte-Saint-Martin. At last he achieved a serious tragedy, or
+melodrama, in verse, 'Christine.' He wrote to Nodier, reminding him
+of their meeting at the play. The author of 'Trilby' introduced him
+to Taylor; Taylor took him to the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre Fran&ccedil;ais; 'Christine' was
+read and accepted unanimously.</p>
+
+<p>Dumas now struck the vein of his fortune. By chance he opened
+a volume of Anquetil, and read an anecdote of the court of Henri III.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4962" id="Page_4962">[Pg 4962]</a></span>
+This led him to study the history of Saint Megrin, in the Memoirs
+of L'Estoile, where he met Quelus, and Maugiron, and Bussy d'Amboise,
+with the stirring tale of his last fight against twelve men.
+Out of these facts he made his play 'Henri III.,' and the same
+studies inspired that trilogy of romances 'La Reine Margot' (Queen
+Margot), 'La Dame de Monsoreau' (The Lady of Monsoreau), and
+'Les Quarante-Cinq' (The Forty-Five). These are, with the trilogy
+of the 'Mousquetaires,' his central works as a romancer, and he was
+twenty-five when he began to deal with the romance of history. His
+habit was to narrate his play or novel, to his friends, to invent as he
+talked, and so to arrive at his general plan. The mere writing gave
+him no trouble. We shall later show his method in the composition
+of 'The Three Musketeers.'</p>
+
+<p>'Christine' had been wrecked among the cross-currents of theatrical
+life. 'Henri III.' was more fortunate. Dumas was indeed
+obliged to choose between his little office and the stage; he abandoned
+his secretaryship. In 1829 occurred this "duel between his
+past and his future." Just before the first night of the drama,
+Dumas's mother, whom he tenderly loved, was stricken down by
+paralysis. He tended her, he watched over his piece, he almost
+dragged the Duc d'Orl&eacute;ans to the theatre. On that night he made
+the acquaintance of Hugo and Alfred de Vigny. Dumas passed the
+evening between the theatre and his mother's bedside. When the
+curtain fell, he was "called on"; the audience stood up uncovered,
+the Duc d'Orl&eacute;ans and all!</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Dumas, like Byron, "woke to find himself famous." He had
+"made his name" in the only legitimate way,&mdash;by his work. Troubles
+followed, difficulties with the Censorship, duels and rumors of duels,
+and the whole romantic upheaval which accompanied the Revolution of
+1830. Dumas was attached again to the Orl&eacute;ans household. He dabbled in
+animal magnetism, which had been called mesmerism, and now is known as
+hypnotism. The phenomena are the same; only the explanations vary.
+About 1830 there was a mania for animal magnetism in Paris; Lady
+Louisa Stuart recounted some of the marvels to Sir Walter Scott, who
+treated the reports with disdain. When writing his romance 'Joseph
+Balsamo' (a tale of the French Revolution), Dumas made studies of
+animal magnetism, and was, or believed himself to be, an adept. The
+orthodox party of modern hypnotists merely hold that by certain
+physical means, a state of somnambulism can be produced in certain
+people. Once in that state, the patients are subject, to "suggestion,"
+and are obedient to the will of the hypnotizer. He for his part exerts
+no "magnetic current," no novel unexplained force or fluid. Some recent
+French and English experiments are not easily to be reconciled with this
+hypothesis. Dumas himself believed that he exerted a magnetic force, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4963" id="Page_4963">[Pg 4963]</a></span>
+without any "passes" or other mechanical means, could hypnotize persons who
+did not know what he was about, and so were not influenced by "suggestion."
+In a few cases he held that his patients became clairvoyant; one of
+them made many political prophecies,&mdash;all unfulfilled. Another,
+in trance, improved vastly as a singer; "her normal voice stopped at
+<i>contre-si</i>. I bade her rise to <i>contre-re</i>, which she did; though
+incapable of it when awake." So far, this justifies the plot of Mr. Du
+Maurier's novel 'Trilby.' Dumas offers no theory; he states facts, as
+he says, including "post-hypnotic suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>These experiments were made by Dumas merely as part of his studies for
+'Joseph Balsamo' (Cagliostro); his conclusion was that hypnotism is
+not yet reduced to a scientific formula. In fiction it is already
+overworked. Dumas got his 'Christine' acted at last. Then broke out
+the Revolution of 1830. Dumas's description of his activity is "as
+good as a novel," but too long and varied for condensation. It seems
+better to give this extract about his life of poverty before his
+mother died, before fame visited him. (I quote Miss Cheape's
+translation of the passage included in her 'Stories of Beasts,'
+published by Longmans, Green and Company.)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>He had, in later years, named a cat Mysouff II.</p>
+
+<p>"If you won't think me impertinent, sir," said Madame Lamarque, "I should
+so like to know what Mysouff means."</p>
+
+<p>"Mysouff just means Mysouff, Madame Lamarque."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a cat's name, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, since Mysouff the First was so-called. It is true, Madame
+Lamarque, you never knew Mysouff." And I became so thoughtful that
+Madame Lamarque was kind enough to withdraw quietly, without asking
+any questions about Mysouff the First.</p>
+
+<p>That name had taken me back to fifteen years ago, when my mother was
+still living. I had then the great happiness of having a mother to
+scold me sometimes. At the time I speak of, I held a situation in the
+service of the Duc d'Orl&eacute;ans, with a salary of 1500 francs. My work
+occupied me from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon. We
+had a cat in those days, whose name was Mysouff. This cat had missed
+his vocation; he ought to have been a dog. Every morning I started for
+my office at half-past nine, and came back every evening at half-past
+five. Every morning Mysouff followed me to the corner of a particular
+street, and every evening I found him in the same street, at the same
+corner, waiting for me. Now the curious thing was that on the days
+when I had found some amusement elsewhere, and was not coming home to
+dinner, it was of no use to open the door for Mysouff to go and meet
+me. Mysouff, in the attitude of the serpent with its tail in its
+mouth, refused to stir from his cushion. On the other hand, on the
+days I did come, Mysouff would scratch at the door until some one
+opened it for him. My mother was very fond of Mysouff; she used to
+call him her barometer.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4964" id="Page_4964">[Pg 4964]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mysouff marks my good and my bad weather," my dear mother would
+say: "the days you come in are my days of sunshine; my rainy days are
+when you stay away."</p>
+
+<p>When I came home I used to see Mysouff at the street corner, sitting
+quite still and gazing into the distance. As soon as he caught sight
+of me, he began to move his tail; then as I drew nearer, he rose and
+walked backward and forward across the pavement with his back arched
+and his tail in the air. When I reached him, he jumped up upon me as a
+dog would have done, and bounded and played round me as I walked
+towards the house; but when I was close to it he dashed in at full
+speed. Two seconds after, I used to see my mother at the door.</p>
+
+<p>Never again in this world, but perhaps in the next, I shall see her
+standing waiting for me at the door.</p>
+
+<p>That is what I was thinking of, dear readers, when the name of Mysouff
+brought back all these recollections; so you understand why I did not
+answer Madame Lamarque's question.</p></div>
+
+<p>The life of Dumas after 1830 need not be followed step by step;
+indeed, for lack of memoirs, to follow it is by no means easy.</p>
+
+<p>Dumas, by dint of successful plays, and later of successful novels,
+earned large sums of money&mdash;&pound;40,000 in one year, it is said. He
+traveled far and wide, and compiled books of travel. In the forties,
+before the Revolution of 1848, he built a kind of Abbotsford of his
+own, named "Monte Cristo," near St. Germains, and joyously ruined
+himself. "Monte Cristo," like Abbotsford, has been described as a
+palace. Now, Abbotsford is so far from being a palace that Mr.
+Hope Scott, when his wife, Scott's granddaughter, inherited the place,
+was obliged to build an additional wing.</p>
+
+<p>At Monte Cristo Dumas kept but one man-servant, Michel (his "Tom
+Purdie"), who was groom, keeper, porter, gardener, and everything. Nor
+did Dumas ruin himself by paying exorbitant prices for poor lands, as
+Scott did. His collection of books and curios was no rival for that of
+Abbotsford. But like Scott, he gave away money to right and left, and
+he kept open house. He was eaten up by parasites,&mdash;beggars, poor
+greedy hangers-on of letters, secretaries, above all by tribes of
+musical people. On every side money flowed from him; hard as he
+worked, largely as he earned, he spent more. His very dog brought in
+thirteen other dogs to bed and board. He kept monkeys, cats, eagles, a
+vulture, a perfect menagerie. His own account of these guests may be
+read in "My Pets"; perhaps the most humorous, good-humored, and
+amusing of all his works.</p>
+
+<p>The Revolution of 1848 impoverished him and drove him from
+Monte Cristo; not out of debt to his neighbors. Dumas was a cheerful
+giver, but did not love to "fritter away his money in paying
+bills." He started newspapers, such as The Musketeer, and rather
+lost than gained by a careless editorship. A successful play would
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4965" id="Page_4965">[Pg 4965]</a></span>
+enrich him, and he would throw away his gains. He went with
+Garibaldi on his expedition against the King of Naples, and was
+received with ingratitude by the Neapolitans.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of Daniel Dunglas Home, the "medium," he accompanied
+him to Russia, where Home married a lady of a noble and wealthy
+family. Returned to France, Dumas found his popularity waning.
+His plays often failed; he had outlived his success and his generation;
+he had saved nothing; he had to turn in need to his son
+Alexandre, the famous dramatist. Finally he died, doubting the
+security of his own fame, in the year of the sorrows of France.</p>
+
+<p>Dumas is described by Michelet as "a force of nature." Never
+was there in modern literature a force more puissant, more capricious,
+or more genial. His quantity of mind was out of all proportion
+to its quality. He could learn everything with ease; he was a
+skilled cook, a fencer; he knew almost as if by intuition the technique
+and terminology of all arts and crafts. Ignorant of Greek, he
+criticized and appreciated Homer with an unmatched zest and appreciation.
+Into the dry bones of history he breathed life, mere names
+becoming full-blooded fellow-creatures under his spell. His inspiration
+was derived from Scott, a man far more learned than he, but
+scarcely better gifted with creative energy. Like Scott he is long,
+perhaps prolix; like him he is indifferent to niceties of style, does
+not linger over the choice of words, but serves himself with the first
+that comes to hand. Scott's wide science of human nature is not his;
+but his heroes, often rather ruffianly, are seldom mere exemplary
+young men of no particular mark. More brilliantly and rapidly than
+Scott, he indicates action in dialogue. He does not aim at the construction
+of rounded plots; his novels are chronicles which need never
+stop while his heroes are alive. His plan is to take a canvas of fact,
+in memoir or history, and to embroider his fantasies on that. Occasionally
+the canvas (as Mr. Saintsbury says) shows through, and we
+have blocks of actual history. His 'Joan of Arc' begins as a romance,
+and ends with a comparatively plain statement of facts too
+great for any art but Shakespeare's. But as a rule it is not historical
+facts, it is the fictitious adventures of characters living in an
+historical atmosphere, that entertain us in Dumas.</p>
+
+<p>The minute inquirer may now compare the sixteenth-century 'Memoirs of
+Monsieur D'Artagnan' (fictitious memoirs, no doubt) with the use made
+of them by Dumas in 'The Three Musketeers' and 'Twenty Years After.'
+The 'Memoirs' (reprinted by the Librairie Illustr&eacute;e, Paris) gave Dumas
+his opening scenes; gave him young D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, Aramis, Rosnay,
+De Treville, Milady, the whole complicated intrigue of Milady, D'Artagnan,
+and De Vardes. They gave him several incidents, duels, and "local color." By
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4966" id="Page_4966">[Pg 4966]</a></span>
+making Milady the wife of Athos, Dumas knotted his plot;
+he added the journey to England, after the Queen's diamonds;
+from a subordinate character he borrowed the clerical character
+of Aramis; a mere hint in the 'Memoirs' suggested the Bastion
+Saint-Gervais. The discrimination of character, the dialogue, and many
+adventures, are Dumas's own; he was aided by Maquet in the actual
+writing. In a similar way, Brant&ocirc;me and L'Estoile, in their 'Memoirs,'
+supply the canvas of the tales of the Valois cycle.</p>
+
+<p>The beginner in Dumas will assuredly find the following his best
+works. For the Valois period, 'The Horoscope' (a good deal neglected),
+'Queen Margot,' 'The Lady of Monsoreau,' 'The Forty-Five.'
+'Isabeau of Bavi&egrave;re,' an early novel, deals with the anarchy and
+misery before the coming of Jeanne d'Arc. For Henri II., 'The Two
+Dianas' is indicated. For the times of Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis
+XIV., we have 'The Three Musketeers,' 'Twenty Years After,' and
+'The Viscount of Bragelonne.' These deal with the youth, middle
+age, old age, and death of D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis.
+The Revolutionary novels, 'Joseph Balsamo,' 'The Queen's Necklace,'
+and others, are much less excellent. The Regency is not ill done in
+'The Regent's Daughter'; and 'The Chevalier of Harmenthal,' with
+'Olympe of Cleves,' has many admirers. Quite apart from these is
+the immense modern fantasy of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'; the
+opening part alone is worthy of the master. 'The Black Tulip,' so
+warmly praised by Thackeray, is an innocent little romance of the
+days of Dutch William. <i>Les jeunes filles</i> may read 'The Black Tulip':
+indeed, Dumas does not sacrifice at all to "the Goddess of Lubricity,"
+even when he describes very lax moralities.</p>
+
+<p>With a knowledge of these books, and of 'My Pets' and the
+'Memoirs,' any student will find himself at home in Dumas, and can
+make wider ranges in that great wilderness of fancy. Some autobiographical
+details will be found in the novel called 'Ange Pithou.'
+'Isaac Laquedem' was meant to be a romance of the Wandering
+Jew; only two volumes are published. Philosophy a reader will not
+find, nor delicate analysis, nor "chiseled style"; but he will be in
+touch with a great sunny life, rejoicing in all the accidents of existence.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 190px;">
+<img src="images/sign308.png" width="190" height="74" alt="A. Lang" title="A. Lang" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4967" id="Page_4967">[Pg 4967]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CURE" id="CURE"></a>THE CURE FOR DORMICE THAT EAT PEACHES</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The Count of Monte Cristo'</h4>
+
+<p>Not on the same night he had intended, but the next morning, the Count
+of Monte Cristo went out on the road to Orl&eacute;ans. Leaving the village
+of Linas, without stopping at the telegraph, which at the moment the
+count passed threw out its long bony arms, he reached the tower of
+Montlh&eacute;ry, situated, as every one knows, upon the highest point of the
+plain of that name. At the foot of the hill the count dismounted, and
+began to ascend the mountain by a little winding path about eighteen
+inches wide; when he reached the summit he found himself stopped by a
+hedge, upon which green fruit had succeeded to red and white flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Monte Cristo looked for the door of the inclosure, and was
+not long in finding it. It was a little wooden gate, working on
+willow hinges, and fastened with a nail and string. The count
+soon understood its mechanism, and the door opened. He then
+found himself in a little marvelously well-kept garden, about
+twenty feet long by twelve wide, bounded on one side by part
+of the hedge, in which was formed the ingenious machine we
+have named a door; and on the other by the old tower, covered
+with ivy and studded with wild flowers. Monte Cristo stopped,
+after having closed the door and fastened the string to the nail,
+and cast a look around.</p>
+
+<p>"The man at the telegraph," said he, "must either keep a gardener
+or devote himself passionately to horticulture." Suddenly
+he struck himself against something crouching behind a wheelbarrow
+filled with leaves; the something rose, uttered an exclamation
+of astonishment, and Monte Cristo found himself facing a
+man about fifty years old, who was plucking strawberries, which
+he was placing upon vine-leaves. He had twelve leaves and
+about as many strawberries, which, on rising suddenly, he let
+fall from his hand. "You are gathering your crop, sir?" said
+Monte Cristo, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sir," replied the man, raising his hand to his
+cap; "I am not up there, I know, but I have only just come
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let me interfere with you in anything, my friend,"
+said the count; "gather your strawberries, if indeed there are
+any left."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4968" id="Page_4968">[Pg 4968]</a></span>
+"I have ten left," said the man, "for here are eleven, and I
+had twenty-one, five more than last year. But I am not surprised;
+the spring has been warm this year, and strawberries require
+heat, sir. This is the reason that, instead of the sixteen I
+had last year, I have this year, you see, eleven already plucked&mdash;twelve,
+thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
+Ah, I miss three! they were here last night, sir&mdash;I am sure
+they were here&mdash;I counted them. It must be the son of Mother
+Simon who has stolen them; I saw him strolling about here this
+morning. Ah! the young rascal! stealing in a garden; he does
+not know where that may lead him to."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, it is wrong," said Monte Cristo, "but you should
+take into consideration the youth and greediness of the delinquent."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said the gardener, "but that does not make it
+the less unpleasant. But, sir, once more I beg pardon; perhaps
+you are an official that I am detaining here?" And he glanced
+timidly at the count's blue coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Calm yourself, my friend," said the count, with that smile
+which at his will became so terrible or benevolent, and which
+this time beamed only with the latter expression; "I am not an
+inspector, but a traveler, conducted here by curiosity he half repents
+of, since he causes you to lose your time."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my time is not valuable," replied the man, with a melancholy
+smile. "Still, it belongs to the government, and I ought not to
+waste it; but having received the signal that I might rest for an
+hour" (here he glanced at a sun-dial, for there was everything in
+the inclosure of Montlh&eacute;ry, even a sun-dial), "and having ten
+minutes before me, and my strawberries being ripe, when a day
+longer&mdash;by-the-by, sir, do you think dormice eat them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I should think not," replied Monte Cristo: "dormice
+are bad neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved, as the
+Romans did."</p>
+
+<p>"What! did the Romans eat them?" said the gardener; "eat
+dormice?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have read so," said the count.</p>
+
+<p>"Really! They can't be nice, though they do say 'as fat as
+a dormouse.' It is not a wonder they are fat, sleeping all day,
+and only waking to eat all night. Listen: last year I had four
+apricots&mdash;they stole one; I had one nectarine, only one&mdash;well,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4969" id="Page_4969">[Pg 4969]</a></span>
+sir, they ate half of it on the wall; a splendid nectarine&mdash;I
+never ate a better."</p>
+
+<p>"You ate it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is to say, the half that was left&mdash;you understand; it was
+exquisite, sir. Ah, those gentlemen never choose the worst morsels;
+like Mother Simon's son, who has not chosen the worst strawberries.
+But this year," continued the horticulturist, "I'll take care it shall
+not happen, even if I should be forced to sit up the whole night to
+watch when the strawberries are ripe." Monte Cristo had seen enough.
+Every man has a devouring passion in his heart, as every fruit has its
+worm; that of the man at the telegraph was horticulture. He began
+gathering the vine-leaves which screened the sun from the grapes, and
+won the heart of the gardener. "Did you come here, sir, to see the
+telegraph?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if not contrary to the rules."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," said the gardener; "there are no orders against
+doing so, providing there is nothing dangerous, and that no one
+knows what we are saying."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been told," said the count, "that you do not always
+yourselves understand the signals you repeat."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir; and that is what I like best," said the man,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you like that best?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because then I have no responsibility. I am a machine
+then, and nothing else; and so long as I work, nothing more is
+required of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible," said Monte Cristo to himself, "that I can
+have met with a man that has no ambition? That would spoil
+my plans."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," said the gardener, glancing at the sun-dial, "the ten
+minutes are nearly expired; I must return to my post. Will you
+go up with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I follow you." Monte Cristo entered the tower, which was divided into
+three stages. The lowest contained gardening implements, such as
+spades, rakes, watering-pots, hung against the wall; this was all the
+furniture. The second was the usual dwelling or rather sleeping-place
+of the man; it contained a few poor articles of household furniture, a
+bed, a table, two chairs, a stone pitcher, and some dry herbs hung up
+to the ceiling, which the count recognized as sweet-peas, and of which the good
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4970" id="Page_4970">[Pg 4970]</a></span>
+man was preserving the seeds, having labeled them with as much care as if he had been a botanist.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it require much study to learn the art of telegraphing,
+sir?" asked Monte Cristo.</p>
+
+<p>"The study does not take long; it was acting as a supernumerary
+that was so tedious."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is the pay?"</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand francs, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"No; but then we are lodged, as you perceive."</p>
+
+<p>Monte Cristo looked at the room. They passed on to the
+third stage; it was the room of the telegraph. Monte Cristo
+looked in turns at the two iron handles by which the machine
+was worked. "It is very interesting," he said; "but it must be
+very tedious for a lifetime."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. At first my neck was cramped with looking at it, but
+at the end of a year I became used to it; and then we have our
+hours of recreation, and our holidays when we have a fog."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Those are indeed holidays to me; I go into the garden, I
+plant, prune, trim, and kill the insects all day long."</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you been here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten years, and five as a supernumerary make fifteen."</p>
+
+<p>"You are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-five years old."</p>
+
+<p>"How long must you serve to claim the pension?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir, twenty-five years."</p>
+
+<p>"And how much is the pension?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred crowns."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor humanity!" murmured Monte Cristo.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say, sir?" asked the man.</p>
+
+<p>"I was saying it was very interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"What was?"</p>
+
+<p>"All you were showing me. And you really understand none
+of these signals?"</p>
+
+<p>"None at all."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you never tried to understand them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"But still there are some signals only addressed to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you understand them?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4971" id="Page_4971">[Pg 4971]</a></span>
+"They are always the same."</p>
+
+<p>"And they mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nothing new</i>; <i>You have an hour</i>; or <i>To-morrow</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"This is simple enough," said the count; "but look! is not
+your correspondent putting himself in motion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah yes; thank you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is it saying&mdash;anything you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it asks if I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>"And you reply?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the same sign, which at the same time tells my right-hand
+correspondent that I am ready, while it gives notice to my
+left-hand correspondent to prepare in his turn."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very ingenious," said the count.</p>
+
+<p>"You will see," said the man, proudly; "in five minutes he
+will speak."</p>
+
+<p>"I have then five minutes," said Monte Cristo to himself;
+"it is more time than I require. My dear sir, will you allow me
+to ask you a question?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are fond of gardening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Passionately."</p>
+
+<p>"And you would be pleased to have, instead of this terrace
+of twenty feet, an inclosure of two acres?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I should make a terrestrial paradise of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You live badly on your thousand francs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Badly enough; but yet I do live."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but you have only a small garden."</p>
+
+<p>"True, the garden is not large."</p>
+
+<p>"And then, such as it is, it is filled with dormice, who eat
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! they are my scourges."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, should you have the misfortune to turn your head
+while your right-hand correspondent was telegraphing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I should not see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what would happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not repeat the signals."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not having repeated them, through negligence, I should be
+fined."</p>
+
+<p>"How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred francs."</p>
+
+<p>"The tenth of your income&mdash;that would be fine work."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4972" id="Page_4972">[Pg 4972]</a></span>
+"Ah!" said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Has it ever happened to you?" said Monte Cristo.</p>
+
+<p>"Once, sir, when I was grafting a rose-tree."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, suppose you were to alter a signal, and substitute
+another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that is another case; I should be turned off, and lose
+my pension."</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred francs."</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred crowns; yes, sir; so you see that I am not likely
+to do any of these things."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even for fifteen years' wages? Come, it is worth thinking
+about?"</p>
+
+<p>"For fifteen thousand francs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, you alarm me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, you are tempting me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so; fifteen thousand francs, do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, let me see my right-hand correspondent!"</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, do not look at him, but on this."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What! do you not know these little papers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bank-notes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; there are fifteen of them."</p>
+
+<p>"And whose are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine!" exclaimed the man, half suffocated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; yours&mdash;your own property."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, my right-hand correspondent is signaling."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, you have distracted me; I shall be fined."</p>
+
+<p>"That will cost you a hundred francs; you see it is your
+interest to take my bank-notes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, my right-hand correspondent redoubles his signals; he is
+impatient."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind&mdash;take these;" and the count placed the packet
+in the hands of the man. "Now, this is not all," he said; "you
+cannot live upon your fifteen thousand francs."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall still have my place."</p>
+
+<p>"No! you will lose it, for you are going to alter the sign of
+your correspondent."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir, what are you proposing?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4973" id="Page_4973">[Pg 4973]</a></span>
+"A jest!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, unless you force me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can effectually force you;" and Monte Cristo drew
+another packet from his pocket. "Here are ten thousand more
+francs," he said; "with the fifteen thousand already in your
+pocket, they will make twenty-five thousand. With five thousand
+you can buy a pretty little house with two acres of land;
+the remaining twenty thousand will bring you in a thousand
+francs a year."</p>
+
+<p>"A garden with two acres of land!"</p>
+
+<p>"And a thousand francs a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, take them!" and Monte Cristo forced the bank-notes
+into his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing very difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"To repeat these signs;" Monte Cristo took a paper from his
+pocket, upon which were drawn three signs, with numbers to
+indicate the order in which they were to be worked.</p>
+
+<p>"There, you see it will not take long."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do this, and you will have nectarines and all the rest."
+The mark was hit: red with fever, while the large drops fell
+from his brow, the man executed, one after the other, the three
+signs given by the count; notwithstanding the frightful contortions
+of the right-hand correspondent, who, not understanding the
+change, began to think the gardener had become mad. As to
+the left-hand one, he conscientiously repeated the same signals,
+which were definitively carried to the Minister of the Interior.
+"Now you are rich," said Monte Cristo.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the man, "but at what a price!"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, friend," said Monte Cristo. "I do not wish to cause
+you any remorse; believe me, then, when I swear to you that
+you have wronged no man, but on the contrary have benefited
+mankind." The man looked at the bank-notes, felt them, counted
+them; he turned pale, then red; then rushed into his room to
+drink a glass of water, but he had no time to reach the water-jug,
+and fainted in the midst of his dried herbs. Five minutes
+after the new telegram reached the minister, Debray had the
+horses put to his carriage, and drove to Danglars's.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4974" id="Page_4974">[Pg 4974]</a></span>
+"Has your husband any Spanish bonds?" he asked of the baroness.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, indeed! He has six millions' worth."</p>
+
+<p>"He must sell them at whatever price."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because Don Carlos has fled from Bourges, and has returned
+to Spain."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"&mdash;Debray shrugged his shoulders. "The idea of asking
+how I hear the news!" he said. The baroness did not wait for a
+repetition; she ran to her husband, who immediately hastened to his
+agent and ordered him to sell at any price. When it was seen that
+Danglars sold, the Spanish funds fell directly. Danglars lost five
+hundred thousand francs; but he rid himself of all his Spanish shares.
+The same evening the following was read in Le Messager:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Telegraphic dispatch. The King, Don Carlos, has escaped the
+vigilance exercised over him at Bourges, and has returned to Spain
+by the Catalonian frontier. Barcelona has risen in his favor."</p></div>
+
+<p>All that evening nothing was spoken of but the foresight of Danglars,
+who had sold his shares, and of the luck of the stock-jobber, who only
+lost five hundred thousand francs by such a blow. Those who had kept
+their shares, or bought those of Danglars, looked upon themselves as
+ruined, and passed a very bad night. Next morning Le Moniteur
+contained the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was without any foundation that Le Messager yesterday announced
+the flight of Don Carlos and the revolt of Barcelona. The
+King (Don Carlos) has not left Bourges, and the peninsula is in the
+enjoyment of profound peace. A telegraphic signal, improperly interpreted
+owing to the fog, was the cause of this error."</p></div>
+
+<p>The funds rose one per cent, higher than before they had
+fallen. This, reckoning his loss, and what he had missed gaining,
+made the difference of a million to Danglars. "Good!" said
+Monte Cristo to Morrel, who was at his house when the news
+arrived of the strange reverse of fortune of which Danglars had
+been the victim. "I have just made a discovery for twenty-five
+thousand francs, for which I would have paid a hundred thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you discovered?" asked Morrel.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just discovered the method of ridding a gardener of
+the dormice that eat his peaches."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4975" id="Page_4975">[Pg 4975]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="SHOULDER" id="SHOULDER"></a>THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BELT OF PORTHOS, AND THE
+HANDKERCHIEF OF ARAMIS</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The Three Musketeers'</h4>
+
+<p>Furious with rage, D'Artagnan crossed the ante-room in three
+strides, and began to descend the stairs four steps at a
+time, without looking where he was going; when suddenly
+he was brought up short by knocking violently against the
+shoulder of a musketeer who was leaving the apartments of
+M. De Treville. The young man staggered backwards from the
+shock, uttering a cry, or rather a yell.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," said D'Artagnan, trying to pass him, "but I
+am in a great hurry."</p>
+
+<p>He had hardly placed his foot on the next step, when he was
+stopped by the grasp of an iron wrist on his sash.</p>
+
+<p>"You are in a great hurry!" cried the musketeer, whose face
+was the color of a shroud; "and you think that is enough apology
+for nearly knocking me down? Not so fast, my young man. I
+suppose you imagine that because you heard M. De Treville
+speaking to us rather brusquely to-day, that everybody may treat
+us in the same way? But you are mistaken, and it is as well
+you should learn that you are not M. De Treville."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my honor," replied D'Artagnan, recognizing Athos, who was
+returning to his room after having his wound dressed, "upon my honor,
+it was an accident, and therefore I begged your pardon. I should have
+thought that was all that was necessary. I repeat that I am in a very
+great hurry, and I should be much obliged if you would let me go my
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Athos, loosening his hold, "you are sadly lacking in
+courtesy, and one sees that you must have had a rustic upbringing."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan was by this time half-way down another flight; but on
+hearing Athos's remark he stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>"My faith, monsieur!" exclaimed he, "however rustic I may be, I shall
+not come to you to teach me manners."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure of that," replied Athos.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if I was only not in such haste," cried D'Artagnan; "if only I
+was not pursuing somebody&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, you will find me without running after me. Do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4976" id="Page_4976">[Pg 4976]</a></span>
+"And where, if you please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Near Carmes-Deschaux."</p>
+
+<p>"At what hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. At twelve I will be there."</p>
+
+<p>"And don't be late, for at a quarter past twelve I will cut off your
+ears for you."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," called out D'Artagnan, dashing on down-stairs after his
+man; "you may expect me at ten minutes before the hour."</p>
+
+<p>But he was not to escape so easily. At the street door stood Porthos,
+talking to a sentry, and between the two men there was barely space
+for a man to pass. D'Artagnan took it for granted that he could get
+through, and darted on, swift as an arrow, but he had not reckoned on
+the gale that was blowing. As he passed, a sudden gust wrapped
+Porthos's mantle tight round him; and though the owner of the garment
+could easily have freed him had he so chosen, for reasons of his own
+he preferred to draw the folds still closer.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan, hearing the volley of oaths let fall by the musketeers,
+feared he might have damaged the splendor of the belt, and struggled
+to unwind himself; but when he at length freed his head, he found that
+like most things in this world the belt had two sides, and while the
+front bristled with gold, the back was mere leather; which explains
+why Porthos always had a cold and could not part from his mantle.</p>
+
+<p>"Confound you!" cried Porthos, struggling in his turn, "have you gone
+mad, that you tumble over people like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," answered D'Artagnan, "but I am in a great hurry. I am
+pursuing some one, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose that on such occasions you leave your eyes behind you?"
+asked Porthos.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied D'Artagnan, rather nettled; "and thanks to my eyes, I
+often see things that other people don't."</p>
+
+<p>Possibly Porthos might have understood this allusion, but in any case
+he did not attempt to control his anger, and said sharply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, we shall have to give you a lesson if you take to tumbling
+against the musketeers like this!"</p>
+
+<p>"A lesson, monsieur!" replied D'Artagnan; "that is rather a severe
+expression."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4977" id="Page_4977">[Pg 4977]</a></span>
+"It is the expression of a man who is always accustomed to look his
+enemies in the face."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if that is all, there is no fear of <i>your</i> turning your back on
+anybody," and enchanted at his own wit, the young man walked away in
+fits of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Porthos foamed with rage, and rushed after D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"By-and-by, by-and-by," cried the latter; "when you have not got your
+mantle on."</p>
+
+<p>"At one o'clock then, behind the Luxembourg."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; at one o'clock," replied D'Artagnan as he vanished around
+the corner.</p>
+
+<p>But he could see no one either in the street he had passed through, or
+in the one his eager gaze was searching; however slowly the stranger
+might have walked, he had gone his way, or perhaps into some house.
+D'Artagnan inquired of everybody he met, but could find nothing at all
+about him. This chase however did him good in one way; for in
+proportion as the sweat started out on his forehead, his heart began
+to cool.</p>
+
+<p>He began to think over the many unlucky things which had happened. It
+was scarcely eleven in the morning, and yet this morning had already
+brought him into disgrace with M. Treville, who must think the way
+D'Artagnan had left him was rather boorish.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, he had gotten himself into two fierce duels with two men,
+each able to kill three D'Artagnans; in a word, with two
+musketeers,&mdash;beings he set so high that he placed them above all other
+men.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sad lookout. To be sure, as the youth was certain to be
+killed by Athos, he was not much disturbed about Porthos. As hope is
+the last thing to die in a man's heart, however, he ended by hoping
+that he might come out alive from both duels, even if dreadfully
+injured; and on that supposition he scored himself in this way for his
+conduct:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a rattle-headed dunce I am! That brave and unfortunate Athos was
+wounded right on that shoulder I ran against head-foremost, like a
+ram. The only thing that surprises me is that he didn't strike me dead
+on the spot; he had provocation enough, for I must have hurt him
+savagely. As to Porthos&mdash;oh! as to Porthos&mdash;that's a funny affair!"</p>
+
+<p>And the youth began to laugh aloud in spite of himself; looking round
+carefully, however, to see if his laughing alone in public without
+apparent cause aroused any suspicion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4978" id="Page_4978">[Pg 4978]</a></span>
+"As to Porthos, it is funny enough, to be sure, but I am a crazy
+blockhead all the same. Are people to be run into without warning? No!
+And have I any right to peep under their cloaks to see what they
+haven't got? He would have forgiven me, I am sure, if I had said
+nothing to him about that cursed cloak,&mdash;with a double meaning, it is
+true, but too broad a joke in one of them! Ah! cursed Gascon that I
+am, I believe I should crack a joke if I was being roasted over a slow
+fire. Friend D'Artagnan," he went on, speaking to himself with the
+gentleness he thought fair, "if you get away, which there is not much
+chance of, I would advise you to practice entire politeness for the
+future. You must henceforth be admired and quoted as a model of it. To
+be obliging and civil does not necessarily make a man a coward. Look
+at Aramis, now: mildness and grace embodied; and did anybody ever
+dream of calling Aramis a coward? No indeed, and from this instant I
+will try to model myself after him. And luckily, here he is."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan, walking and soliloquizing, had come within a few steps of
+the Aiguillon House, and in front of it saw Aramis chatting gayly with
+three of the King's Guards. Aramis also saw D'Artagnan; but not having
+forgotten that it was in his presence M. de Treville had got so angry
+in the morning, and as a witness of the rebuke was not at all
+pleasant, he pretended not to see him. D'Artagnan, on the other hand,
+full of his plans of conciliation and politeness, approached the young
+man with a profound bow accompanied by a most gracious smile. Aramis
+bowed slightly but did not smile. Moreover, all four immediately broke
+off their conversation.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan was not so dull as not to see he was not wanted; but he was
+not yet used enough to social customs to know how to extricate himself
+dexterously from his false position, which his generally is who
+accosts people he is little acquainted with, and mingles in a
+conversation which does not concern him. He was mentally casting about
+for the least awkward manner of retreat, when he noticed that Aramis
+had let his handkerchief fall, and (doubtless by mistake) put his foot
+on it. This seemed a favorable chance to repair his mistake of
+intrusion: he stooped down, and with the most gracious air he could
+assume, drew the handkerchief from under the foot in spite of the
+efforts made to detain it, and holding it out to Aramis, said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, sir, this is a handkerchief you would be sorry to lose?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4979" id="Page_4979">[Pg 4979]</a></span>
+The handkerchief was in truth richly embroidered, and had a cornet and
+a coat of arms at one corner. Aramis blushed excessively, and snatched
+rather than took the handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" exclaimed one of the guards, "will you go on saying now,
+most discreet Aramis, that you are not on good terms with Madame de
+Bois-Tracy, when that gracious lady does you the favor of lending you
+her handkerchief!"</p>
+
+<p>Aramis darted at D'Artagnan one of those looks which tell a man that
+he has made a mortal enemy; then assuming his mild air he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, gentlemen: this handkerchief is not mine, and I
+cannot understand why this gentleman has taken it into his head to
+offer it to me rather than to one of you. And as a proof of what I
+say, here is mine in my pocket."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he pulled out his handkerchief, which was also not only a
+very dainty one, and of fine linen (though linen was then costly), but
+was embroidered and without arms, bearing only a single cipher, the
+owner's.</p>
+
+<p>This time D'Artagnan saw his mistake; but Aramis's friends were by no
+means convinced, and one of them, addressing the young musketeer with
+pretended gravity, said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If things were as you make out, I should feel obliged, my dear
+Aramis, to reclaim it myself; for as you very well know, Bois-Tracy is
+an intimate friend of mine, and I cannot allow one of his wife's
+belongings to be exhibited as a trophy."</p>
+
+<p>"You make the demand clumsily," replied Aramis; "and while I
+acknowledge the justice of your reclamation, I refuse it on account of
+the form."</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," D'Artagnan put in hesitatingly, "I did not actually see
+the handkerchief fall from M. Aramis's pocket. He had his foot on it,
+that's all, and I thought it was his."</p>
+
+<p>"And you were deceived, my dear sir," replied Aramis coldly, very
+little obliged for the explanation; then turning to the guard who had
+professed himself Bois-Tracy's friend&mdash;"Besides," he went on, "I have
+reflected, my dear intimate friend of Bois-Tracy, that I am not less
+devotedly his friend than you can possibly be, so that this
+handkerchief is quite as likely to have fallen from your pocket as
+from mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"On my honor, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are about to swear on your honor, and I on my word; and
+then it will be pretty evident that one of us will have lied.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4980" id="Page_4980">[Pg 4980]</a></span>
+Now here, Montaran, we will do better than that: let each take a half."</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly fair," cried the other two guardsmen; "the judgment of
+Solomon! Aramis, you are certainly full of wisdom!"</p>
+
+<p>They burst into a loud laugh, and as may be supposed, the incident
+bore no other fruit. In a minute or two the conversation stopped, and
+the three guards and the musketeer, after heartily shaking hands,
+separated, the guards going one way and Aramis another.</p>
+
+<p>"Now is the time to make my peace with this gentleman," said
+D'Artagnan to himself, having stood on one side during all the latter
+part of the conversation; and in this good spirit drawing near to
+Aramis, who was going off without paying any attention to him, he
+said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You will excuse me, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" interrupted Aramis, "permit me to observe to you, sir, that you
+have not acted in this affair as a man of good breeding ought."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried D'Artagnan, "do you suppose&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that you are not a fool, and that you knew very well, even
+though you come from Gascony, that people do not stand on
+handkerchiefs for nothing. What the devil! Paris is not paved with
+linen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, you do wrong in trying to humiliate me," said D'Artagnan, in
+whom his native pugnacity began to speak louder than his peaceful
+resolutions. "I come from Gascony, it is true; and since you know it,
+there is no need to tell you that Gascons are not very patient, so
+that when they have asked pardon once, even for a folly, they think
+they have done at least as much again as they ought to have done."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, what I say to you about this matter," said Aramis, "is not for
+the sake of hunting a quarrel. Thank Heaven, I am not a swashbuckler,
+and being a musketeer only for a while, I only fight when I am forced
+to do so, and always with great reluctance; but this time the affair
+is serious, for here is a lady compromised by you."</p>
+
+<p>"By us, you mean," cried D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you give me back the handkerchief so awkwardly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you let it fall so awkwardly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have said that the handkerchief did not fall from my pocket."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4981" id="Page_4981">[Pg 4981]</a></span>
+"Well, by saying that you have told two lies, sir; for I saw it fall."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ho! you take it up that way, do you, Master Gascon? Well, I will
+teach you how to behave yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"And I will send you back to your pulpit, Master Priest. Draw, if you
+please, and instantly&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, if you please, my good friend; not here, at least. Do you not
+see that we are opposite Aiguillon House, full of the Cardinal's
+creatures? How do I know that it is not his Eminence who has honored
+you with the commission to bring him in my head? Now, I entertain an
+absurd partiality for my head, it seems to suit my shoulders so
+finely. I have no objection to killing you, you may be sure, but
+quietly, in a snug, distant spot, where you will not be able to boast
+of your death to anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree, but don't be too confident; and take away your
+handkerchief&mdash;whether it belongs to you or somebody else, perhaps you
+may stand in need of it to bandage up a wound. As a Gascon, I don't
+put off engagements for prudence's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Prudence is a virtue useless enough to musketeers, I know, but
+indispensable to churchmen; and as I am only a temporary musketeer, I
+hold it best to be prudent. At two o'clock I shall have the honor of
+expecting you at Treville's. There I will point out the best place and
+time to you."</p>
+
+<p>The two bowed and separated. Aramis went up the street which led to
+the Luxembourg; while D'Artagnan, seeing that the appointed hour was
+coming near, took the road to the Carmes-Deschaux, saying to himself,
+"I certainly cannot hope to come out of these scrapes alive; but if I
+am doomed to be killed, it will be by a royal musketeer."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="DEFENSE" id="DEFENSE"></a>THE DEFENSE OF THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS</h3>
+
+<h4>From 'The Three Musketeers'</h4>
+
+<p>When D'Artagnan arrived, he found his three friends all together.
+Athos was thinking deeply, Porthos was twirling his mustache, and
+Aramis was reading his prayers out of a beautiful little book bound in
+blue velvet.</p>
+
+<p>"My faith, gentlemen!" exclaimed he, "I hope that what you
+have to tell me is very important, or I shall owe you a grudge
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4982" id="Page_4982">[Pg 4982]</a></span>
+for dragging me here, out of my bed, after a whole night passed in taking and
+dismantling a bastion! Ah, it is a thousand pities you were not there!
+It was warm work!"</p>
+
+<p>"We were somewhere else, where it was not very cold either," replied
+Porthos, giving his mustache another twist....</p>
+
+<p>"Aramis," said Athos, "didn't you breakfast the other day at
+Parpaillot's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you comfortable there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I did not like it at all. It was a fast day, and they had nothing
+but meat."</p>
+
+<p>"What, no fish to be had in a seaport town?"</p>
+
+<p>"They say," replied Aramis, taking up his book, "that they have all
+taken to the deep sea, since the Cardinal built that dike."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not what I was asking," replied Athos. "Were you quite free
+and at your ease, or did any one pay attention to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nobody paid any attention to me. And if <i>that</i> is your object,
+Athos, Parpaillot's will suit us very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go at once then," said Athos, "for these walls are like
+paper."</p>
+
+<p>On the way they met Grimaud [the valet of Athos], whom Athos beckoned
+silently to follow them. Grimaud, according to his custom, obeyed
+without a word. The poor fellow had almost forgotten how to speak!</p>
+
+<p>It did not take them long to reach Parpaillot's, but unluckily the
+hour was ill chosen for a private conference. The <i>r&eacute;veille</i> had just
+been sounded, and the sleepy soldiers were all pouring into the inn.
+This state of matters delighted the landlord, but was hardly so
+agreeable to the four friends, who merely nodded sulkily at the
+salutations of the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"If we are not careful," said Athos, rousing himself, "we shall find
+ourselves landed in some quarrel, which would be highly inconvenient
+at this moment. D'Artagnan, tell us about your night's work, and then
+we will tell you about ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah yes," said a light-horse soldier, who was slowly sipping a glass
+of brandy, "you were down at the trenches last night, I think, and I
+believe you had a brush with the Rochellois."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan looked at Athos, to see if he ought to answer or not.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4983" id="Page_4983">[Pg 4983]</a></span>
+"My dear fellow," replied Athos, "I don't think you are aware that M.
+De Busigny did you the honor to address you! Since these gentlemen are
+interested in last night's affair, tell them about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true that you captured a bastion?" asked a Swiss, who
+had filled his beer up with rum.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur," replied D'Artagnan, "we had that honor.
+We also introduced a barrel of powder into a corner, which in
+exploding opened a really beautiful breach; and as the bastion
+was not built yesterday, the whole building was severely shaken."</p>
+
+<p>"What bastion was it?" said a dragoon, who was holding a
+goose on the point of his sword, and cooking it at the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"The Bastion Saint-Gervais," replied D'Artagnan; "the Rochellois
+behind it were always annoying our men."</p>
+
+<p>"And there was a good deal of sharp-shooting?"</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal. We lost five men, and the Rochellois eight or
+ten."</p>
+
+<p>"But this morning," went on the light-horseman, "they will
+probably send down some pioneers to rebuild the bastion."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, probably," answered D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," broke in Athos, "I want to propose a bet."</p>
+
+<p>"What bet?" asked the light-horseman.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet you, M. De Busigny, that I and my three friends
+Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan, will breakfast in the Bastion
+Saint-Gervais, and will hold it an hour by the clock, against all
+comers."</p>
+
+<p>Porthos and Aramis looked at each other. They were beginning
+to understand what Athos had in his head.</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected D'Artagnan, leaning over to whisper to
+Athos, "we shall be killed without a chance of escape."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be killed a great deal more certainly if we don't
+go," replied Athos.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" ejaculated Porthos, twirling his mustache, "that is a
+grand bet."</p>
+
+<p>"I take it," said M. De Busigny; "let us fix the stakes."</p>
+
+<p>"That is easily done," replied Athos. "We are four and you
+are four. The loser shall give the whole eight a dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, let us agree to that," said M. De Busigny and the
+dragoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Your breakfast is ready, gentlemen," broke in the landlord
+at this instant.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4984" id="Page_4984">[Pg 4984]</a></span>
+"Then bring it here," answered Athos.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord obeyed, and Athos, making a sign to Grimaud,
+pointed out a large basket standing in a corner, which he was to
+fill with wine and food.</p>
+
+<p>"But where are you going to eat it?" asked the landlord.</p>
+
+<p>"What does that matter to you as long as you are paid?"
+replied Athos, throwing two pistoles on the table. Then, turning
+to M. De Busigny, he observed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have the kindness, monsieur, to set your watch by
+mine, or let me set mine by yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, monsieur," said the light-horseman, drawing out
+a beautiful watch incrusted with diamonds; "half-past seven."</p>
+
+<p>"Five-and-twenty minutes to eight. So I am five minutes
+faster than you;" and bowing to the rest of the company, the
+four young men took the road to the Bastion Saint-Gervais,
+followed by Grimaud carrying the basket. He had not the faintest
+idea where they were going, or what they were to do, but
+Athos had given his orders, and he always obeyed without questioning.</p>
+
+<p>As long as they were within the camp, the four friends remained
+silent; but once they had passed the wall of circumvallation,
+D'Artagnan, who was completely in the dark, thought it was time to ask
+for an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear Athos," said he, "will you be good
+enough to tell me where we are bound for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for the bastion, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are we to do when we get there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you before. We are going to breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"But why didn't we do that at Parpaillot's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because we had some important matters to discuss, and it
+was impossible to talk for five minutes at that inn, with all those
+people coming and going, and perpetually bowing and speaking
+to you. Here at least," continued Athos, pointing to the bastion,
+"we shall not be interrupted."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," said D'Artagnan, with the caution which
+was as much his characteristic as his foolhardy courage, "it seems
+to me that we might have found some secluded place among the
+sand-hills on the sea-shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, somebody would have seen, and in a quarter of an hour
+spies would have informed the Cardinal that we were holding
+council."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4985" id="Page_4985">[Pg 4985]</a></span>
+"Yes," said Aramis. "Athos is right. <i>Animadvertuntur in desertis.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"A desert would have done very well," replied Porthos; "but
+first we should have to find it."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no desert where a bird cannot fly overhead, or a
+fish jump out of the water, or a rabbit run out of his hole; and
+bird, fish, and rabbit have all become spies of the Cardinal.
+Much better to go on with our adventure, which we cannot now
+give up without dishonor. We have made a bet, and a bet on the
+spur of the moment; a bet of which I defy any one to guess
+the true meaning. To win it, we must hold the bastion for an
+hour. Either they will attack us, or they won't. If we are left
+unmolested, we shall have plenty of time to talk without any
+one overhearing us, for I will answer for the walls of this bastion
+having no ears. If they try to dislodge us, we can talk all
+the same, and in defending our position shall cover ourselves
+with glory. You see that from every point of view we have the
+whip hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said D'Artagnan, "but most certainly we shall attract
+some stray bullet."</p>
+
+<p>"My good fellow," remarked Athos, "do you really think that
+the enemy's bullets are those we have most cause to fear?"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, if we were embarking on such an expedition, we
+ought to have brought our muskets?"</p>
+
+<p>"Porthos, you are a goose! What would be the good of burdening
+ourselves with anything so useless?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should hardly think that a heavy musket, a dozen cartridges, and
+a powder flask would be useless when one is in the presence of an
+enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Athos, "didn't you hear what D'Artagnan
+was saying?"</p>
+
+<p>"What did D'Artagnan say?" asked Porthos.</p>
+
+<p>"He said that during last night's attack eight or ten Frenchmen
+were killed, and as many Rochellois."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, hasn't everybody been too busy ever since to think of
+stripping the dead bodies?"</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"What then? Why, we shall find their muskets, their flasks,
+and their cartridges, all waiting for us; and instead of four muskets
+and twelve charges, there will be fifteen pieces and a hundred bullets."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4986" id="Page_4986">[Pg 4986]</a></span>
+"O Athos," exclaimed Aramis, "you are a great man!"</p>
+
+<p>Porthos nodded approval; only D'Artagnan did not seem to
+be convinced; and Grimaud appeared to have his doubts, for
+seeing they were still making for the bastion (which up to that
+moment he had declined to believe), he plucked his master by
+the coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are we going?" he asked by a sign.</p>
+
+<p>Athos pointed out the bastion.</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Grimaud, speaking always in pantomime,
+"we shall leave our bodies there."</p>
+
+<p>Athos raised his hands and eyes to heaven. Grimaud placed
+his basket on the ground and sat down, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>Athos took a pistol from his belt, looked to see if it was well
+primed, cocked it, and approached the barrel to Grimaud's ear.
+Grimaud was on his legs again, as if by magic. Athos then
+signed to him to take up the basket and go on.</p>
+
+<p>Grimaud obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the bastion, the four friends turned round
+and beheld over three hundred soldiers assembled at the gate of
+the camp; M. De Busigny, the dragoon, the Swiss, and their
+silent companion forming a group apart.</p>
+
+<p>Athos removed his hat, put it on the edge of his sword, and
+waved it in the air.</p>
+
+<p>The spectators returned his salute and gave a great hurrah,
+which penetrated to their ears even at that distance. Then all
+four disappeared inside the bastion, where Grimaud had preceded
+them.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="CONSULTATION" id="CONSULTATION"></a>THE CONSULTATION OF THE MUSKETEERS</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Three Musketeers'</h4>
+
+<p>As Athos had assumed, the bastion was only occupied by a
+dozen dead men, French and Rochellois.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said Athos, to whom the command of the
+expedition naturally fell, "while Grimaud lays out breakfast, we
+will begin by picking up the muskets and cartridges, and of
+course there is nothing in this employment to prevent our talking.
+Our friends here," he added, pointing to the dead, "will pay no
+attention to us."</p>
+
+<p>"But after we have made sure they have nothing in their
+pockets, we had better throw them into the trench," said Porthos.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4987" id="Page_4987">[Pg 4987]</a></span>
+"Yes," replied Athos, "that is Grimaud's business."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," said D'Artagnan, "let Grimaud search them,
+and after he has done so, throw them over the wall."</p>
+
+<p>"He shall do nothing of the sort," replied Athos; "we may
+find them useful yet."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going mad, my good fellow! Of what use can
+these dead men be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't judge hastily, say the gospel and the Cardinal," replied
+Athos. "How many guns have we got?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve," said Aramis.</p>
+
+<p>"How many charges?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do. Now let us load."</p>
+
+<p>They set to work; and as they finished loading the last gun,
+Grimaud made a sign that breakfast was ready.</p>
+
+<p>By a gesture Athos replied that they were ready also, and
+then pointed out a pepper-box turret, where Grimaud was to
+keep watch. To help him pass the time Athos allowed him to
+take some bread, two cutlets, and a bottle of wine....</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said D'Artagnan, "that there is no chance of our
+being overheard, I hope you will tell us your secret."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust, gentlemen, to give you both pleasure and glory at
+once," replied Athos. "I have made you take a charming walk,
+and now here is an excellent breakfast; while below, as you may
+see through the loop-holes, are five hundred persons, who consider
+us to be either lunatics or heroes,&mdash;two classes of idiots
+who have much in common...."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Grimaud? As the circumstances are
+grave, I will allow you to speak, but be short, I beg. What
+is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A troop."</p>
+
+<p>"How many?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sixteen pioneers, four soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>"How far off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five hundred paces."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we have just time to finish this fowl and drink your
+health, D'Artagnan."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later the troop hove in sight, marching along
+a narrow trench that connected the bastion and the town.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4988" id="Page_4988">[Pg 4988]</a></span>
+"Bah!" said Athos. "It was scarcely worth while disturbing
+ourselves for a mere handful of rascals armed with pickaxes,
+hoes, and shovels. Grimaud had only got to make them a sign
+to return whence they came, and I am sure they would have left
+us in peace."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it," said D'Artagnan, "for they are advancing steadily.
+And besides the sappers, there are four soldiers and a brigadier,
+all armed with muskets."</p>
+
+<p>"It is only because they have not seen us," replied Athos.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my honor," cried Aramis, "I feel quite ashamed to
+fire on poor devils like that."</p>
+
+<p>"False priest!" exclaimed Porthos, "to have pity on heretics."</p>
+
+<p>"Aramis is right," said Athos. "I will warn them."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth are you doing?" said D'Artagnan. "You will
+get yourself shot, my good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>But Athos paid no attention to this remark, and mounting the breach,
+his hat in one hand and his musket in the other, he addressed the
+troop, who were so astonished at this unexpected apparition that they
+halted about fifty paces distant. "Gentlemen," he said, bowing
+courteously as he spoke, "I am at this moment breakfasting with some
+friends in the shelter of this bastion. As you know, there is nothing
+so unpleasant as to be disturbed during your meals; therefore we
+should be greatly obliged if you would postpone any business you may
+have here, till we have finished, or else call again. Unless, indeed,
+you have the happy inspiration to quit the side of rebellion, and to
+drink, with us, to the health of the King of France."</p>
+
+<p>"Do take care, Athos!" exclaimed D'Artagnan; "don't you see
+they are aiming at you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, of course," said Athos; "but they are only civilians,
+who don't know how to shoot; and they will never touch me."</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely uttered the words when four muskets fired
+simultaneously. The balls fell round Athos, but not one grazed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Four muskets immediately answered, but these were better
+directed than the others. Three of the soldiers fell dead, and
+one of the sappers was wounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Grimaud, another musket," said Athos, who was still on
+the breach. Grimaud obeyed; a second volley was fired; the
+brigadier and two pioneers fell dead, and the rest of the troop
+took flight.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4989" id="Page_4989">[Pg 4989]</a></span>
+"Now we must make a sortie," cried Athos; and the four
+comrades dashed out of the fort, picked up the muskets belonging
+to the dead soldiers, and retreated to the bastion, carrying
+the trophies of their victory....</p>
+
+<p>"To arms!" called Grimaud.</p>
+
+<p>The young men jumped up and ran for their muskets.</p>
+
+<p>This time the advancing troop was composed of twenty or
+twenty-five men, but they were no longer sappers, but soldiers
+of the garrison.</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't we better return to the camp?" said Porthos. "The
+fight is not equal at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible, for three reasons," said Athos. "First, because
+we haven't finished breakfast; second, because we have several
+important things to discuss; and third, because there are still ten
+minutes before the hour is up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyway," remarked Aramis, "we had better have some
+plan of campaign."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very simple," replied Athos. "The moment the enemy
+is within reach, we fire. If they still come on, we fire again,
+and go on firing as long as our guns are loaded. If any of
+them are left, and they try to carry the place by assault, we
+will let them get well into the ditch, and then drop on their
+heads a piece of the wall, that only keeps poised by a kind of
+miracle."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo," cried Porthos. "Athos, you were born to be a general;
+and the Cardinal, who thinks himself a great commander,
+is not to be compared to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," replied Athos, "remember, one thing at a time.
+Cover your man well."</p>
+
+<p>"I have mine," said D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"And I," said Porthos and Aramis.</p>
+
+<p>"Then fire;" and as Athos gave the word, the muskets rang
+out and four men fell. Then the drum beat, and the little army
+advanced to the charge, while all the while the fire was kept up,
+irregularly, but with a sure aim. The Rochellois however did
+not flinch, but came on steadily.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the foot of the bastion, the enemy still
+numbered twelve or fifteen. A sharp fire received them, but
+they never faltered, and leaping the trench, prepared to scale the
+breach.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, comrades!" cried Athos. "Let us make an end of
+them. To the wall!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4990" id="Page_4990">[Pg 4990]</a></span>
+And all four, aided by Grimaud, began to push with their
+guns a huge block of wall, which swayed as if with the wind,
+and then rolled slowly down into the trench. A horrible cry
+was heard, a cloud of dust mounted upwards; and all was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Have we crushed them all, do you think?" asked Athos.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like it," answered D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Porthos, "for two or three are limping off."</p>
+
+<p>Athos looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "an hour has elapsed since we came
+here, and we have won our bet." ...</p>
+
+<p>"What is going on in the town?" asked Athos.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a call to arms."</p>
+
+<p>They listened, and the sound of a drum reached their ears.</p>
+
+<p>"They must be sending us an entire regiment," said Athos.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to fight a whole regiment?" said Porthos.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked the musketeer. "If we had only had the
+sense to bring another dozen bottles, I could make head against
+an army!"</p>
+
+<p>"As I live, the drum is coming nearer," said D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it," replied Athos. "It takes a quarter of an hour to get from
+here to the town, so it takes a quarter of an hour to get from the
+town here. That is more than enough time for us to arrange our plans.
+If we leave this, we shall never find such a good position.... But I
+must first give Grimaud his orders;" and Athos made a sign to his
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Grimaud," said he, pointing to the dead who were lying on
+the bastion, "you will take these gentlemen and prop them up
+against the wall, and put their hats on their heads and their guns
+in their hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Great man!" ejaculated D'Artagnan; "I begin to see."</p>
+
+<p>"You do?" asked Porthos.</p>
+
+<p>"Do <i>you</i> understand, Grimaud?" said Aramis.</p>
+
+<p>Grimaud nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are all right," said Athos....</p>
+
+<p>"On guard!" cried D'Artagnan. "Look at those red and
+black points moving down there! A regiment, did you call it,
+Athos?&mdash;it is a perfect army!"</p>
+
+<p>"My word, yes!" said Athos, "there they come! How cunning
+to beat neither drums nor trumpets. Are you ready, Grimaud?"</p>
+
+<p>Grimaud silently nodded, and showed them a dozen dead men,
+arranged skillfully in various attitudes, some porting arms, some
+taking aim, others drawing their swords.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4991" id="Page_4991">[Pg 4991]</a></span>
+"Well done!" exclaimed Athos, "it does honor to your imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"If it is all the same to you," said Porthos, "I should like to
+understand what is going on."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us get away first," replied D'Artagnan, "and you will
+understand after."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, please! Give Grimaud time to clear away the
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Aramis; "the red and black specks are becoming
+more distinct, and I agree with D'Artagnan that we have no time
+to lose before we regain the camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," rejoined Athos, "I have nothing to say against
+retreating. The wager was for an hour, and we have been here
+an hour and a half. Let us be off at once."</p>
+
+<p>The four comrades went out at the back, following Grimaud,
+who had already departed with the basket.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Athos, stopping suddenly, "what the devil is to
+be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has anything been forgotten?" asked Aramis.</p>
+
+<p>"Our flag, man, our flag! We can't leave our flag in the
+enemy's hands, if it is nothing but a napkin." And Athos dashed
+again into the bastion, and bore away the flag unhurt, amid a
+volley of balls from the Rochellois.</p>
+
+<p>He waved his flag, while turning his back on the troops of
+the town, and saluting those of the camp. From both sides arose
+great cries, of anger on the one hand and enthusiasm on the
+other, and the napkin, pierced with three bullet-holes, was in
+truth transformed into a flag. "Come down, come down!" they
+shouted from the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Athos came down, and his friends, who had awaited him
+anxiously, received him with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quick, Athos," said D'Artagnan; "now that we have got
+everything but money, it would be stupid to get killed."</p>
+
+<p>But Athos would not hurry himself, and they had to keep
+pace with him.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Grimaud and his basket were well beyond bullet
+range, while in the distance the sounds of rapid firing might be
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"What are they doing?" asked Porthos; "what are they
+firing at?"</p>
+
+<p>"At our dead men," replied Athos.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4992" id="Page_4992">[Pg 4992]</a></span>
+"But they don't fire back."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly so; therefore the enemy will come to the conclusion
+that there is an ambuscade. They will hold a council, and send
+an envoy with a flag of truce, and when they at last find out the
+joke, we shall be out of reach. So it is no use getting apoplexy
+by racing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I understand," said Porthos, full of astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a mercy!" replied Athos, shrugging his shoulders, as
+they approached the camp, which was watching their progress in
+a ferment of admiration.</p>
+
+<p>This time a new fusillade was begun, and the balls whistled
+close to the heads of the four victors and fell about their ears.
+The Rochellois had entered the bastion.</p>
+
+<p>"What bad shooting!" said D'Artagnan. "How many was it
+we killed? Twelve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve or fifteen."</p>
+
+<p>"And how many did we crush?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eight or ten."</p>
+
+<p>"And not a scratch to show for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, what is that on your hand, D'Artagnan? It looks to me
+like blood."</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing," replied D'Artagnan.</p>
+
+<p>"A spent ball?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not even that."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is it, then?" As we have said, the silent and resolute
+Athos loved D'Artagnan like his own son, and showed every
+now and then all the anxiety of a father.</p>
+
+<p>"The skin is rubbed off, that is all," said D'Artagnan. "My
+fingers were caught between two stones&mdash;the stone of the wall
+and the stone of my ring."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what comes of having diamonds," remarked Athos
+disdainfully....</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are at the camp, and they are coming to meet us
+and bring us in triumphantly."</p>
+
+<p>And he only spoke the truth, for the whole camp was in a
+turmoil. More than two thousand people had gazed, as at a play,
+at the lucky bit of braggadocio of the four friends,&mdash;braggadocio
+of which they were far from suspecting the real motive. The
+cry of "Long live the musketeers," resounded on all sides, and
+M. De Busigny was the first to hold out his hand to Athos and
+to declare that he had lost his wager. The dragoon and the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4993" id="Page_4993">[Pg 4993]</a></span>
+Swiss had followed him, and all the others had followed the
+dragoon and the Swiss. There was nothing but congratulations,
+hand-shakings, embraces; and the tumult became so great that
+the Cardinal thought there must be a revolt, and sent La Houdini&egrave;re,
+his captain of guards, to find out what was the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked the Cardinal, as his messenger returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, monseigneur," replied La Houdini&egrave;re, "it is about
+three musketeers and a guardsman who made a bet with M. De
+Busigny to go and breakfast at the Bastion Saint-Gervais, and
+while breakfasting, held it for two hours against the enemy, and
+killed I don't know how many Rochellois."</p>
+
+<p>"You asked the names of these gentlemen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monseigneur."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."</p>
+
+<p>"Always my three heroes," murmured the Cardinal. "And
+the guardsman?"</p>
+
+<p>"M. D'Artagnan."</p>
+
+<p>"Always my young rogue! I must gain over these men."</p>
+
+<p>And the same evening, the Cardinal had a conversation with
+M. De Treville about the morning's exploit, with which the whole
+camp was still ringing. M. De Treville, who had heard it all
+at first hand, gave his Eminence all the details, not forgetting
+the episode of the napkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, M. De Treville," said the Cardinal; "but you
+must get me that napkin, and I will have three golden lilies embroidered
+on it, and give as a banner to your company."</p>
+
+<p>"Monseigneur," replied M. De Treville, "that would be an
+injustice to the guards. M. D'Artagnan does not belong to me,
+but to M. Des Essarts."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must take him," said the Cardinal. "As these
+four brave soldiers love each other so much, they ought certainly
+to be in the same regiment."</p>
+
+<p>That evening M. De Treville announced the good news to the
+three musketeers and to D'Artagnan, and invited them all to
+breakfast the following day.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan was nearly beside himself with joy. As we know,
+it had been the dream of his life to be a musketeer.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4994" id="Page_4994">[Pg 4994]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="IRONMASK" id="IRONMASK"></a>THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Viscount of Bragelonne'</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[Dumas adopts the theory that the Man in the Iron Mask was the suppressed
+twin brother of Louis XIV.]</p></div>
+
+<p>"What is all this noise?" asked Philippe, turning towards the door of
+the concealed staircase. And as he spoke a voice was heard saying,
+"This way, this way. Still a few steps, sire."</p>
+
+<p>"It is M. Fouquet's voice," said D'Artagnan, who was standing
+near the Queen Mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Then M. D'Herblay will not be far off," added Philippe;
+but little did he expect to see the person who actually entered.</p>
+
+<p>All eyes were riveted on the door, from which the voice of
+M. Fouquet proceeded; but it was not he who came through.</p>
+
+<p>A cry of anguish rang through the room, breaking forth
+simultaneously from the King and the spectators, and surely
+never had been seen a stranger sight.</p>
+
+<p>The shutters were half closed, and only a feeble light struggled
+through the velvet curtains, with their thick silk linings,
+and the eyes of the courtiers had to get accustomed to the darkness
+before they could distinguish between the surrounding objects.
+But once discerned, they stood out as clear as day.</p>
+
+<p>So, looking up, they saw Louis XIV. in the doorway of the
+private stair, his face pale and his brows bent; and behind him
+stood Fouquet.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen Mother, whose hand held that of Philippe, uttered
+a shriek at the sight, thinking that she beheld a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur staggered for a moment and turned away his head,
+looking from the King who was facing him to the King who was
+by his side.</p>
+
+<p>Madame on the contrary stepped forward, thinking it must
+be her brother-in-law reflected in a mirror. And indeed, this
+seemed the only rational explanation of the double image.</p>
+
+<p>Both young men, agitated and trembling, clenching their
+hands, darting flames of fury from their eyes, dumb, breathless,
+ready to spring at each other's throats, resembled each other so
+exactly in feature, figure, and even, by pure accident, in dress,
+that Anne of Austria herself stood confounded. For as yet the
+truth had not dawned on her. There are some torments that we
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4995" id="Page_4995">[Pg 4995]</a></span>
+all instinctively reject. It is easier far to accept the supernatural,
+the impossible.</p>
+
+<p>That he should encounter such obstacles had never for one
+moment occurred to Louis. He imagined he had only to show
+himself, for the world to fall at his feet. The Sun-king could
+have no rival; and where his rays did not fall, there must be
+darkness&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>As to Fouquet, who could describe his bewilderment at the
+sight of the living portrait of his master? Then he thought
+that Aramis was right, and that the new-comer was every whit
+as much a king as his double, and that after all, perhaps he
+had made a mistake when he had declined to share in the <i>coup
+d'&eacute;tat</i> so cleverly plotted by the General of the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>And then, it was equally the blood royal of Louis XIII. that
+Fouquet had determined to sacrifice to blood in all respects identical;
+a noble ambition, to one that was selfish. And it was the
+mere aspect of the pretender which showed him all these things.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan, leaning against the wall and facing Fouquet, was
+debating in his own mind the key to this wonderful riddle. He
+felt instinctively, though he could not have told why, that in
+the meeting of the two Louis XIV's lay the explanation of all
+that had seemed suspicious in the conduct of Aramis during the
+last few days.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Louis XIV., by nature the most impatient of the
+two young men, and with the habit of command that was the
+result of training, strode across the room and flung open one of
+the shutters. The flood of light that streamed through the window
+caused Philippe involuntarily to recoil, and to step back
+into the shelter of an alcove.</p>
+
+<p>The movement struck Louis, and turning to the Queen he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, do you not know your own son, although every one
+else has denied his King?"</p>
+
+<p>Anne trembled at his voice and raised her arms to heaven,
+but could not utter a single word.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," retorted Philippe in his quietest tones, "do you
+not know your own son?"</p>
+
+<p>And this time it was Louis who stepped back.</p>
+
+<p>As for Anne, pierced to the heart with grief and remorse,
+she could bear it no longer. She staggered where she stood, and
+unaided by her attendants, who seemed turned into stone, she
+sank down on a sofa with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4996" id="Page_4996">[Pg 4996]</a></span>
+This spectacle was too much for Louis. He rushed to D'Artagnan, whose
+brain was going round with bewilderment, and who clung to the door as
+his last hope.</p>
+
+<p>"To me, musketeer! Look us both in the face, and see
+which is the paler, he or I."</p>
+
+<p>The cry awoke D'Artagnan from his stupor, and struck the
+chord of obedience strong in the bosom of every soldier. He
+lifted his head, and striding straight up to Philippe laid his hand
+on his shoulder, saying quietly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, you are my prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>Philippe remained absolutely still, as if nailed to the floor,
+his eyes fixed despairingly on the King who was his brother.
+His silence reproached him as no words could have done, with
+the bitterness of the past and the tortures of the future.</p>
+
+<p>And the King understood, and his soul sank within him. His
+eyes fell, and drawing his brother and sister-in-law with him, he
+hastily quitted the room; forgetting in his agitation even his
+mother, lying motionless on the couch beside him, not three
+paces from the son whom for the second time she was allowing
+to be condemned to a death in life.</p>
+
+<p>Philippe drew near to her, and said softly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you had not been my mother, madame, I must have
+cursed you for the misery you have caused me."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artagnan overheard, and a shiver of pity passed through
+him. He bowed respectfully to the young prince, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, monseigneur; I am only a soldier, and my faith
+is due to him who has left us."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, M. D'Artagnan. But what has become of M.
+D'Herblay?"</p>
+
+<p>"M. D'Herblay is safe, monseigneur," answered a voice behind
+them; "and while I am alive and free, not a hair of his head
+shall be hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"M. Fouquet!" said the prince, smiling sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, monseigneur," cried Fouquet, falling on his
+knees; "but he who has left the room was my guest."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" murmured Philippe to himself with a sigh, "you are
+loyal friends and true hearts. You make me regret the world I
+am leaving. M. D'Artagnan, I will follow you."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Colbert entered and handed to the captain of
+the musketeers an order from the King; then bowed, and went
+out.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4997" id="Page_4997">[Pg 4997]</a></span>
+D'Artagnan glanced at the paper, and in a sudden burst of
+wrath crumpled it in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" asked the prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, monseigneur," answered the musketeer.</p>
+
+<p>And Philippe read these words, written hastily by the King
+himself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"M. D'Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the &Icirc;les
+Sainte-Marguerite. He will see that his face is covered with an iron
+mask, which must never be lifted on pain of death."</p>
+
+<p>"It is just," said Philippe; "I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Aramis was right," whispered Fouquet to D'Artagnan, "this
+is as good a king as the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Better," replied D'Artagnan; "he only needed you and me."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="TRICK" id="TRICK"></a>A TRICK IS PLAYED ON HENRY III. BY AID OF CHICOT</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Lady of Monsoreau'</h4>
+
+<p>The King and Chicot remained quiet and silent for the next ten
+minutes. Then suddenly the King sat up, and the noise he made roused
+Chicot, who was just dropping off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The two looked at each other with sparkling eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Chicot in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear that sighing sound?" replied the King in a
+lower voice still. "Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, one of the wax candles in the hand of the
+golden satyr went out; then a second, then a third. After a
+moment, the fourth went out also.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh!" cried Chicot, "that is more than a sighing sound."
+But he had hardly uttered the last word when in its turn the
+lamp was extinguished, and the room was in darkness, save for
+the flickering glow of the dying embers.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out!" exclaimed Chicot, jumping up.</p>
+
+<p>"He is going to speak," said the King, shrinking back into
+his bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Then listen and let us hear what he says," replied Chicot,
+and at the same instant a voice which sounded at once both
+piercing and hollow, proceeded from the space between the bed
+and the wall.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4998" id="Page_4998">[Pg 4998]</a></span>
+"Hardened sinner, are you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, Lord." gasped Henri with chattering teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" remarked Chicot, "that is a very hoarse voice
+to have come from heaven! I feel dreadfully frightened; but
+never mind!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear me?" asked the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lord," stammered Henri; "and I bow before your
+anger."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you are carrying out my will by performing
+all the mummeries you have taken part in to-day, while your
+heart is full of the things of this world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well said!" cried Chicot; "you touched him there!"</p>
+
+<p>The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went
+up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," murmured Henri, "are you convinced now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a bit," answered Chicot.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me
+take your place."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think I shall escape?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will try, anyway;" and with affectionate persistence he
+pushed the King out of bed, and took his place.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Henri," he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.</p>
+
+<p>"You are silent," continued the voice, "which proves that
+your heart is hardened."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord!" exclaimed Chicot, imitating the
+King's nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, he
+whispered to the King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice
+does not seem to know that it is Chicot who is speaking."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" replied Henri, "what do you suppose is the meaning
+of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen
+yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miserable creature that you are!" went on the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lord, yes!" answered Chicot. "I am a horrible sinner,
+hardened in crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Then confess your sins, and repent."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4999" id="Page_4999">[Pg 4999]</a></span>
+"I acknowledge," said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my
+cousin Cond&eacute;, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that you are saying?" cried the King. "There
+is no good in mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, has it?" replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to something
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Answer," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I acknowledge," said the false Henri, "that I behaved like a
+thief toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in stealing
+away to France one fine night, carrying with me all the
+crown jewels; and I repent bitterly."</p>
+
+<p>"Idiot!" exclaimed Henri, "what are you talking about now?
+Nobody remembers anything about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me alone," answered Chicot, "I must go on pretending
+to be the King."</p>
+
+<p>"Speak," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I acknowledge," continued Chicot, "that I snatched the
+throne from my brother D'Alen&ccedil;on, who was the rightful heir,
+since I had formally renounced my claims when I was elected
+King of Poland; I repent bitterly."</p>
+
+<p>"Rascal!" cried the King.</p>
+
+<p>"There is yet something more," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother,
+Catherine de' Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law
+the King of Navarre, after first destroying all his friends, and
+my sister Queen Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers;
+and I repent bitterly."</p>
+
+<p>"Scoundrel! Cease!" muttered the King, his teeth clenched
+in anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as
+well as we do."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with
+politics," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now we are getting to it," observed Chicot dolefully; "it
+is about my conduct, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," answered the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot deny," continued Chicot, always speaking in the
+name of the King, "that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a
+hopeless trifler, an incorrigible hypocrite."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5000" id="Page_5000">[Pg 5000]</a></span>
+"I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in particular;
+and such a good wife too."</p>
+
+<p>"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the
+world," cried the voice angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I certainly
+have sinned terribly."</p>
+
+<p>"And by your example you have caused others to sin."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, sadly true."</p>
+
+<p>"You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition."</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!" said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there
+quite?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not
+let him go back to his family at break of day."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Chicot to the King, "the voice seems to
+take a great interest in the house of Coss&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as
+Sardanapalus, Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz."</p>
+
+<p>Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more
+frightened than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"I am lost," he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice
+from on high will be my death-warrant."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5001" id="Page_5001">[Pg 5001]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="ALEXANDRE_DUMAS_JUNIOR" id="ALEXANDRE_DUMAS_JUNIOR"></a>ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR</h2>
+
+<h4>(1824-1895)</h4>
+
+<h4>BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capw343.png" width="90" height="90" alt="W" title="W" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">e shall not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the
+younger. The history of a great writer is the history of his
+works. He was born in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name
+on the register of births appears as "Alexandre, son of Marie Catherine
+Lebay, seamstress." He was not acknowledged by his father
+until he had reached his sixth year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize
+this particular because it had great influence on the bent of his
+genius. During all his life Dumas was haunted by a desire of rehabilitating
+illegitimate children, of creating a reaction against their
+treatment by the Civil Code and the prejudice which makes of them
+something little better than outcasts in society.</p>
+
+<p>"When seven years old," he himself says, "I entered as a boarder
+the school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Genevi&egrave;ve.
+Thence I passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School;
+the principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with
+whom he collaborated under the <i>nom de plume</i> of Dinaux. This
+school, which numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and
+with the rather strange habits which I tried to depict in 'The Cl&eacute;menceau
+Case,' occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino
+de Paris and the 'P&ocirc;le-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left
+the Saint-Victor School for Monsieur H&eacute;non's school, which was situated
+in the Rue de Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the
+Coll&ecirc;ge Bourbon (now the Lyc&eacute;e Condorcet) that I received all my
+instruction, as the pupils of the two schools where I lived attended
+the college classes. I never belonged to any of the higher State
+schools,&mdash;I have not even the degree of bachelor."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He
+did not stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life
+which he saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled
+with serious yearnings.</p>
+
+<p>"You have debts," his father said to him. "Do as I do: work,
+and you will pay them."</p>
+
+<p>Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a
+one-act play in verse, 'The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5002" id="Page_5002">[Pg 5002]</a></span>
+would mention to-day but for his signature. The date was 1845, and
+the author was then twenty-one. Other works by him were published
+at various times in the Journal des Demoiselles.</p>
+
+<p>"I was," he has said, "the careless, lazy, and spoilt child of all
+my father's friends. I believed in the eternity of youth, of strength,
+of joy. I spent the whole day laughing, the whole night sleeping,
+unless I had some reason for writing verses."</p>
+
+<p>About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing,
+which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the
+public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic
+composition. Only two of his novels have survived: 'La Dame aux
+Cam&eacute;lias' ('Camille': 1848), because from this book came the immortal
+drama by the same title; and 'The Cl&eacute;menceau Case,' because the author
+wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent, and because
+moreover it is a first-rate work.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first performance
+of 'Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary.
+For two or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to
+theatre. Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed
+simply shocking, and the play was still forbidden in London after its
+performances in France were numbered by the hundreds.</p>
+
+<p>There is this special trait in 'Camille'&mdash;it was a work all instinct
+with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said:
+"I might perhaps make another 'Demi-Monde'; I could not make
+another 'Camille.'" There existed, indeed, other works which have
+all the fire and charm of the twentieth year. 'Polyeucte' is Corneille's
+masterpiece; his 'Cid' breathes the spirit of youth: Corneille
+at forty could not have written the 'Cid.' Racine's first play is
+'Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the 'Barber of Seville'; Rossini,
+when young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen
+years later he himself wrote his 'William Tell,' a higher work, but a
+work which was not young.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 610px;">
+<a name="JUNIOR" id="JUNIOR"></a>
+<img src="images/Illus0425.jpg" width="610" height="1024" alt="ALEXANDRE DUMAS JUNIOR" title="ALEXANDRE DUMAS JUNIOR" />
+<span class="caption">ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>If the theatrical managers had recoiled from 'Camille' in spite of
+the great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after
+a pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it
+is because it contained the germ of a whole dramatic revolution.
+Now, the author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said
+to himself, "I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama,
+and erect a new one on its ruins." To tell the truth, he had no
+idea of what he was doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He
+had thrown it still throbbing upon the stage, without any regard for
+the dramatic conventions which were then imposed upon playwrights,
+and which were almost accepted as laws. He had simply depicted
+what he had seen. All the managers, attached as they were to the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5003" id="Page_5003">[Pg 5003]</a></span>
+old customs, and respectful of the traditions, had trembled with horror
+when they saw moving around Camille the ignoble Prudence, the
+idiotic Due de Varville, the silly Saint-Gaudens. But the public&mdash;though
+the fact was suspected neither by them nor by the public
+itself&mdash;yearned for more truth upon the boards. When 'Camille'
+was presented to them, the play-goers uttered a cry of astonishment
+and joy: that was the thing! that was just what they wanted!
+From that day, which will remain as a date in the history of the
+French stage, the part of Camille has been performed by all the
+celebrated actresses. The part has two sides: one may see in it a
+degraded woman who has fallen profoundly in love, rather late in
+life; one may also see in it a woman, already poetical in her own
+nature, suddenly carried away by a great passion into the sacred
+regions of the Ideal.</p>
+
+<p>Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head
+after so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temptation
+of at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the
+theatre after the first performance, the author had all the managers
+at his feet, and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only
+had his signature. But he had learned, by the side of "a prodigal
+father," the art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the
+footlights again, save with a work upon which he had been able to
+bestow all the care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before
+he gave, at the Gymnase theatre, 'Diane de Lys.'</p>
+
+<p>'Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was not
+exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly
+conceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing
+to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy. It
+is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which
+the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works.
+It will leave no great trace in his career.</p>
+
+<p>Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre&mdash;I do not dare
+to say his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most
+enjoyable play he ever wrote, 'Le Demi-Monde' (The Other Half-World).
+In this play he discovered and defined the very peculiar
+world of those women who live on the margin of regular "society,"
+and try to preserve its tone and demeanor. What scientific and
+strong construction are here! What an admirable disposition of the
+scenes, both flexible and logical! And through the action, which
+moves on with wonderful straightforwardness and breadth, how many
+portraits, drawn with a steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive
+features that you would know them if you met them on the street!
+Olivier de Jalin, the refined Parisian, the dialectician of the play,
+who is no other than Dumas himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5004" id="Page_5004">[Pg 5004]</a></span>
+and honest, but not keen or Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de
+Sanctis, whose head turns with the wind, whose tongue cannot rest
+one moment; and especially Suzanne d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so
+devious in her motions, so <i>roublarde</i>, as a Parisian of to-day would say.</p>
+
+<p>Between 'The Demi-Monde,' and 'La Question d'Argent' (The
+Money Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work.
+'La Question d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but
+its reception by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy
+fact that plays turning upon money have never been successful.
+Le Sage's 'Turcaret' is a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the
+luck to please the crowd. Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very
+curiously studied character. The author has represented in him the
+commonest type of the shady money-man, the unconscious rascal.
+And very skillfully he made an individual out of that general type,
+by giving to Jean Giraud a certain rough good-nature; the appearance
+of a good fellow, with a certain degree of fineness; a mixture
+of humility and self-conceit, of awkwardness and impudence, and
+even some ideas as to the power of money that do not lack dignity,
+and some real liberality of sentiment and act,&mdash;for wealth alone,
+though acquired by ignominious means, suggests and dictates to the
+great robbers some advantageous movements which the small rascal
+cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of the Second Empire
+how many pictures of honest people, every one of whom, in his or
+her way, is good and fine!</p>
+
+<p>One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre,
+'Le Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year 'Un P&egrave;re
+Prodigue' (A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free
+adaptation as 'My Awful Dad').</p>
+
+<p>In 'Le Fils Naturel' Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play,
+a kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we
+have seen him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosophical
+considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the
+play has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis.
+It does not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our
+worldly prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. 'Le
+Fils Naturel' is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or
+rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.</p>
+
+<p>'Un P&egrave;re Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped
+no one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonni&egrave;re, Dumas had shown
+us some traits of his illustrious father, who <i>had</i> been a prodigal father;
+and that he had depicted himself in Viscount Andr&eacute;. Every one made
+comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial disrespect.
+The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer it. He
+had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into such
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5005" id="Page_5005">[Pg 5005]</a></span>
+different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them their
+true prototypes. Then&mdash;and this is no small praise&mdash;if Count de la
+Rivonni&egrave;re is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his
+fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and generous
+sentiments,&mdash;has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the
+father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic in
+the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of
+animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more
+vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much
+as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not
+one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together,
+drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered,
+so charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin
+as gayly as he can.</p>
+
+<p>For four years after the production of 'Un P&egrave;re Prodigue' Dumas wrote
+nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a strange play,
+'L'Ami des Femmes' (A Friend of the Sex), which completely failed.
+After 'L'Ami des Femmes' there was another interruption, not of
+Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production. Perhaps he was sick of
+an art which had caused him a cruel disappointment. He turned again to
+novel-writing, and published (1866) 'L'Affaire Cl&eacute;menceau' (The
+Cl&eacute;menceau Case), the success of which was not as great as he had
+hoped. In France, when a man is superior in one specialty people will
+not let him leave it. He is not allowed to be at once an unequaled
+novelist and a first-rate dramatist.</p>
+
+<p>At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident
+which created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the
+stage, and towards a new form of comedy.</p>
+
+<p>M. &Eacute;mile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Second
+Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and
+knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been
+a great friend of Dumas p&egrave;re, and had kept up the most affectionate
+intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the
+stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to
+oblige his father's friend, made out of it 'Le Supplice d'une Femme'
+(A Woman's Torture). &Eacute;mile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and
+somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that
+Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: "Neither shall I,"
+Dumas retorted.</p>
+
+<p>'A Woman's Torture' was acted at the Com&eacute;die Fran&ccedil;aise with
+extraordinary success. This success was for Dumas a warning and a
+lesson. 'A Woman's Torture' was a three-act play, short, concise,
+panting, which hurried to the <i>coup de th&eacute;&acirc;tre</i> of the second act, upon
+which the drama revolved, and rushed to its conclusion. The time
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5006" id="Page_5006">[Pg 5006]</a></span>
+of five-act comedies, with ample expositions, copious developments,
+philosophical disquisitions, curious and fanciful episodes, was gone.
+Henceforth the dramatist had to deal with a hurried and <i>blas&eacute;</i> public,
+which, taking dinner at eight, could give to the theatre but a short
+time, and an attention disturbed by the labor of digestion. 'A Woman's
+Torture,' which lasted only an hour and a half, and proceeded
+only by rapid strokes, was exactly what that public wanted. After
+that time Dumas wrote only three-act and one-act plays; using four
+acts only for 'Les Id&eacute;es de Madame Aubray' (Madame Aubray's
+Ideas); and these four acts are very short. In 1867 this play announced
+Dumas's return to the stage; and Dumas is here more paradoxical
+than he had ever been. His theme looked like a wager not
+simply against bourgeois prejudices, but even against good sense, and,
+I dare to say, against justice. This wager was won by Dumas, thanks
+to an incredible display of skill. He took up the thesis a second
+time in 'Denise,' and won his wager again, but with less difficulty.
+In 'Denise' the lover struggles only against social prejudices, and
+allows himself to be carried away by one of those emotional fits
+which disturb and confound human reason. In 'Madame Aubray's
+Ideas' the triumph is one of pure logic.</p>
+
+<p>'Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse
+Georges' followed rather closely on 'Madame Aubray's Ideas.' 'A
+Wedding Call'!&mdash;what a thunderbolt then! It was of but one act,
+<i>but</i> one act the effect of which was prodigious, the echo of which is
+still heard. Time and familiarity have now softened for us the too
+sharp outlines of this bitter play. It has been acknowledged a
+masterpiece. It is certainly one of the boldest works of this extraordinary
+magician, who, thanks to his unerring skill and to the dazzling
+wit of his dialogue, brought the public to listen to whatever he
+chose to put upon the stage. It seemed that, like a lion tamer in
+the arena, Dumas took pleasure in belaboring and exasperating this
+many-headed monster, in order to prove to his own satisfaction that
+he could subdue its revolts.</p>
+
+<p>'La Princesse Georges' is a work of violent and furious passion.
+We find in it Madame de Terremonde, the good woman who adores
+her husband, but who adores him with fury, who wants him all to
+herself, and who, when sure that she is betrayed, passes from the
+most exasperated rage to tears and despair. There is in the first
+act a scene of exposition which has become celebrated. No one ever
+so rapidly mastered the public; no one ever from the first stroke so
+painfully twisted the heart of the spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Let us pass rapidly over 'La Femme de Claude' (Claude's Wife:
+1873). Of all his plays it is the one Dumas said he liked best, the
+one he most passionately defended with all sorts of commentaries,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5007" id="Page_5007">[Pg 5007]</a></span>
+letters, prefaces, etc.; the one which he insisted on having revived, a
+long time after it had failed. To my mind that play was a mistake;
+and the public, in spite of Dumas's arguments, in spite of the protests
+of the critics, who are often very glad to distinguish themselves
+by not yielding to the common voice,&mdash;the public insisted on agreeing
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few months later, Dumas brilliantly retrieved himself with
+'Monsieur Alphonse.' His Madame Guichard is the most cheerfully
+vulgar type of the <i>parvenue</i> which any one ever dared to put upon
+the stage. She can hardly read and write; she is no longer young,
+and she is "to boot" very proud of her money; she has no tact and
+no taste; but at heart she is a good sort of woman. Her morality is
+as primitive as her education. But deceit disgusts her; she hates but
+one thing, she says,&mdash;lying. She is not troubled by conventionalities;
+and her speech has all the color and energy of popular speech. But
+see! Dumas in depicting this woman preserved exquisite measure.
+Madame Guichard says many pert and droll things; she never utters
+a coarse word. Her language is picturesque; it is free from slang.
+Hers is a vulgar nature, but she does not offend delicate ears by the
+grossness of her utterance. Dumas never drew a more living picture;
+she is the joy of this rather sad play.</p>
+
+<p>All that remain to be reviewed are 'L'&Eacute;trang&egrave;re,' 'La Princesse
+de Bagdad,' and 'Fran&ccedil;illon'; all of which were given at the Com&eacute;die
+Fran&ccedil;aise. 'L'&Eacute;trang&egrave;re' is indeed a melodrama, with an admixture
+of comedy. Had he gone further in that direction, Dumas might have
+made a new sort of play, which would perhaps have reigned a long
+time on the stage. But after this trial, successful though it was, he
+stopped. 'La Princesse de Bagdad' entirely failed. 'Fran&ccedil;illon'
+was Dumas's last success at the Com&eacute;die Fran&ccedil;aise.</p>
+
+<p>After 1887 Dumas gave nothing to the stage. He had completed
+a great five-act play, 'The Road to Thebes,' which the manager of
+the Com&eacute;die Fran&ccedil;aise hoped every year to put on the boards.
+Dumas kept promising it; but either from distrust of himself or of
+the public, or from fatigue, or fear of meeting with failure, he asked
+for new delays, until the day when he declared that not only the
+play would not be acted during his life, but that he would not even
+allow it to be acted after his death.</p>
+
+<p>This death he saw coming, with sad but calm eyes. It was a
+sorrow for us to see this man, whom we had known so quick and
+alert, grow weaker every day, showing the progress of disease in his
+shriveled features and body. The complexion had lost all color, the
+cheeks had become flaccid, the eye had no life left.</p>
+
+<p>On October 1st, 1895, he wrote to his friend Jules Claretie:&mdash;"Do
+not depend upon me any more; I am vanquished. There are
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5008" id="Page_5008">[Pg 5008]</a></span>
+moments when I mourn my loss, as Madame D'Houdetot said when
+dying." He was at Puys, by the seaside, when he wrote that despairing
+letter. He returned to Marly, there to die, surrounded by his
+family, on November 28th, 1895, in a house which he loved and
+which had been bequeathed to him years before by an intimate
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>His loss threw into mourning the world of letters, and the whole
+of Paris. People discovered then&mdash;for death loosens every tongue
+and every pen&mdash;how kind and generous in reality was Dumas, who
+had often been accused of avarice by those who contrasted him with
+his father; how many services he had discreetly rendered, how open
+his hand always was. His constant cheerfulness and good-nature
+had finally caused him to be forgiven for his wit, which was sarcastic
+and cutting, and for his success, which had thrown so many rivals
+into the shade. This witty man, who was always obliging and even
+tender-hearted, had no envy, and gave his applause without a shadow
+of reserve to the successes of others. Every young author found in
+him advice and support; he did not expect gratitude, and therefore
+was soured by no disappointment. He was a good man, partly from
+nature, partly from determination; for he deemed that, after all, the
+best way to live happy in this world is to make happy as many
+people as possible.</p>
+
+<p>If in this long essay I have not spoken of Dumas as a moralist, it
+is because, in my opinion, in spite of all that has been said, Dumas
+was a dramatist a great deal more than a philosopher. In his comedies
+he discussed a great many moral and social questions, without
+giving a solution for any; or rather, the solutions that he gave were
+due not to any set of fixed principles, but to the conclusion which he
+was preparing for this play or that. He said, indifferently, "Kill her"
+or "Forgive her," according to the requirements of the subject which
+he had selected; and he would afterwards write a sensational preface
+with a view to demonstrate that the solution this time given by him
+was the only legitimate one. These prefaces are very amusing reading;
+for he wrote them with all the fire of his nature, and he had
+the gift of movement. But they were a strange medley of incongruous
+and contradictory statements. Every idea that he expresses can
+be grasped and understood; but it is impossible to see how it agrees
+with those that precede and follow. It is a chaos of clear ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Dumas was not a philosopher, but an agitator. He stirred up a
+great many questions; he drew upon them our distracted attention;
+he compelled us to think of them. Therein he did his duty as a
+dramatist.</p>
+
+<p>He gave much thought to the fate of woman in our civilization.
+We may say, however, that though loving her much, he still more
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5009" id="Page_5009">[Pg 5009]</a></span>
+feared her, and I shall even add, despised her. All his characters
+who have the mission of defending morality and good sense are very
+attentive to her, but keep her at arm's-length. They are affectionate
+counselors, not lovers. They hold her to be a frail being, who must
+be controlled and guided. Some one has said that there was in
+Dumas something of the Catholic priest. It is true. He was to
+women a lay director of conscience.</p>
+
+<p>He was a great connoisseur of pictures and a great art lover.
+Music, I think, is the only art that did not affect him much. He was
+a dazzling talker; his plays teem with bright sayings; his conversation
+sparkled with them. I did not know him in his prime, when he
+delighted his friends and companions by his unceasing flow of spirits.
+I became intimate with him only later. If you knew how to start
+him, he simply coruscated. I never knew any one, save Edmond
+About, who was as witty, and who, like About, always paid you back
+in good sounding coin.</p>
+
+<p>Dumas was a member of the French Academy. He had not
+wished for that honor, because it had been denied to his father. He
+desired, in his reception speech, to call up the great spirit of this
+illustrious father and make it share his academician's chair. He had
+this joy; the two Dumas were received on the same day. Their two
+names will never perish.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 199px;">
+<img src="images/sign353.png" width="199" height="56" alt="Francisque Sarcey" title="Francisque Sarcey" />
+</div>
+
+<p>[The editors have been compelled, for lack of space, to leave out
+that part of M. Sarcey's valuable essay which is a professional analysis
+of several of Dumas's plays, and which would be of interest,
+chiefly, to special students of the French drama and stage.]</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="PLAYWRIGHT" id="PLAYWRIGHT"></a>THE PLAYWRIGHT IS BORN&mdash;AND MADE</h3>
+<h4>From the Preface to 'A Prodigal Father'</h4>
+
+<p>Of all the various forms of thought, the stage is that which nearest
+approaches the plastic arts&mdash;inasmuch as we cannot work in it unless
+we know its material processes; but with this difference: that in the
+other arts one learns these processes, while in play-writing one
+guesses them; or to speak more accurately, they are in us to begin
+with.</p>
+
+<p>One can become a painter, a sculptor, a musician, by sheer
+study: one does not become a dramatic author in this fashion. A
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5010" id="Page_5010">[Pg 5010]</a></span>
+caprice of nature makes your eye in such a way that you can
+see a thing after a particular manner, not absolutely correct, but
+which must nevertheless appear, to any other persons that you
+wish to have so think, the only correct point of view. The man
+really called to write for the stage reveals what is an extremely
+rare faculty, in his very first attempts,&mdash;say in a farce in school,
+or a drawing-room charade. There is a sort of science of optics
+and of perspective that enables one to draw a personage, a character,
+a passion, an impulse of the soul, with a single stroke of
+the pen. Dramatic <i>cheating of the eye</i> is so complete that often
+the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the play, desiring to
+give himself once more the same emotion that he has felt as one
+of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in the
+written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the
+passage where the emotion lies hid. It was a word, a look, a
+silence, a gesture, a purely atmospheric combination, that held
+him spellbound. So comes in the genius of the playwright's
+trade, if those two words can be associated. One may compare
+writing for the stage in relation to other phases of literature, as
+we compare ceiling painters with [painters of] pictures for the
+wall or the easel. Woe to the painter if he forget that his composition
+is to be looked at from a distance, with a light below it!</p>
+
+<p>A man without merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher,
+an author, may turn out to be a dramatic author of the first
+class; that is to say, in the work of setting in motion before you
+the purely external movements of mankind; and on the other
+hand, to become in the theatre the thinker, the moralist, the
+philosopher, or the author to whom one listens, one must indispensably
+be furnished with the particular and natural qualities of
+a man of much lower grade. In short, to be a master in the art
+of writing for the stage, you must be a poor hand in the superior
+art....</p>
+
+<p>That dramatic author who shall know mankind like Balzac,
+and who shall know the theatre like Scribe, will be the greatest
+dramatic author that has ever existed.</p>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by E. Iren&aelig;us
+Stevenson</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5011" id="Page_5011">[Pg 5011]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="TRUCE" id="TRUCE"></a>AN ARMED TRUCE</h3>
+<h4>From 'A Friend of the Sex'</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[The following conversation in the first act of the play takes place
+in the pleasant morning-room of a country-house near Paris, the home
+of M. and Madame Leverdet. M. Leverdet is asleep in his chair. The
+speakers are Madame Leverdet, a coquettish, sprightly lady approaching
+middle age, and young M. De Ryons, a friend and neighbor. Madame
+Leverdet is determined to marry off De Ryons advantageously, and as
+soon as possible. Unfortunately he is a confirmed bachelor, not to say
+woman-hater, whose cynicism is the result of severely disappointing
+experiences. Under that cynicism there is however genuine respect and
+even chivalry as to the right sort of woman,&mdash;the superior and sincere
+type, which he does not happen often to encounter.]</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Madame Leverdet</span>&mdash;Let us come to serious topics while we
+are alone, my friend.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;And apropos of them?</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Are you willing to be married off yet?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i> [<i>with a start of terror</i>]&mdash;Pardon me, my dear lady!
+At what hour can I take the first train for Paris?</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Now listen to me, at least.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;What! Here it is two years since I have called
+on you; I come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all
+good friendship, with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am
+totally unsuspecting; all I ask is to have a little lively chat with
+a clever woman&mdash;and see how you receive me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i> [<i>continuing</i>]&mdash;A simple, charming young
+girl&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i> [<i>interrupting her, and in the same tone</i>]&mdash; &mdash;musical,
+speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society
+woman, a domestic woman,&mdash;all at the choice of the applicant.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i> [<i>laughing</i>]&mdash;Yes, and pretty and graceful
+and rich; and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;She is quite right there. I shall make a charming
+husband&mdash;I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old;
+all my teeth, all my hair (no such very common detail, the way
+young men are nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income
+as a landed proprietor&mdash;oh, I am an excellent match: only unfortunately
+I am not a marrying man.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;And why not, if you please?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i> [<i>smiling</i>]&mdash;It would interfere severely with my
+studies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5012" id="Page_5012">[Pg 5012]</a></span>
+<i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;What sort of studies?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;My studies of&mdash;woman.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Really! I don't understand you.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;What! Do you not know that I am making women my
+particular, my incessant study, and that I am reckoning on leaving
+some new and very interesting documents dealing with that branch of
+natural history?&mdash;a branch very little understood just at present, in
+spite of all that has been written on the topic. My friend, I cannot
+sacrifice the species to the individual; I belong to science. It is
+quite impossible for me to give myself wholly and completely&mdash;as one
+certainly should do when he marries&mdash;to one of those charming and
+terrible little carnivora for whose sake men dishonor themselves, ruin
+themselves, kill themselves; whose sole preoccupation, in the midst of
+the universal carnage that they make, is to dress themselves now like
+umbrellas and now like table bells.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i> [<i>scornfully</i>]&mdash;So you really think you understand
+women, do you?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;I rather think I do. Why, just as you see me this
+instant, at the end of five minutes' study or conversation I can
+tell you to what class a woman belongs,&mdash;whether to the middle
+class, to women of rank, artists, or whatever you please; what
+are her tastes, her characteristics, her antecedents, the state of her
+heart,&mdash;in a word, everything that concerns my special science.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Really! Will you have a glass of water?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Not yet, thank you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;I suppose, then, you are under the impression
+that you know me too.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;As if I did not!</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Well, and I am&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Oh, you are a clever woman. It is for that reason
+that I call on you [<i>aside:</i> every two years].</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Will you kindly give me the sum of your
+observations in general? You can tell me so much, since I am
+a clever woman.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;The true, the true, the true sum?</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Simply that woman of our day is an illogical, subordinate,
+and mischief-making creature. [<i>In saying this De Ryons draws back and
+crouches down as if expecting to be struck.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;So then, you detest women?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5013" id="Page_5013">[Pg 5013]</a></span>
+<i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;I? I detest women? On the contrary, I adore them; but I
+hold myself in such a position toward them that they cannot bite me. I
+keep on the outside of the cage.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Meaning by that&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Meaning by that, that I am a friend of the sex; for I have
+long perceived that just as truly as women are dangerous in love, just
+so much are they adorable in friendship, with men;&mdash;that is to say,
+with no obligations, and therefore no treasons; no rights, and in
+consequence no tyrannies. One assists, too, as a spectator, often as a
+collaborator, in the comedy of love. A man under such conditions sees
+before his nose the stage tricks, the machinery, the changes of
+scenes, all that stage mounting so dazzling at a distance and so
+simple when one is near by. As a friend of the sex and on a basis of
+friendship, one estimates the causes, the contradictions, the
+incoherences, of that phantasmagoric changeableness that belongs to
+the heart of a woman. So you have something that is interesting and
+instructive. Under such circumstances a man is the consoler, and gives
+his advice; he wipes away tears; he brings quarrelsome lovers
+together; he asks for the letters that must be returned; he hands back
+the photographs (for you know that in love affairs photographs are
+taken only in order to be returned, and it is nearly always the same
+photograph that serves as many times as may be necessary. I know one
+photograph that I have had handed back by three different men, and it
+ended its usefulness by being given for good and all to a fourth one,
+who was&mdash;not single).... In short, you see, my dear madam, I am above
+all the friend of those women&mdash;who have known what it is to be in
+love. And moreover inasmuch, just as Rochefoucauld says, as women do
+not think a great deal of their first experience,&mdash;why, one fine day
+or another&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;You prove to be the second one.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;No, no; I have no number, I! A well-brought-up woman never
+goes from one experience of the heart to another one, without a decent
+interval of time, more or less long. Two railroad accidents never come
+together on the same railway. During the <i>intervals</i> a woman really
+needs a friend, a good confidant; and it is then that I turn up. I let
+her tell me all the melancholy affairs in question; I see the unhappy
+victim in tears after the traitor has called; I lament with her, I
+weep with her, I make her laugh with me: and little by little I
+replace the delinquent without her seeing that I am doing so. But then I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5014" id="Page_5014">[Pg 5014]</a></span>
+know very well that I am without importance, that I am a mere
+politician of the moment, a cabinet minister without a portfolio, a
+sentimental distraction without any consequences; and some fine day,
+after having been the confidential friend as to past events, I become
+the confidential friend as to future ones,&mdash;for the lady falls in love
+for the second time with somebody who knows nothing of the first
+experience, who will never know anything about it, and who of course
+must be made to suppose he represents the first one. Then I go away
+for a little time and leave them to themselves, and then I come back
+like a new friend to the family. By-and-by, when the dear creature is
+reckoning up the balance-sheet of her past, when her conscience pours
+into her ear the names that she would rather not remember, and my name
+comes with the others, she reflects an instant,&mdash;and then she says
+resolutely and sincerely to herself, "Oh, <i>he</i> does not count!" My
+friend, I am always the one that does not count, and I like it
+extremely.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i> [<i>indignantly</i>]&mdash;You are simply a monster!</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Oh no, oh no, oh no, I am not!</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;According to your own account, you have no faith in
+women.... Wretch! Ungrateful creature! And yet it is woman who
+inspires all the great things in this life.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;But somehow forbids us to accomplish them.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Go out from here, my dear De Ryons, and never let
+me see you again.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i> [<i>rising promptly and making a mocking bow</i>]&mdash;My dear
+lady&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;No, I will <i>not</i> shake hands with you.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Then I shall die of chagrin&mdash;that's all about it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Do you know how you will end, you incorrigible
+creature? When you are fifty years old you will have rheumatism.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Yes, or sciatica. But I shall find some one who will
+embroider me warm slippers.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Indeed you will not! You will marry your cook.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;That depends on how well she cooks. Again farewell, dear
+madam.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;No, stay one moment.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;It is you who are keeping me; so look out.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Let me have really your last word on the whole
+matter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5015" id="Page_5015">[Pg 5015]</a></span>
+<i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;It is very easily given. There are just two kinds of
+women: those who are good women, and those who are not.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Without fine distinctions?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;Without fine distinctions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;What is one to do in the case of those who are
+not&mdash;good women?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;They must be consoled.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;And those who are?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;They must be guaranteed against being anything else; and
+as to that process of guarantee I have taken a patent.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Leverdet</i>&mdash;Come now, if you are playing in parlor theatricals,
+say so. What are you trying to be,&mdash;Lovelace or Don Quixote?</p>
+
+<p><i>De Ryons</i>&mdash;I am neither the one nor the other. I am a man who, having
+nothing else to do, took to studying women just as another man studies
+beetles and minerals, only I am under the impression that my
+scientific study is more interesting and more useful than that of the
+other savant&mdash;because we meet your sex everywhere. We meet the mother,
+the sister, the daughter, the wife, the woman who is in love; and it
+is important to be well informed upon such an eternal associate in our
+lives. Now I am a man of my time, exercised over one theory or
+another, hardly knowing what he must believe, good or bad, but
+inclined to believe in good when occasion presents itself. I respect
+women who respect themselves.... It is not I who created the world; I
+take it as I find it.... And as to marriage, the day when I shall find
+a young girl with the four qualities of goodness of heart, sound
+health, thorough self-respect, and cheerfulness,&mdash;the squaring of the
+conjugal hypothenuse,&mdash;then I count for nothing all my long term of
+waiting; like the great Doctor Faust, I become young again, and such
+as I am, I give myself to her. My friend, if this same young girl of
+whom you have been speaking (and by the way, I know her just as well
+as you do) really unites these conditions,&mdash;I do not believe she does
+so, though I shall see very soon,&mdash;why then, I will marry her
+to-morrow&mdash;I will marry her to-night. But in the mean time, as I have
+positively nothing to do,&mdash;if you happen to know a self-respecting
+woman who needs to be kept from a bit of folly ... why, I am wholly at
+your service.</p>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by E. Iren&aelig;us
+Stevenson</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5016" id="Page_5016">[Pg 5016]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="MONEY" id="MONEY"></a>TWO VIEWS OF MONEY</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Money Question'</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[The following passage occurs in the first act of Dumas's play. The
+characters include the young parvenu Jean Giraud, the aristocratic M.
+De Cayolle, and several others, all guests in the drawing-room of the
+country-house of Madame Durieu. In course of the conversation Giraud
+refers to his father, at one time a gardener on the estate of M. De
+Charzay.]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Jean Giraud</i>&mdash;Oh, yes, yes, I have got along in the world,
+as people say. There are people who blush for their fathers;
+I make a brag of mine&mdash;that's the difference.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ren&eacute; de Charsay</i>&mdash;And what is Father Giraud nowadays?
+Oh, I beg your pardon&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean</i>&mdash;Don't be embarrassed&mdash;we keep on calling him Father
+Giraud all the same. He is a gardener still, only he gardens on
+his own account. He owns the house that your father was
+obliged to sell a while ago. My father has never had but one
+idea,&mdash;our Father Giraud,&mdash;and that is to be a land-owner; I
+bought that piece of property for him, and so he is as happy as
+a fish in the water. If you like, we will go and take breakfast
+with him to-morrow morning. He will be delighted to see you.
+How things change, eh? There, where a while ago we were the
+servants, now we are the masters; though we are not so very
+proud, for all that.</p>
+
+<p><i>Countess Savelli</i> [<i>aside</i>]&mdash;He has passed the Rubicon of parvenus!
+He has confessed his father! Now nothing can stop his way!</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean</i> [<i>to De Charsay</i>]&mdash;I have wanted to see you for a
+long time, but I have not been sure how you would meet me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ren&eacute;</i>&mdash;I would have met you with pleasure, as my uncle would have met
+you. One cannot utter reproaches to a man who has made his own
+fortune, except when he has made it by dishonest means; a man who owes
+it to his intelligence and his probity, who uses it worthily,
+everybody is ready to meet kindly, as you are met here.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean</i>&mdash;Sir, it is not necessary that a man should use his fortune
+nobly, provided it is made&mdash;that is the main thing!</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Durieu</i>&mdash;Oh, oh, M. Giraud! there you spoil everything
+that you have said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5017" id="Page_5017">[Pg 5017]</a></span>
+<i>Jean</i>&mdash;I don't say that of my own case, madam, but I say just what I
+say,&mdash;money is money, whatever may be the kind of hands where it
+sticks. It is the sole power that one never disputes. You may dispute
+virtue, beauty, courage, genius; but you can't dispute money. There is
+not one civilized being, rising in the morning, who does not recognize
+the sovereignty of money, without which he would have neither the roof
+which shelters, him, nor the bed in which he sleeps, nor the bread
+that he eats. Whither are bound these masses of people crowding in the
+streets?&mdash;from the employ&eacute; sweating under his too heavy burden, to the
+millionaire hurrying down to the Bourse behind his two trotters? The
+one is running after fifteen sous, the other after one hundred
+thousand francs. Why do we all have these shops, these railroads,
+these factories, these theatres, these museums, these lawsuits between
+brothers and sisters, between fathers and sons, these revelations,
+these divisions in families, these murders? All for pieces, more or
+less numerous, of that white or yellow metal which people call silver
+or gold. And pray who will be the most thought of at the end of this
+grand race after money? The man who brings back the most of it. Ah,
+nowadays a man has no business to have more than one object in
+life&mdash;and that is to become as rich as possible! For my part, that has
+always been my idea; I have carried it out: I congratulate myself on
+it. Once upon a time everybody found me homely, stupid, a bore; to-day
+everybody finds me handsome, witty, amiable,&mdash;and the Lord knows if
+<i>I</i> am witty, amiable, handsome! On the day when I might be stupid
+enough to let myself be ruined, to become plain "Jean" as before,
+there would not be enough stones in the Montmartre quarries to throw
+at my head. But there, that day is a good way off, and meantime many
+of my business acquaintances have been ruined for the sake of keeping
+me from ruin. The last word, too, the greatest praise that I could
+give to wealth, certainly is, that such a circle as I find myself in
+at present has had the patience to listen so long to the son of a
+gardener, who has no other right to their attention than the poor
+little millions that he has made.</p>
+
+<p><i>Durieu</i> [<i>aside</i>]&mdash;It is all absolutely true, every word that he has
+been saying&mdash;gardener's son that he is! He sees our epoch just as it
+really is.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame Durieu</i>&mdash;Come now, my dear M. De Cayolle, what
+do you think of what M. Giraud has been telling us?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5018" id="Page_5018">[Pg 5018]</a></span>
+<i>Cayolle</i>&mdash;I think, madam, that the theories of M. Giraud are sound,
+but sound only as to that society in which M. Giraud has lived until
+now: a world of speculation, whose one object naturally ought to be to
+make money. As to wealth itself, it brings about infamous things, but
+it also brings about great and noble things. In that respect it is
+like human speech: a bad thing for some people, a good thing for
+others, according to the use they make of it. This obligation of our
+state of society that makes a man wake up each morning with taking
+thought of the necessary sum for his personal wants, lest he take what
+does not belong to him, has created the finest intelligence of all the
+ages! It is simply to this need of money every day that we owe
+Franklin, who began the world by being a printer's apprentice;
+Shakespeare, who used to hold horses at the door of the theatre which
+later he was going to immortalize; Machiavelli, who was secretary to
+the Florentine republic at fifteen crowns a month; Raphael, the son of
+a mere dauber; Jean Jacques Rousseau, a notary's clerk and an
+engraver,&mdash;one who did not have a dinner every day; Fulton, once upon
+a time a mechanic, who gave us steam: and so many others. Had these
+same people been born with an income of half a million livres apiece,
+there would have been a good many chances that not one of them would
+ever have become what he did become. [<i>To M. Giraud.</i>] This race after
+wealth, of which you speak, M. Giraud, has good in it: even if it
+enriches some silly people or some rascals, if it procures for them
+the consideration of those in a humble station of life,&mdash;of the lower
+classes, of those who have cash relations with society, on the other
+hand there is a great deal of good in the spur given to faculties
+which would otherwise remain stationary; enough good to pardon some
+errors in the distribution of wealth. Just in proportion as you enter
+into the true world of society&mdash;a world which is almost unknown to
+you, M. Giraud&mdash;you will find that a man who is received there is
+received only in proportion to his personal value. Look around here
+where we are, without taking the trouble to go any further, and you
+will see that money has not the influence you ascribe to it. For
+proof, here is Countess Savelli, with half a million francs income,
+who in place of dining out with millionaires besieging her house
+every day, comes quietly here to dine with our friends the Durieus,
+people without title, poor people measured by her fortune; and
+she comes here for the pleasure of meeting M. De Charzay,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5019" id="Page_5019">[Pg 5019]</a></span>
+who has not more than a thousand crowns income, but who, for all the millionaires
+in the world, would never do a thing a man ought not to do; and she meets
+here M. De Roncourt, who has a business of fifteen hundred francs
+because he gave up his fortune to creditors who were not his own
+creditors. There is Mademoiselle De Roncourt, who sacrificed her dowry
+to the same sentiment of honor; yonder is Mademoiselle Durieu, who
+would never be willing to become the wife of any other than an honest
+man, even if he had for his rivals all the Croesuses present and to
+come; and last of all, one meets me here,&mdash;a man who has for money (in
+the acceptation that you give the word) the most profound contempt.
+Now, M. Giraud, if we listened to you for so long a time, it is
+because we are well-bred people, and besides, you talk very well; but
+there has been no flattery for your millions in our attention, and the
+proof is that everybody has been listening to me a longer time than to
+you,&mdash;listening to me, who have not like you a thousand-franc note to
+put along with every one of my phrases!</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean</i>&mdash;Who is that gentleman who has just been speaking?</p>
+
+<p><i>Durieu</i>&mdash;That is M. De Cayolle.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean</i>&mdash;The railway director?</p>
+
+<p><i>Durieu</i>&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean</i> [<i>going to M. De Cayolle</i>]&mdash;M. De Cayolle, I hope you
+will believe that I am very glad to meet you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cayolle</i>&mdash;I dare say you are, monsieur. [<i>M. De Cayolle as he
+utters the words turns his back upon Giraud and steps aside</i>.]</p>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by E. Iren&aelig;us
+Stevenson</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="MARRIAGE" id="MARRIAGE"></a>M. DE R&Eacute;MONIN'S PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE</h3>
+<h4>From 'L'&Eacute;trang&egrave;re'</h4>
+
+<p><i>Madame de Rumi&egrave;res</i>&mdash;See here, now, R&eacute;monin, you who claim to explain
+everything as a learned man&mdash;can you solve this proposition? Why is it
+that with all the quantity of love in this world, there are so many
+unhappy marriages?</p>
+
+<p><i>M. R&eacute;monin</i>&mdash;I could give you a perfect explanation, my
+dear lady, if you were not a woman.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame de Rumi&egrave;res</i>&mdash;You mean that the explanation is not
+decent?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5020" id="Page_5020">[Pg 5020]</a></span>
+<i>M. R&eacute;monin</i>&mdash;No, I mean that it is a matter based on the
+abstract.... It is this. The reason why marriages are
+rarely happy, in spite of the "quantity of love" in question, is
+because love and marriage, scientifically considered, have no relationship.
+They belong to two sorts of things, completely differing.
+Love is of the physical. Marriage is a matter of chemistry.</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame de Rumi&egrave;res</i>&mdash;Explain yourself.</p>
+
+<p><i>R&eacute;monin</i>&mdash;Certainly. Love is an element of the natural evolution of
+our being; it comes to us of itself in course of our life, at one time
+or another, independent of all our will, and even without a definite
+object. The human creature can wish to be in love before really loving
+any one!... But marriage is a social combination, an adjustment, that
+refers itself to chemistry, as I have said; since chemistry concerns
+itself with the action of one element on another and the phenomena
+resulting: ... to the end of bringing about family life, morality, and
+labor, and in consequence the welfare of man, as involved in all
+three. Now, so often as you really can conform to the theory of such a
+blending of things, so long as you happen to have effected in marriage
+such a combination of the physical <i>and</i> chemical, all goes well; the
+experiment is happy, it results well. But if you are ignorant or
+maladroit enough to seek and to make a combination of two refractory
+chemical forces in the matrimonial experiment, then in the place of a
+fusion you will find you have only inert forces; and the two elements
+remain there, together but unfused, eternally opposed to each other,
+never able to be united!... Or else there is not merely inertia&mdash;there
+are shocks, explosions, catastrophes, accidents, dramas....</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame de Rumi&egrave;res</i>&mdash;Have you ever been in love?</p>
+
+<p><i>M. R&eacute;monin</i>&mdash;I? My dear marquise, I am a scientist&mdash;I
+have never had time! And you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Madame de Rumi&egrave;res</i>&mdash;I have loved my children. M. de Rumi&egrave;res was a
+charming man all his life; but he didn't expect me really to love him.
+My son tells me his affairs of the heart; ... my daughter has already
+made me a grandmother ... I have little to reproach myself as to my
+past life, and now I look on at the lives of others, sometimes much
+interested. I am like the subscribers to the Op&eacute;ra, who know the whole
+repertory by heart, but who can always hear some passages with
+pleasure and who encourage the d&eacute;butants.</p>
+
+<p class="transc">Condensed and translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+E. Iren&aelig;us Stevenson.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5021" id="Page_5021">[Pg 5021]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="FATHER" id="FATHER"></a>REFORMING A FATHER</h3>
+<h4>From 'A Prodigal Father'</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[The ensuing dialogue occurs in the first act of the play. The Count
+de Ravonnieres and his son Andre reside together in their comfortable
+bachelor's establishment in Paris, and are devotedly attached to one
+another. The count, unfortunately, has only grown more careless of
+money, more a gay man of the world, as he has grown older; and blessed
+with a youthfulness of physique and temperament that nothing impairs,
+he is as thriftless as he is fascinating. His son, accordingly, has
+had to be the economist of their resources, which are at a dangerous
+ebb. As the scene opens, the count is preparing to take luncheon, with
+Joseph, the confidential servant of the house, in attendance.]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;Monsieur is served.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count de Ravonnieres</i>&mdash;Very well.  You will please go
+to my florist Lemoine, the Opera florist,&mdash;you know who I
+mean,&mdash;and tell him to send, to-day, with my card,&mdash;he has a
+lot of cards of mine in advance,&mdash;to Mademoiselle Albertine de
+la Borde, 26 or 28 Rue de la Paix&mdash;I don't exactly remember
+the number that the lady gave me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;No. 26.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Ah! You know her address, do you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;Yes, sir.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;To send her a bouquet of white lilacs and roses.
+And I don't need you any more: go at once. [<i>Joseph bows, and
+hands the Count a large envelope.</i>] What's all this?</p>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;Some law papers that have come in your absence, sir,
+which I did not think ought to be forwarded to Dieppe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i> [<i>without taking the papers</i>]&mdash;Quite right. Has my son
+seen them?</p>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;No, sir.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Very well; don't let him see them. Put them away
+with the others.</p>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;May I beg monsieur to say a good word for me to
+his son?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;As to what, Joseph?</p>
+
+<p><i>Joseph</i>&mdash;Your son, sir, has just told me to look out for another
+situation; and I am so attached to the family&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Oh, I will straighten all that out; if my son sends
+you away I will take you into our service again. Come now,
+get off to my florist; be quick about it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5022" id="Page_5022">[Pg 5022]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>As</i> Joseph <i>goes out,</i> Andr&eacute; <i>enters. He does not at first perceive his
+father, but on turning toward the table discovers him.</i></p></div>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Ah! you are here, are you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Yes, I have been here during an hour; and moreover,
+a very agreeable person has been doing the honors of your establishment
+on my behalf.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;It is a fine time to talk about agreeable persons!
+You are a very agreeable person&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;What in the world is the matter with you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;I am perfectly furious.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Against whom?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Against you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Why? What have I been doing?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;You have drawn on me at sight this draft here.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Oh yes, I know very well what that means. It comes
+from London; it is to pay for the boat, you know.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Oh yes, it comes from London, and it is to pay for
+the boat! That is no excuse for it. And what about the boat,
+if you please?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;But my dear fellow, they had no business to present
+it until the 15th.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Well?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Why, to-day <i>is</i> the 15th!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;You ought to know it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;I thought that to-day was only the 14th! Have you
+paid it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Of course.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Ah! then I owe you six thousand francs. That's all
+there is to the matter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Yes, that's all! But you never said a word to me
+about it; I had no money in the house: I had to send to our
+man of business. May I beg of you in the future to be so good
+as to&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Poor boy! poor boy! Really, between ourselves, you would have
+done a great deal better (as it is a month since you have seen me, and
+since you are really very fond of me) to embrace me in meeting me
+again, rather than to say all these things to me that you have been
+saying!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i> [<i>embracing his father heartily</i>]&mdash;Oh, of course they
+make no difference, when it comes to <i>that</i>!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5023" id="Page_5023">[Pg 5023]</a></span>
+<i>Count</i>&mdash;Your second impulse is a very good one; but you
+ought to have begun with it. All the same, I do not in the less
+ask pardon for the inconvenience that I have caused you, my boy.
+[<i>Takes some bank-notes from his pocket.</i>] Here are your six thousand
+francs, and [<i>holding out the remainder of the notes to Andr&eacute;</i>]
+since you need money, help yourself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Where in the world does that money come from?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Oh, it is some money that I have received.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;There was none coming to you from anywhere!</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;There is always something to come to one, if he looks
+around carefully. And now let us speak of serious things.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Yes, by all means. Father, are you not disposed to
+settle down?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;What do you mean by "settle down"?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;To save money, for one thing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Save money! I should be charmed to do so; but I really do not
+see how we can do it. We certainly live as modestly as possible. This
+house belongs to us; we have only four saddle horses, four carriage
+horses, a couple of extra horses for evening service (we could not get
+along with less), two coachmen, two valets, two grooms, one cook. Why,
+we haven't even a housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;No, we only want that!</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;We never receive any except masculine society; we
+certainly are not extravagant as to the table. Look at me here:
+I am breakfasting this minute on two eggs and a glass of water.
+It seems to me that with our fortune&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Our fortune? Would you like to know in what condition
+our fortune is?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;You ought to know better than I, since it is you who
+have had the running of affairs since your majority.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Well then, I <i>do</i> know the expenses; and let me tell
+you that you have counted up only those that are part of our life
+in Paris, and you have not said a syllable of those that belong
+to our country one.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Those that belong to our country one! Those are all
+just so much economy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;So then the place at Vilsac is just so much economy?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Of course. We get everything from it, from eggs up
+to oxen.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5024" id="Page_5024">[Pg 5024]</a></span>
+<i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Yes, and even to wild boars, when it suits you to
+shoot one. Now be so good as to consider the place at Vilsac,
+which you call a matter of economy. First of all, it brings us
+in absolutely nothing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;It never has brought us in anything.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;It is mortgaged for two hundred thousand francs.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;That happened when I was young.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Are you under the impression that there comes a
+time when mortgages wear themselves out? I wish they did.
+But I am afraid that you deceive yourself; and in the mean
+time, you are paying every year a mortgagor's interest. Furthermore,
+at Vilsac&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Where, remember, we spend September, October,
+November, all of which is positively an economy&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Furthermore, as to Vilsac, this summer place where
+we pass September, October, and November,&mdash;all of which is
+positively an economy,&mdash;the proof of its being an economy is
+that here we are in the middle of September, and we are just
+setting out for Dieppe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;For one time only, by chance! And moreover, we
+will have to go down to Vilsac by the end of the month, for I
+have asked those fellows to come down there for the shooting.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Yes, in this economical country place, where you
+have asked all those gentlemen to come down for the shooting,
+at the end of the month&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Really, one would be bored to death without that!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;In this same economical establishment, I say, you
+have twelve keepers.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Quite true; but it is one of the best preserves in
+France, and really, there are so many poachers&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;You have two masters of hounds, you have ten horses,&mdash;in
+short, a whole hunting equipage; and I don't speak of the
+indemnities that you pay year by year, if only for the rabbits
+that you kill.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;The fact is, there <i>are</i> thousands of rabbits; but shooting
+rabbits is such fun!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Add to that the entertainments that it occurs to you
+to give every now and then, with fireworks and so on, during
+the evening.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Oh, yes, but that pleases all the peasants of the
+neighborhood, who adore me; between ourselves it <i>is</i> rather&mdash;Oh,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5025" id="Page_5025">[Pg 5025]</a></span>
+my dear boy! if I had only been rich, what fine things I
+would have done! In France, people do not know how to spend
+money. In Russia it is quite another matter! Now, there you
+have people who understand how to give an entertainment. But
+then what can anybody do with two hundred thousand livres for
+an income?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Father, one can do exactly what you have done,&mdash;one
+can ruin himself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;What! ruin himself?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Yes. When my mother died your personal fortune
+brought you, as you say, an income of two hundred thousand
+livres; and the money which my mother left to me, of which you
+have had the use until I came of age, amounted to a hundred
+and twenty thousand livres.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;I certainly have made an accounting to you in the
+matter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;A perfectly exact one, only&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Only&mdash;?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Only in doing so you have seriously impaired your
+own capital.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Why did you not say that to me at the time?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Because I too&mdash;I was thinking of nothing but spending
+money.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;You ought to have warned me about this before now.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;But I&mdash;I was doing then just what I see you doing;
+I was taking life exactly as you had taught me to take it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Andr&eacute;, I hope that is not a reproach.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;God bless me, no. I am only saying to you why I
+have not looked after your interests better than you have ever
+done so yourself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Very good, Then I am going to explain to you why
+I brought you up&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Not worth while, my dear father. There is no good
+in going back to that, and I know quite well&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;On the contrary, you know nothing at all about the matter,
+and you will please allow me to speak. It will be a consolation. You
+are perfectly right as to things that have no common-sense in them;
+and if I have brought you up after a certain manner, it is just because I
+myself suffer from a different kind of education. <i>I</i> was brought up
+very severely; at twenty-two years I knew nothing of life. I was born, I was kept
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5026" id="Page_5026">[Pg 5026]</a></span>
+hanging on at Vilsac, with my father and my mother, who were saints on
+earth, with my great-uncle, who had the gout, and with my tutor, who
+was an abb&eacute;. I was born with a constitution like iron. I went
+hunting day by day for whole months, on foot or on horseback. I ate my
+meals like an ogre. I rode every sort of a horse, and I was a
+swordsman like St. George himself. As for other things, my dear
+fellow, there was no use dreaming about them: I had not a crown in my
+pocket. The other sex&mdash;well, I had heard it said that there was a
+world of women somewhere, but I certainly did not know where it was.
+One day my father asked me if I was willing to marry, and I cried out,
+"Oh yes, yes!" with such an explosion that my father himself could not
+help laughing&mdash;he who never laughed. I was presented to a young
+girl, virtuous and beautiful; and I fell in love with her with a
+passion which at first fairly frightened the delicate and timid
+creature. Such was your mother, my dear Andr&eacute;, and to her I owe
+the two happiest years of my life; it is true that I owe to her also
+my greatest grief, for at the end of those two years she died. But it
+must be said, either to the blame or to the praise of nature, that
+organizations such as mine are proof against the severest shocks. At
+twenty-four years I found myself rich, a widower, free to do what I
+pleased, and thrown&mdash;with a child a year old&mdash;into the midst
+of this world called Paris, of which I knew nothing whatever. Ought I
+to have condemned you to this sort of life that I had led at Vilsac,
+and which had been for me so often an intolerable bore? No, I obeyed
+my real nature. I gave you my qualities and my shortcomings, without
+reckoning closely in the matter; I have sought in your case your
+affection rather than your obedience or your respect. I have never
+taught you economy, it is true, but then I did not know anything about
+that myself; and besides, I had not a business and a business name to
+leave you. To have everything in common between us, one heart and one
+purse, to be able to give each other everything and say everything to
+each other,&mdash;that has been our motto. The puritans will think
+that they have a right to blame this intimacy as too close: let them
+say so if they choose. We have lost, it seems, some hundreds of
+thousands of francs; but we have gained this,&mdash;that we can always
+count upon each other, you upon me and I upon you. Either of us will
+be ready at any moment to kill himself for the other, and that is the
+most important matter between a father and a son;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5027" id="Page_5027">[Pg 5027]</a></span>
+all the rest is not worth the trouble that one takes to reason about
+it. Don't you think I am right?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;All that is true, my dear father! and I am just as
+much attached to you as you are to me. Far be it from me to
+reproach you; but now in my turn I want to make a confession
+to you. You are an exception in our society; your fettered
+youth, your precocious widowerhood, are your excuses, if you
+need any. You were born at a time when all France was in a
+fever, and when the individual, as well as the great mass of
+people, seemed to be striving to spend by every possible means
+a superabundance of vitality. Urged toward active life by nature,
+by curiosity, by temperament, you have cared for things that
+were worth caring for,&mdash;for them only; for entertaining yourself,
+for hunting, for fine horses, for the artist world, for people of
+rank and distinction. In such an environment as this you have
+paid your tribute to your country, you have paid the debt of your
+rank in life and of your name. But I, on the other hand, like
+almost all my generation, brought in contact with a fashionable
+world from the time that I began life,&mdash;I, born in an epoch of
+lassitude and transition,&mdash;I led for a while this life by mere
+imitation in laziness.... It is a kind of existence that no
+longer amuses me; and moreover, I can tell you that it never
+did amuse me. To sit up all night turning over cards; to get
+up at two o'clock in the afternoon, to have horses put to the
+carriage and go for the drive around the Lake, or to ride horseback;
+to live by day with idlers and to pass my evenings with
+such parasites as your friend M. De Tournas&mdash;all that seems to
+me the height of foolishness. And at the bottom of your own
+thoughts you think just as I do. So now, now that you really
+have got to a serious explanation of affairs, let us reach a real
+irrevocable determination of them. Are you willing to let me
+arrange your life for you in the future exactly as I would wish
+to arrange my own life? Are you willing to have confidence in
+me, and after having brought me up in your way, are you willing
+that in turn, while there is still time for it, I should&mdash;bring you
+up in mine?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Yes, go on.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Very well,&mdash;to severe diseases strong remedies. You
+think a great deal of our Vilsac estate?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;I was born there. I should not be sorry to end my
+days there.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5028" id="Page_5028">[Pg 5028]</a></span>
+<i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Very well. We will keep Vilsac for you, and find
+money in some other way to pay off the mortgage.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;How?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;That's my business; only you must send away the
+two piqueurs, and six of the keepers.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Poor fellows!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;And only four horses are to be kept. No more entertainments
+are to be given, no more fireworks. You will entertain only two or
+three intimate friends now and then,&mdash;if we find as many friends as
+that among all those that are about us nowadays here.&mdash;and you will
+stay at Vilsac seven or eight months of the year.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Alone!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Wait a little. I have not finished yet. This house
+where we are must be sold. We must put out of doors these
+servants, who are just so many thieves; and we will keep at
+Paris only a very modest stopping-place.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Will you kindly allow me to get my breath?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Don't stir, or my surgical operation will not be successful.
+Now that your debts are paid there will be left to you&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;There will be left to me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Forty thousand livres income, and as much for me,&mdash;no
+more; and with all that, during three or four years you will
+not have the capital at your disposition.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Heavens, what a smash!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Are you willing to accept my scheme?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;I must.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Very well, then: sign these papers!</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;What are they?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;They are papers which I have just got from the
+notary, and which I have been expecting to make you sign while
+at Dieppe and send to me; but since you are here&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i> [<i>signs</i>]&mdash;Since I am here, I may as well sign at once:
+you are quite right,&mdash;there you are.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Very well; now as, according to my notions, just as
+much as you are left to yourself you will slip back into the same
+errors as in the past&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;What are you going to do further?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Guess.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;You are going to forbid&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5029" id="Page_5029">[Pg 5029]</a></span>
+<i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Are you out of your senses? I am going to marry
+you off.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Marry me off!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Without permission.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;And how about yourself?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;I am going to marry myself off&mdash;afterwards. You
+must begin as an example.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Andr&eacute;, do you know something?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;What?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Some one has told you the very thing I have had in
+mind.</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Nobody has told me anything.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Your word on it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;My word on it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Explain yourself. You, all by yourself, have had this
+idea of marriage?</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;I myself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;Deny now the sympathy between us!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;Well?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;It exists [<i>putting his arms around his son</i>]. There,
+embrace me!</p>
+
+<p><i>Andr&eacute;</i>&mdash;And you accept?</p>
+
+<p><i>Count</i>&mdash;As if I would do anything else!</p>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by E. Iren&aelig;us
+Stevenson</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="CLARKSON" id="CLARKSON"></a>MR. AND MRS. CLARKSON</h3>
+<h4>From 'L'&Eacute;trang&egrave;re'</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[These scenes, the final ones of the drama, occur in the private
+drawing-room of Catherine, the young Duchess of Septmonts. Mr.
+Clarkson, a wealthy American man of business, a Californian, has just
+received a note from the Duke of Septmonts, a blas&eacute; young rou&eacute; of high
+family, requesting him to call at once. He has come, in some
+bewilderment, to find the duke. Mr. Clarkson has only a formal
+acquaintance with the duke, but Mrs. Clarkson, who resides much of the
+time in Paris, acting as Mr. Clarkson's business representative, knows
+the duke confidentially. The Duchess of Septmonts receives Clarkson.]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Clarkson</i>&mdash;I beg your pardon, madam, for having insisted on
+making my way in here; but a few moments ago I found on returning to my house,
+a letter from your husband. It asked me for a rendezvous as soon as possible,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5030" id="Page_5030">[Pg 5030]</a></span>
+without giving me a reason for it. I find M. de Septmonts not at home.
+May I ask you if you know how I can be of service to him?</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;I was under the impression that in his letter, M.
+de Septmonts explained to you the matter in which he wishes
+your assistance.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;No.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Did not his letter contain another letter, sealed,
+which he purposed leaving in your hands?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;No.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Are you really telling me the truth?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;I never lie, madam: I have too much business on
+my hands; it would mix me up quite too much in my affairs.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Then perhaps it is to Mrs. Clarkson that my husband
+has intrusted that letter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;No. She would have mentioned it; for I told her
+that I had received a line from the Duke, and was on my way
+to this house.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Perhaps your wife did not tell you&mdash;all.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;She has no earthly reason to conceal anything from
+me!</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;True! I know very well that she is your wife
+only in name; she told me as much when I was at her house
+yesterday.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Really! She must be very much pleased with you,
+for she does not talk readily about her personal affairs.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Unfortunately, it is quite otherwise as far as I am
+concerned; she has not hidden from me the fact that she detests
+me, and that she will do me all the injury she possibly can.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;You? Injury? For what reason? Pray, what have
+you done to her?</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Nothing! I have known her only two days.
+Nevertheless&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Nevertheless&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;What I was going to say is not my secret, sir, it
+is hers, and she alone has the right to tell it to you. But as to
+this letter that my husband has told my father he has sent to you&mdash;it
+is I who wrote that letter. You may as well know, too, that
+it was abstracted from my possession; and moreover, that with
+that letter any one can indeed do me all the mischief with which
+your wife, Mrs. Clarkson, has threatened me.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5031" id="Page_5031">[Pg 5031]</a></span>
+<i>Clarkson</i> [<i>very gravely</i>]&mdash;Then we must know at once if my wife has
+that letter. I will write her to come here immediately and join
+us&mdash;that I have something very important to communicate to her&mdash;here.
+Are you willing to have her come? [<i>He writes while he speaks.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Certainly.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Then we can have a general explanation. You may be sure,
+madam, that I shall never lend my hand to anything that means harm to
+you, or to any woman: I come from the country where we respect women.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i> [<i>rings the bell, and says to a servant who answers
+it</i>]&mdash;See that this letter is sent immediately. Be careful that it
+does not go astray. It is not my letter. This gentleman has
+written it. [<i>Exit servant.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;And now, madam, do you know why M. de Septmonts
+wishes to have an interview with me?</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Yes, I can guess. It concerns me, perhaps; but I
+have no right to discuss the matter. It is something which belongs
+to the Duke, and he alone has the right to impart it to
+you. All I can do is to beg of you to have all details thoroughly
+explained to you, and to look into them very carefully.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A</i> Servant <i>enters</i></p></div>
+
+<p><i>Servant</i>&mdash;M. le Duc has come in; he will be glad to have
+Mr. Clarkson come to him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Very good. [<i>Going</i>.] I bid you good evening,
+madam.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i> [<i>to the servant</i>]&mdash;Wait a moment. [<i>Going to Clarkson
+and speaking in a low voice.</i>] Suppose I were to ask you a
+very great service.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ask it, madam.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Suppose I were to ask you to say to my husband
+that you are waiting for him here in this drawing-room&mdash;that
+you will be glad to speak with him <i>here</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Nothing but that? With great pleasure. [<i>To the
+servant.</i>] Say to M. de Septmonts that I shall be obliged if he
+will join me&mdash;here. [<i>Servant goes out.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;I shall leave you; for if I know what is going to
+be discussed in this interview, I neither could nor should take
+part in it; but whatever may come of it, I shall never forget
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5032" id="Page_5032">[Pg 5032]</a></span>
+that you have done everything that you could do as a courtesy
+to me,&mdash;and that you are a gentleman. [<i>Exit Catherine.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>alone</i>]&mdash;Charming! She is charming, that little
+woman; but may I be hanged if I understand one word of what
+is going on here.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Duke of Septmonts <i>comes in hastily, and advances to</i>
+Clarkson.</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I have just come from your house, Mr. Clarkson. Mrs.
+Clarkson told me you were here. I returned at once. Pardon me for
+troubling you. If when I came in I asked you to come to my own
+drawing-room, and have thus troubled you once more, it is because I
+was told you were expecting me here, with the duchess. This is her
+private parlor; and as what we have to say is a matter for men&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Therefore the duchess went to her own room
+when your return here was announced.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Mr. Clarkson, did <i>she</i> tell the servant that you
+would prefer to hold our conversation here?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;No, I told him.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Septmonts goes to the door of the room by which Catherine went out,
+and closes the porti&egrave;re.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>in a scornful aside</i>]&mdash;What an amount of mystery
+and precaution!</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;The matter is this, Mr. Clarkson. I must fight a
+duel to-morrow morning. This duel can terminate only in the
+death of one or other of the contestants. I am the insulted one,
+therefore I have the choice of weapons. I choose the sword.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Do you fence well?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I believe I am one of the best fencers in Paris.
+But another friend on whom I could count is one of those men
+of the world who discuss all the details of an affair, and with
+whom the preliminaries of such a meeting might last several
+days. I want to get through with the matter at once.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ah! The fact is, you <i>do</i> give an importance and
+a solemnity to such things in France that we don't understand,
+we Americans, who settle the question in five minutes on the
+first corner of the street, in the sight of everybody.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;That is just the reason that I allowed myself to
+apply to you, Mr. Clarkson. Now, are you disposed to be present
+as my second?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5033" id="Page_5033">[Pg 5033]</a></span>
+<i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Bless me, with all my heart! Besides, when I
+mentioned your letter to Mrs. Clarkson she told me to do all
+I could to serve you. Have you and my wife known each other
+long?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;About four years; and I owe your wife a great
+deal, morally speaking. I have no desire to conceal the fact. I
+was not yet married when I met Mrs. Clarkson. One day I had
+lost a large sum at play,&mdash;a hundred and fifty thousand francs,&mdash;which
+I did not have, and tried in vain to procure; for at that
+time I was completely ruined. Mrs. Clarkson very generously
+lent me the sum, and I repaid it, with interest equivalent to the
+capital.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;But as you were ruined, duke, how could you pay
+this large capital and this large interest? Did your father or
+mother die? In France the death of parents is a great resource,
+I know.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;No. I was an orphan, and I had no expectations.
+I married.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ah, true! You French people make much of marriages for
+money! It's a great advantage over us Americans, who only marry for
+love. Now with us, in such a case as yours, a man goes into some
+business or other; he goes to mining; he works. But every country has
+its own customs. I beg your pardon for interrupting you. After all, it
+doesn't concern me. Come back to our duel.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I have a letter here in my hands&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ah! You have a letter in your hands&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;A letter which compromises my wife&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ah! I am completely at your service. I belong
+to the sort of men who do not admit any compromises in matters
+of that kind.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I may be killed&mdash;one has to look ahead. If I
+lose my life, I lose it by having been so injured by my wife that
+I intend to be revenged on her.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;And how?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I wish that the contents of this letter, which I
+have in my possession, shall become public property if I am
+killed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>coldly</i>]&mdash;Ah! And how can I serve you as to that?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I will intrust this sealed letter to you. [<i>He takes
+the letter from his pocket.</i>] Here it is.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5034" id="Page_5034">[Pg 5034]</a></span>
+<i>Clarkson</i> [<i>still more coldly</i>]&mdash;Very well.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Now, if I survive, you will restore it to me as it
+is.  If not, then in the trial which will follow, you will read it
+in a court.  I wish the letters to become public.  Then it will be
+known that I avenged my honor under a feigned pretext; and M.
+G&eacute;rard and the duchess will be so situated that they will never
+be able to see each other again.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Nonsense! Once dead, what does it matter to you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I am firm there.  Will you kindly accept the commission?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>in a formal tone</i>]&mdash;Surely.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Here is the letter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>takes it and holds it as he speaks</i>]&mdash;But, duke,
+now that I think about it, when this trial occurs it is probable,
+even certain, that I shall not be in France.  I was expecting
+to leave Paris on business to-morrow morning at the latest. I
+can wait until to-morrow evening to please you, and to help
+you with this duel of yours; but that is really all the time I can
+spare.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Very well; then you will have the goodness to
+give this letter to Mrs. Clarkson with the instructions I have just
+given you, and it will be in equally good hands.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>looking at the letter</i>]&mdash;All right. A blank envelope.
+What is there to indicate that this letter was addressed to M.
+G&eacute;rard?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;The envelope with his name on it is inside.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;You found this letter?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;I found it&mdash;before it was mailed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;And as you had your suspicions you&mdash;opened it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;I beg your pardon for questioning you so, but you
+yourself did me the honor to say that you wished me to be <i>fully</i>
+informed.  Do you know whether the sentiments between M.
+G&eacute;rard and the duchess were of long standing?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;They date from before my marriage.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>looking toward the apartment of the duchess</i>]&mdash;Oh,
+I see.  That is serious!</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;They loved each other, they wanted to marry
+each other, but my wife's father would not consent.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>reflectively</i>]&mdash;M. G&eacute;rard wanted to marry her, did he?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5035" id="Page_5035">[Pg 5035]</a></span>
+<i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Yes; but when he learned that Mademoiselle
+Mauriceau was a millionaire, as he had nothing and had no title
+other than his plain name G&eacute;rard, he withdrew his pretensions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;That was a very proper thing for the young man
+to do. It doesn't surprise me!</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Yes; but now, Mr. Clarkson, this young gentleman
+has come back&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;And is too intimate a friend to your wife?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Ah, I do not say that!</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;What do you say, then?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;That as the letter in question gives that impression,
+the situation amounts to the same thing as far as a legal
+process is concerned.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>thoughtfully and coldly</i>]&mdash;Oh-h-h!</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Don't you agree with me, Mr. Clarkson?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;No, not at all. I can understand revenge on those who have
+injured us, but not on those who haven't done so. And I don't like
+vengeance on a woman anyway, even when she is guilty; and certainly
+not when she is innocent; and you owe your wife a great deal&mdash;between
+ourselves, you owe your wife a great deal, duke. I understand now why,
+for once, your father-in-law M. Mauriceau sides with his daughter and
+M. G&eacute;rard against you. He is sure they both are innocent. By-the-by,
+does M. Mauriceau also know of this letter?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Yes. He even tried to take it from me by force.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Why did he not take it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Ah, because you see, I had the presence of mind
+to tell him that I did not have it any longer&mdash;that I had sent it
+to you!</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>ironically</i>]&mdash;That <i>was</i> very clever!</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;And then when M. G&eacute;rard had challenged me, M.
+Mauriceau thought he would make an impression by saying to
+him before me, "I will be your second."</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Well, is that the whole story?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Very well, my dear sir: to speak frankly, all those
+people whom you characterize so slightingly seem to me the right kind
+of people&mdash;excellent people. Your little wife seems to be the
+victim of prejudices, of morals, and of combinations about which we
+mere American savages don't know anything at all. In our American
+society, which of course I can't compare with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5036" id="Page_5036">[Pg 5036]</a></span>
+yours, as we only date from yesterday,&mdash;if Mademoiselle Mauriceau
+had loved a fine young fellow like M. G&eacute;rard, her father would
+have given her to the man she loved; or if he had refused that, why
+she would have gone quite simply and been married before the justice
+of the peace! Perhaps her father wouldn't have portioned her; but then
+the husband would have worked, gone into business, and the two young
+people would have been happy all the same. As to your M. G&eacute;rard
+here, he is an honest man and a clever one. We like people who work,
+we Americans, and to whatever country they belong, we hold them as
+compatriots&mdash;because we are such savages, I suppose. So you
+understand that I don't at all share your opinion of this question.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;And so speaking, you mean&mdash;?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;That if I give you this explanation, it is because I
+think I understand that in paying me the honor of choosing me
+as a second, you thought that the men of my country were less
+clear-sighted, less scrupulous than the men of yours. In short,
+duke, you thought I would lend my hand to all these social pettinesses,
+these little vilenesses which you have just recounted with
+a candor that honors you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Do you happen to remember, Mr. Clarkson, that
+you are talking to <i>me</i>&mdash;in this way?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;To you. Because there are only two of us here!
+But if you like, we will call in other people to listen.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Then, sir, you tell me to my face&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;I tell you to your face that to squander your
+inheritance&mdash;to have gambled away money you did not have&mdash;to borrow it
+from a woman without knowing when or how you could return it&mdash;to marry
+in order to pay your debts and continue your dissipations&mdash;to revenge
+yourself now on an innocent woman&mdash;to steal letters&mdash;to misapply your
+skill in arms by killing a brave man&mdash;why, I tell you to your face
+that all that is the work of a rascal, and that therefore a rascal you
+are. Oh, what astonishes me is that fifty people haven't told you so
+already, and that I have had to travel three thousand leagues to
+inform you on the subject! For you don't seem to have ever suspected
+it, and you don't look thoroughly convinced even now.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i> [<i>controlling himself with the greatest difficulty</i>]&mdash;Mr.
+Clarkson, you know that I cannot call you to account until
+I have settled with your friend M. G&eacute;rard. You take a strange
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5037" id="Page_5037">[Pg 5037]</a></span>
+advantage of the fact, sir. But we shall meet again. Please return
+me the paper you have had from me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Your wife's letter? Never in the world! As it was
+addressed to M. G&eacute;rard, it belongs to M. G&eacute;rard. I intend to
+give it to M. G&eacute;rard. If <i>he</i> wants to return it to you, I won't
+stand in the way; but I doubt whether he will return it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;You will fight me, then, you mean?</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Oh! as for that; yes, fight as much as you like.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Very well; when I have finished with the other,
+you and I will have our business together.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Say the day after to-morrow, then?</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;The day after to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Stop; I must start off by to-morrow night, at the
+latest.</p>
+
+<p><i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;You can wait. And while waiting, leave me!</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Duke, do I look like a man to whom to say "leave"
+in that tone, and who goes? Now look at me; it isn't hard to
+see what I have decided. I don't mean you to fight with G&eacute;rard
+before you have fought with me. If G&eacute;rard kills you, I shan't
+have the pleasure of crossing swords with "one of the first
+fencers in Paris," which it will amuse me to do. If you kill
+him, you cause irreparable misfortunes. If you think I'm going
+to let you kill a man who has saved me twenty-five per cent. in
+the cost of washing gold, you are mistaken! Come, prove you
+are brave, even when you aren't sure of being the stronger! Go
+and get a good pair of swords from your room (since the sword
+is your favorite weapon&mdash;mine, too, for the matter of that), and
+follow me to those great bare grounds back of your house. On
+my way here I was wondering why in goodness's name they were
+not utilized. In the heart of the city they must be worth a good
+deal! We will prove it. As for seconds, umpires of the point
+of honor, we'll have the people who pass by in the street&mdash;if
+any do pass.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Septmonts rushes in a fury toward the door, but when there stretches his
+hand toward the bell. Clarkson throws himself between him and the
+bell.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ah! no ringing, please! Don't play the Louis XV.
+gentleman, and order your servants to cudgel a poor beggar! or
+as sure as my name is Clarkson, I'll slap your face, sir, before
+all your lackeys!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5038" id="Page_5038">[Pg 5038]</a></span>
+<i>Septmonts</i>&mdash;Very well, so be it! I <i>will</i> begin with you.
+[<i>Angrily hastens from the room for the weapons.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Quite right! [<i>Looking coolly at his watch.</i>] Let me
+see; why, perhaps I <i>can</i> get away from Paris this evening after
+all. [<i>He goes calmly out at the back toward the darkened garden.</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>The Duchess of Septmonts has pulled aside the porti&egrave;re and looks toward
+the door by which her husband and Mr. Clarkson have gone out. She
+is very much agitated, and can hardly walk. She rings the bell, and
+then makes an effort to appear calm. The servant comes in.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i> [<i>tremulously, to the servant</i>]&mdash;Ask my father to
+come here, immediately. [<i>The servant goes out. Catherine looks
+toward the window and makes a movement to go to it.</i>] No, I
+will not look out! I will not know anything! I do not know
+anything; I have <i>heard</i> nothing; the minutes that that hand
+marks upon the clock, no one knows what they say to me. One
+of them will decide my life! Even if I had heard nothing,
+things would take the turn that they have, and I should merely
+be amazed in knowing of them. Instead of knowing nothing, I
+have merely to remember nothing. But no, no,&mdash;I am trying in
+vain to smother the voice of my own conscience! What I am
+doing is wicked. From the moment that I have known anything
+about this, I am an accomplice; and if one of these two men is
+killed he has been killed with my consent. No, I cannot and
+I will not. [<i>She runs toward the door. As she does so Mrs.
+Clarkson enters hastily.</i>] You, you, madam!</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;Were you not really expecting me to-day,
+madam? My husband sends me a note to say that you&mdash;and
+he&mdash;wish to speak to me immediately.</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Madam, since Mr. Clarkson has written you, there
+has occurred a thing which neither your husband, nor I, nor you
+yourself could foresee.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;What do you mean?</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;While my husband the duke has been explaining
+to Mr. Clarkson the reasons of the duel,&mdash;which you, you, madam,
+have provoked,&mdash;your husband, who did not find these reasons
+either sufficient or honorable, has undertaken to defend us&mdash;G&eacute;rard,
+yes, G&eacute;rard, and me,&mdash;and so very forcibly, that at this
+instant&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;They are fighting?</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Yes, yes, only a few steps away from here!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5039" id="Page_5039">[Pg 5039]</a></span>
+<i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;Ah! That sounds like Clarkson! [<i>She takes
+a step toward the door.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;Madam, that duel must not go on.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;Why not?</p>
+
+<p><i>Catherine</i>&mdash;I will not permit these two men to lose their
+lives on my account.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;You? What difference does it make to you?
+They are not doing anything but what they chose to do. "Hands
+off," as the officials at the gaming-tables say when the ball has
+stopped rolling. You have wished to be free, haven't you? and
+you are perfectly right; you never said so to anybody, but you
+begged it all the same of One who can do anything. He has
+heard your prayer, and he has made use of me to save you; of
+me, who have been anxious to destroy you! That is justice; and
+do you think that I object&mdash;I who am to be the loser? In the
+game that I play with Destiny, every time I make up my mind
+that God is against me, I bow my head and throw up the game.
+I don't fear any one except God. He is on your side. Let us
+talk no more about it.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Just as she is speaking the last words, Clarkson comes in. He is very
+grave.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;See there. You are a widow.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i> [<i>to Mrs. Clarkson</i>]&mdash;My dear No&eacute;mi, will you be so
+kind as to hand that paper to our friend the duchess. She will
+perhaps feel some embarrassment in taking it directly from my
+hand&mdash;and it is a thing that must be returned to her. Such was
+the last wish of her husband; he really did not have time to tell
+me as much, but I fancy that I guess it right.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Mrs. Clarkson calmly takes the letter and goes to Catherine.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;I once said to your friend M. R&eacute;monin that
+if I lost my game I would lose like one who plays fair. Madam,
+it was through me that your marriage came to pass; and now it
+is through me that your marriage&mdash;is dissolved. [<i>Turning to
+Clarkson.</i>] And now, Clarkson, my dear, let us get out of this.
+You are a good and a brave fellow. I will go anywhere with
+you. I have had enough of Europe&mdash;things here are too small.
+Do you know, I really believe I am going to find myself in love
+with you! Come, let us go! I am positively smothering.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Yes, let us go.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5040" id="Page_5040">[Pg 5040]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>At the moment that Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson are going out, servants and
+police officials, accompanied by a commissioner of the police service,
+appear in the door. Clarkson is pointed out.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Commissioner</i>&mdash;I beg your pardon, monsieur,&mdash;there seems to
+have been&mdash;a murder here.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Oh no, monsieur, not at all a murder&mdash;only a duel.</p>
+
+<p><i>Commissioner</i>&mdash;And am I to understand, monsieur, that it is
+you who&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;Oh yes, monsieur, it is I. You have come to take
+me into custody?</p>
+
+<p><i>Commissioner</i>&mdash;Yes, monsieur.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;What a ridiculous country! I am ready to follow
+you, monsieur. But I am an American citizen. I shall give you
+bail&mdash;but of course, the law before anything....</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;Reckon on me, Clarkson. <i>I</i> shall take charge
+of this matter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clarkson</i>&mdash;How are you going to do that?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Clarkson</i>&mdash;Oh, that's my affair.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Mrs. Clarkson crosses the stage and whispers a word to the commissioner.
+The commissioner bows very respectfully. Mrs. Clarkson goes out.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Commissioner</i> [<i>to Dr. R&eacute;monin</i>]&mdash;You are a doctor, monsieur?</p>
+
+<p><i>R&eacute;monin</i>&mdash;Yes, monsieur.</p>
+
+<p><i>Commissioner</i>&mdash;Will you have the goodness to give a certificate
+of death?</p>
+
+<p><i>R&eacute;monin</i> [<i>significantly</i>]&mdash;With great pleasure!</p>
+
+<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by E. Iren&aelig;us
+Stevenson</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5041" id="Page_5041">[Pg 5041]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GEORGE_DU_MAURIER" id="GEORGE_DU_MAURIER"></a>GEORGE DU MAURIER</h2>
+
+<h4>(1834-1896)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capg385.png" width="90" height="90" alt="G" title="G" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">eorge Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was born in Paris on March
+6th, 1834, and his early life was passed there. His father was a
+Frenchman, who had married an Englishwoman in Paris. The Du Mauriers
+came of an old family in Brittany, Du Maurier's grandfather having
+been a small <i>rentier</i>, who derived his living from glass-works.
+During Du Maurier's childhood his parents removed to Belgium and
+thence to London. At seventeen years of age he tried for a degree at
+the Sorbonne in Paris, but was not successful; and he was put, much
+against his will, to study chemistry under Dr. Williamson at
+University College, London. Du Maurier's father, whose characteristics
+are described in 'Peter Ibbetson,' was an amateur of science. It has
+been hinted by the son that certain unlucky experiments, which were
+the result of the elder Du Maurier's fancy for the natural sciences,
+considerably impaired the family fortunes. The father had bent his
+heart on the son's being a man of science, but the son's tastes were
+all for art. He did therefore little good in his chemical studies.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 178px;">
+<img src="images/Illus385.png" width="178" height="216" alt="George du Maurier" title="George du Maurier" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">George du Maurier</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Du Maurier's father died in 1856, and he
+then devoted himself definitely to art. He worked at the British Museum,
+and made considerable progress there. He next went to Paris,
+and lived the life which he has described in 'Trilby.' In 1857 he attended
+the Academy at Antwerp, and studied under De Kaiser and
+Van Lerius. His severe studies at Antwerp had the result that his
+sight was seriously impaired, and he lost the use of his left eye.
+After two years of enforced idleness he went to London to seek his
+fortune. An old acquaintance of his student life in Paris introduced
+him to Charles Reade, who in turn introduced him to Mark Lemon,
+the editor of Punch. Through these acquaintances he obtained employment
+in drawing for Once a Week, Punch, and the Cornhill Magazine.
+On the death of Leech in 1864 he was regularly attached to
+the staff of Punch, and till the time of his death continued to work
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5042" id="Page_5042">[Pg 5042]</a></span>
+for that periodical with ever-increasing success. It is not too much
+to say that for many years Punch was chiefly and mainly Du Maurier.
+He early marked out for himself an entirely new path, which was not
+in the direction of caricature or broad comedy; grace, sentiment, and
+wit, rather than fun, were the characteristics of his work. He confined
+himself almost entirely to society, so that his field was a narrower
+one than that of some of his coadjutors. He had not, for
+instance, the masculine breadth of Leech, who represented with great
+strength and humor the chief characters of English life,&mdash;the parson,
+the soldier, the merchant, the farmer, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Du Maurier was almost entirely a carpet knight. He drew London
+society, and a certain phase of London society. The particular
+society which he represented is of very recent existence. Thirty
+years ago there was but one society in London. This was simply the
+ancient aristocratic society of England, which gathered in London in
+the season. It is true that there was an artistic society in London
+at that time, but it was quite apart and of little general recognition
+or influence. But since then there has come up in London a society
+made up chiefly of artists, professional people, and successful merchants
+(having moreover its points of contact with the old society),
+which is very strong and influential. It is this which Du Maurier
+knew, and which he represented. Even here, however, the types he
+has selected for description were very special. But they were presented
+with so much grace and charm that the public never tired of
+them. To his type of woman he was especially faithful: the tall
+woman with long throat and well-defined chin, much resembling the
+figures of Burne-Jones and Rossetti, only somewhat more mundane.
+We have the same woman in the heroine of 'Trilby.'</p>
+
+<p>Though Du Maurier, before beginning 'Peter Ibbetson,' had never
+written a book, he had had considerable literary experience, for he
+is said to have spent as much time upon the construction of the dialogues
+which accompanied his pictures as upon the pictures themselves.
+The story of 'Peter Ibbetson' he had often related to his
+friends, who had urged him to write it down. This he finally did,&mdash;at
+the special instance, it is said, of Henry James. It appeared in
+Harper's Magazine in 1891. 'Trilby' was published in 1894 in Harper's
+Magazine, and at once attained a great popular success. The
+publishers estimate that about 250,000 copies of the book have been
+sold. Du Maurier had sold the book outright for &pound;2,000, but when it
+became apparent that the work was to be a success, the publishers
+admitted the author to a royalty, paying at one time $40,000. They
+also shared with him the large sums paid for the dramatization of
+the work. For 'The Martian,' his last novel, he received &pound;10,000
+outright. This also was published in Harper's Magazine.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5043" id="Page_5043">[Pg 5043]</a></span>
+It is perhaps too early to pass judgment upon the merits of these
+works. They have, no doubt, grave faults. The story of 'Peter
+Ibbetson' has been completed when it is but two-thirds told. The
+remaining portion of the book is a dream. This is of course a dangerous
+reversal of the usual method of the story-teller, which is to
+make dreams seem like facts. The hypnotic part of 'Trilby' is said
+by the professional authorities on the subject to be bad science. The
+hypnotism in 'Trilby' was perhaps a journalist's idea, that subject
+being much talked of at the time the book was written. Du Maurier,
+it need hardly be said, was by training a journalist, although the
+training had been of the pencil rather than of the pen. The literary
+style of the novels is curious. It makes no pretensions to finish; the
+grammar even is sometimes at fault. But on the other hand, it has
+decided merits. It is particularly easy, flowing, and simple. These
+are not the qualities we should have expected from the nature of Du
+Maurier's literary training. The brief dialogues which he has for so
+many years appended to his sketches in 'Punch' would have educated,
+we should have thought, the qualities of brevity and point
+rather than those of ease and fullness. Certain peculiarities of the
+style cannot be defended, but the author produces his effects in spite
+of such solecisms. This is true of the matter of his stories as well
+as of the style. They are at many points inartistically constructed;
+but the stuff is good, and the works therefore hold their own in spite
+of these drawbacks. They certainly have one virtue, which is most
+necessary to the success of any work of the imagination: they have
+reality. We believe as we read, and continue to believe after we
+have ceased reading, that the Major and Mimsey and Taffy and
+Trilby are real persons. They are real to us because they have in
+the first case been real to their creator. It is possible, however, that
+the pictures which accompany the text may increase the strength of
+the illusion.</p>
+
+<p>No book, in recent years at any rate, has had so instantaneous and
+prodigious a popular success as 'Trilby.' Popularity is always hard to
+explain with any certainty. It seems to be a quality in the warp and
+woof of the mind of the man that has it. One condition appears to be
+that he shall be in sympathy with the minds of the mass of his
+fellow-beings. There was such a sympathy in Du Maurier's case; and to
+be more particular, his kindly and friendly enthusiasm was a quality
+to commend him to men. He had a power of enjoying beauty in his
+fellow-beings. Then he had had a long education in the qualities that
+make popularity. He had long studied the art of pleasing. It is not
+improbable that in these novels, which were intended for the American
+public, he may have played upon certain of our national
+susceptibilities. We in this country like to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5044" id="Page_5044">[Pg 5044]</a></span>
+have our literature taken seriously by the European. It may be that Du Maurier
+may have had an inkling of this, for it is curious to note how much of our
+poetry appears in these novels. Du Maurier had a very nice taste in
+poetry, a genuine enthusiasm for it which it is heartily to be wished
+were shared by all college professors of English literature. Thus, he
+could not have chosen better lines than those which Peter Ibbetson was
+in the habit of reciting to Mimsey, 'The Water-fowl' of
+Bryant,&mdash;perhaps the most perfect poem ever produced in this
+country,&mdash;a poem so "beautifully carried," as Matthew Arnold once
+described it to the present writer. Poe's beautiful and musical lines,
+written by him at fourteen,&mdash;'Helen, thy beauty is to me,'&mdash;are also
+made use of. We have a good deal of Longfellow and other American
+writers. 'Ben Bolt' is of course an American song. These appeals to
+our national predilections may have influenced us. But the interest
+and curiosity of our practical and hard-working American public in the
+Bohemian art life of the Latin Quarter was also, no doubt, a chief
+cause of the popularity of 'Trilby.'</p>
+
+<p>Du Maurier did not live long to enjoy his success. He had always
+been known to his friends as a sensitive man, this quality being
+ascribed to ill health. Ill health was no doubt a chief cause of the
+vexation with which he received certain comments upon his books,
+in some cases inspired by envy of his success. Many of his recent
+contributions to Punch have been at the expense of the unsuccessful
+author, and have supported the thesis that ill success was not an
+indubitable proof of genius. When Lord Wolseley asked him what
+would be the title of his next novel, he said 'Soured by Success.'
+He died in London on October 8th, 1896.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BOHEMIA" id="BOHEMIA"></a>AT THE HEART OF BOHEMIA</h3>
+<h4>From 'Trilby' Copyright 1894, by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+
+<p>And then&mdash;well, I happen to forget what sort of a day this
+particular day turned into, about six of the clock.</p>
+
+<p>If it was decently fine, the most of them went off to dine at
+the Restaurant de la Couronne, kept by the P&egrave;re Trin, in the
+Rue de Monsieur, who gave you of his best to eat and drink for
+twenty sols Parisis, or one franc in the coin of the empire.
+Good distending soups, omelets that were only too savory, lentils,
+red and white beans, meat so dressed and sauced and seasoned
+that you didn't know whether it was beef or mutton, flesh, fowl,
+or good red herring,&mdash;or even bad, for that matter,&mdash;nor very
+greatly care.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5045" id="Page_5045">[Pg 5045]</a></span>
+And just the same lettuce, radishes, and cheese of Gruy&egrave;re or
+Brie as you got at the Trois Fr&egrave;res Proven&ccedil;aux (but not the
+same butter!). And to wash it all down, generous wine in
+wooden "brocs," that stained a lovely aesthetic blue everything it
+was spilled over.</p>
+
+<p>And you hobnobbed with models, male and female, students of law and
+medicine, painters and sculptors, workmen and blanchisseuses and
+grisettes, and found them very good company, and most improving to
+your French, if your French was of the usual British kind, and even to
+some of your manners, if these were very British indeed. And the
+evening was innocently wound up with billiards, cards, or dominoes at
+the Caf&eacute; du Luxembourg opposite; or at the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre du Luxembourg, in
+the Rue de Madame, to see funny farces with screamingly droll
+Englishmen in them; or still better, at the Jardin Bullier (la
+Closerie des Lilas), to see the students dance the cancan, or try and
+dance it yourself, which is not so easy as it seems; or best of all,
+at the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre de l'Od&eacute;on, to see Fechter and Madame Doche in the
+'Dame aux Cam&eacute;lias.'</p>
+
+<p>Or if it were not only fine, but a Saturday afternoon into the
+bargain, the Laird would put on a necktie and a few other necessary
+things, and the three friends would walk arm-in-arm to Taffy's hotel
+in the Rue de Seine, and wait outside till he had made himself as
+presentable as the Laird, which did not take very long. And then
+(Little Billee was always presentable) they would, arm-in-arm, the
+huge Taffy in the middle, descend the Rue de Seine and cross a bridge
+to the Cit&eacute;, and have a look in at the Morgue. Then back again to the
+quays on the Rive Gauche by the Pont Neuf, to wend their way westward;
+now on one side to look at the print and picture shops and the
+magasins of bric-&agrave;-brac, and haply sometimes buy thereof, now on the
+other to finger and cheapen the second-hand books for sale on the
+parapet, and even pick one or two utterly unwanted bargains, never to
+be read or opened again.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the Pont des Arts they would cross it,
+stopping in the middle to look up the river towards the old Cit&eacute;
+and Notre Dame, eastward, and dream unutterable things and
+try to utter them. Then turning westward, they would gaze at
+the glowing sky and all it glowed upon&mdash;the corner of the Tuileries
+and the Louvre, the many bridges, the Chamber of Deputies,
+the golden river narrowing its perspective and broadening
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5046" id="Page_5046">[Pg 5046]</a></span>
+its bed, as it went flowing and winding on its way between
+Passy and Grenelle to St. Cloud, to Rouen, to the Havre, to
+England perhaps&mdash;where <i>they</i> didn't want to be just then; and
+they would try and express themselves to the effect that life was
+uncommonly well worth living in that particular city at that particular
+time of the day and year and century, at that particular
+epoch of their own mortal and uncertain lives.</p>
+
+<p>Then, still arm-in-arm and chatting gayly, across the court-yard of
+the Louvre, through gilded gates well guarded by reckless imperial
+Zouaves, up the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as far as the Rue Castiglione,
+where they would stare with greedy eyes at the window of the great
+corner pastry-cook, and marvel at the beautiful assortment of bonbons,
+pralines, drag&eacute;es, marrons glac&eacute;s&mdash;saccharine, crystalline substances
+of all kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an illumination;
+precious stones, delicately frosted sweets, pearls and diamonds so
+arranged as to melt in the mouth; especially, at this particular time
+of the year, the monstrous Easter eggs of enchanting hue, enshrined
+like costly jewels in caskets of satin and gold; and the Laird, who
+was well read in his English classics and liked to show it, would
+opine that "they managed these things better in France."</p>
+
+<p>Then across the street by a great gate into the All&eacute;e des
+Feuillants, and up to the Place de la Concorde&mdash;to gaze, but
+quite without base envy, at the smart people coming back from
+the Bois de Boulogne. For even in Paris "carriage people" have
+a way of looking bored, of taking their pleasure sadly, of having
+nothing to say to each other, as though the vibration of so many
+wheels all rolling home the same way every afternoon had hypnotized
+them into silence, idiocy, and melancholia.</p>
+
+<p>And our three musketeers of the brush would speculate on
+the vanity of wealth and rank and fashion; on the satiety that
+follows in the wake of self-indulgence and overtakes it; on the
+weariness of the pleasures that become a toil&mdash;as if they knew
+all about it, had found it all out for themselves, and nobody else
+had ever found it out before!</p>
+
+<p>Then they found out something else&mdash;namely, that the sting
+of healthy appetite was becoming intolerable; so they would
+betake themselves to an English eating-house in the Rue de la
+Madeleine (on the left-hand side near the top), where they would
+renovate their strength and their patriotism on British beef and
+beer, and household bread, and bracing, biting, stinging yellow
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5047" id="Page_5047">[Pg 5047]</a></span>
+mustard, and horseradish, and noble apple-pie, and Cheshire
+cheese; and get through as much of these in an hour or so as
+they could for talking, talking, talking; such happy talk! as full
+of sanguine hope and enthusiasm, of cocksure commendation or
+condemnation of all painters, dead or alive, of modest but firm
+belief in themselves and each other, as a Paris Easter egg is full
+of sweets and pleasantness (for the young).</p>
+
+<p>And then a stroll on the crowded, well-lighted boulevards,
+and a bock at the caf&eacute; there, at a little three-legged marble table
+right out on the genial asphalt pavement, still talking nineteen
+to the dozen.</p>
+
+<p>Then home by dark old silent streets and some deserted
+bridge to their beloved Latin Quarter, the Morgue gleaming
+cold and still and fatal in the pale lamplight, and Notre Dame
+pricking up its watchful twin towers, which have looked down
+for so many centuries on so many happy, sanguine, expansive
+youths walking arm-in-arm by twos and threes, and forever talking,
+talking, talking....</p>
+
+<p>The Laird and Little Billee would see Taffy safe to the door
+of his <i>h&ocirc;tel garni</i> in the Rue de Seine, where they would find
+much to say to each other before they said good-night&mdash;so much
+that Taffy and Little Billee would see the Laird safe to <i>his</i> door,
+in the Place St. Anatole des Arts. And then a discussion would
+arise between Taffy and the Laird on the immortality of the
+soul, let us say, or the exact meaning of the word "gentleman,"
+or the relative merits of Dickens and Thackeray, or some such
+recondite and quite unhackneyed theme, and Taffy and the Laird
+would escort Little Billee to <i>his</i> door, in the Place de l'Od&eacute;on,
+and he would re-escort them both back again, and so on till any
+hour you please.</p>
+
+<p>Or again, if it rained, and Paris through the studio window
+loomed lead-colored, with its shiny slate roofs under skies that
+were ashen and sober, and the wild west wind made woeful music
+among the chimney-pots, and little gray waves ran up the river
+the wrong way, and the Morgue looked chill and dark and wet,
+and almost uninviting (even to three healthy-minded young
+Britons), they would resolve to dine and spend a happy evening
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>Little Billee, taking with him three francs (or even four),
+would dive into back streets and buy a yard or so of crusty
+new bread, well burned on the flat side, a fillet of beef, a litre
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5048" id="Page_5048">[Pg 5048]</a></span>
+of wine, potatoes and onions, butter, a little cylindrical cheese
+called "bondon de Neufch&acirc;tel," tender curly lettuce, with chervil,
+parsley, spring onions, and other fine herbs, and a pod of
+garlic, which would be rubbed on a crust of bread to flavor
+things with.</p>
+
+<p>Taffy would lay the cloth English-wise, and also make the
+salad, for which, like everybody else I ever met, he had a special
+receipt of his own (putting in the oil first and the vinegar after);
+and indeed, his salads were quite as good as everybody else's.</p>
+
+<p>The Laird, bending over the stove, would cook the onions
+and beef into a savory Scotch mess so cunningly that you could
+not taste the beef for the onions&mdash;nor always the onions for the
+garlic!</p>
+
+<p>And they would dine far better than at le P&egrave;re Trin's, far
+better than at the English Restaurant in the Rue de la Madeleine&mdash;better
+than anywhere else on earth!</p>
+
+<p>And after dinner, what coffee, roasted and ground on the
+spot, what pipes and cigarettes of "caporal," by the light of the
+three shaded lamps, while the rain beat against the big north
+window, and the wind went howling round the quaint old medieval
+tower at the corner of the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres
+(the old street of the bad lepers), and the damp logs hissed and
+crackled in the stove!</p>
+
+<p>What jolly talk into the small hours! Thackeray and Dickens again, and
+Tennyson and Byron (who was "not dead yet" in those days); and Titian
+and Velasquez, and young Millais and Holman Hunt (just out); and
+Monsieur Ingres and Monsieur Delacroix, and Balzac and Stendhal and
+George Sand; and the good Dumas! and Edgar Allan Poe; and the glory
+that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome....</p>
+
+<p>Good, honest, innocent, artless prattle&mdash;not of the wisest,
+perhaps, nor redolent of the very highest culture (which by the
+way can mar as well as make), nor leading to any very practical
+result; but quite pathetically sweet from the sincerity and fervor
+of its convictions, a profound belief in their importance, and a
+proud trust in their lifelong immutability.</p>
+
+<p>Oh happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and friendship!
+oh happy times of careless impecuniosity, and youth and
+hope and health and strength and freedom&mdash;with all Paris for
+a playground, and its dear old unregenerate Latin Quarter for a
+workshop and a home!</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5049" id="Page_5049">[Pg 5049]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHRISTMAS" id="CHRISTMAS"></a>CHRISTMAS IN THE LATIN QUARTER</h3>
+<h4>From 'Trilby.' Copyright, 1894, by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+<p>Christmas was drawing near.</p>
+
+<p>There were days when the whole Quartier Latin would
+veil its iniquities under fogs almost worthy of the Thames
+Valley between London Bridge and Westminster, and out of the
+studio window the prospect was a dreary blank. No Morgue! no
+towers of Notre Dame! not even the chimney-pots over the way&mdash;not
+even the little medi&aelig;val toy turret at the corner of the
+Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, Little Billee's delight!</p>
+
+<p>The stove had to be crammed till its sides grew a dull deep
+red, before one's fingers could hold a brush or squeeze a bladder;
+one had to box or fence at nine in the morning, that one
+might recover from the cold bath and get warm for the rest of
+the day!</p>
+
+<p>Taffy and the Laird grew pensive and dreamy, childlike and
+bland; and when they talked, it was generally about Christmas
+at home in merry England and the distant land of cakes, and
+how good it was to be there at such a time&mdash;hunting, shooting,
+curling, and endless carouse!</p>
+
+<p>It was Ho! for the jolly West Riding, and Hey! for the bonnets
+of Bonnie Dundee, till they grew quite homesick, and wanted
+to start by the very next train.</p>
+
+<p>They didn't do anything so foolish. They wrote over to friends in
+London for the biggest turkey, the biggest plum-pudding, that could be
+got for love or money, with mince-pies, and holly and mistletoe, and
+sturdy, short, thick English sausages, half a Stilton cheese, and a
+sirloin of beef&mdash;two sirloins, in case one should not be enough.</p>
+
+<p>For they meant to have a Homeric feast in the studio on
+Christmas Day&mdash;Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee&mdash;and invite
+all the delightful chums I have been trying to describe; and
+that is just why I tried to describe them&mdash;Durien, Vincent, Antony,
+Lorrimer, Carnegie, Petrolicoconose, l'Zouzou, and Dodor!</p>
+
+<p>The cooking and waiting should be done by Trilby, her friend
+Ang&egrave;le Boisse, M. et Mme. Vinard, and such little Vinards as
+could be trusted with glass and crockery and mince-pies; and if
+that was not enough, they would also cook themselves and wait
+upon each other.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5050" id="Page_5050">[Pg 5050]</a></span>
+When dinner should be over, supper was to follow, with
+scarcely any interval to speak of; and to partake of this, other
+guests should be bidden&mdash;Svengali and Gecko, and perhaps one
+or two more. No ladies!</p>
+
+<p>For as the unsusceptible Laird expressed it, in the language
+of a gillie he had once met at a servants' dance in a Highland
+country-house, "Them wimmen spiles the ball!"</p>
+
+<p>Elaborate cards of invitation were sent out, in the designing
+and ornamentation of which the Laird and Taffy exhausted all
+their fancy (Little Billee had no time).</p>
+
+<p>Wines and spirits and English beers were procured at great
+cost from M. E. Delevigne's, in the Rue St. Honor&eacute;, and liqueurs
+of every description&mdash;chartreuse, cura&ccedil;oa, ratafia de cassis, and
+anisette; no expense was spared.</p>
+
+<p>Also truffled galantines of turkey, tongues, hams, rillettes de
+Tours, p&acirc;t&eacute;s de foie gras, "fromage d'Italie" (which has nothing
+to do with cheese), saucissons d'Arles et de Lyon, with and without
+garlic, cold jellies, peppery and salt&mdash;everything that French
+charcutiers and their wives can make out of French pigs, or any
+other animal whatever, beast, bird, or fowl (even cats and rats),
+for the supper; and sweet jellies and cakes, and sweetmeats, and
+confections of all kinds, from the famous pastry-cook at the corner
+of the Rue Castiglione.</p>
+
+<p>Mouths went watering all day long in joyful anticipation.
+They water somewhat sadly now at the mere remembrance of
+these delicious things&mdash;the mere immediate sight or scent of
+which in these degenerate latter days would no longer avail
+to promote any such delectable secretion. H&eacute;las! ahim&egrave;! ach
+weh! ay de mi! eheu! [Greek: oimot]&mdash;in point of fact, <i>alas</i>!</p>
+
+<p>That is the very exclamation I wanted.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas eve came round. The pieces of resistance and
+plum-pudding and mince-pies had not yet arrived from London&mdash;but
+there was plenty of time.</p>
+
+<p><i>Les trois Angliches</i> dined at le P&egrave;re Trin's, as usual, and
+played billiards and dominoes at the Caf&eacute; du Luxembourg, and
+possessed their souls in patience till it was time to go and hear
+the midnight mass at the Madeleine, where Roucouly, the great
+baritone of the Op&eacute;ra Comique, was retained to sing Adam's
+famous No&euml;l.</p>
+
+<p>The whole Quarter seemed alive with the r&eacute;veillon. It was
+a clear frosty night, with a splendid moon just past the full, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5051" id="Page_5051">[Pg 5051]</a></span>
+most exhilarating was the walk along the quays on the Rive
+Gauche, over the Pont de la Concorde and across the Place
+thereof, and up the thronged Rue de la Madeleine to the massive
+Parthenaic place of worship that always has such a pagan, worldly
+look of smug and prosperous modernity.</p>
+
+<p>They struggled manfully, and found standing and kneeling room among
+that fervent crowd, and heard the impressive service with mixed
+feelings, as became true Britons of very advanced liberal and
+religious opinions; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper
+British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one may be sure).</p>
+
+<p>But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beautiful music, and
+in mere sensuous <i>attendrissement</i> they were quickly in unison with
+all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>For as the clock struck twelve, out pealed the organ, and up rose the
+finest voice in France:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Minuit, Chr&eacute;tiens! c'est l'heure solennelle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O&ugrave; l'Homme-Dieu descendit parmi nous!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little Billee and
+submerged him; swept him off his little legs, swept him out of
+his little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love&mdash;love
+of his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of
+all that is and ever was and ever will be&mdash;a very large order
+indeed, even for Little Billee.</p>
+
+<p>And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love
+to one figure especially beloved beyond all the rest&mdash;one figure
+erect on high, with arms outstretched to him, in more than common
+fellowship of need: not the sorrowful Figure crowned with
+thorns, for it was in the likeness of a woman; but never that of
+the Virgin Mother of our Lord.</p>
+
+<p>It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif,
+all but lost amid the scum of the most corrupt city on earth.
+Trilby, weak and mortal like himself, and in woeful want of
+pardon! and in her gray dove-like eyes he saw the shining of so
+great a love that he was abashed; for well he knew that all
+that love was his, and would be his forever, come what would
+or could.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Peuple, debout! Chante ta d&eacute;livrance!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>No&euml;l! No&euml;l! Voici le R&eacute;dempteur!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5052" id="Page_5052">[Pg 5052]</a></span>
+So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big deep metallic
+baritone bass&mdash;above the organ, above the incense, above
+everything else in the world&mdash;till the very universe seemed to
+shake with the rolling thunder of that great message of love and
+forgiveness!</p>
+
+<p>Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to magnify
+and exaggerate all things under the subtle stimulus of sound,
+and the singing human voice had especially strange power to
+penetrate into his inmost depths&mdash;even the voice of man!</p>
+
+<p>And what voice but the deepest and gravest and grandest
+there is, can give worthy utterance to such a message as that,&mdash;the
+epitome, the abstract, the very essence of all collective
+humanity's wisdom at its best!</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="DREAMING" id="DREAMING"></a>"DREAMING TRUE"</h3>
+<h4>From 'Peter Ibbetson.' Copyright 1891, by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+<p>As I sat down on a bench by the old willow (where the rat
+lived), and gazed and gazed, it almost surprised me that
+the very intensity of my desire did not of itself suffice to
+call up the old familiar faces and forms, and conjure away these
+modern intruders.  The power to do this seemed almost within
+my reach: I willed and willed and willed with all my might, but
+in vain; I could not cheat my sight or hearing for a moment.
+There they remained, unconscious and undisturbed, those happy,
+well-mannered, well-appointed little French people, and fed the
+gold and silver fish; and there with an aching heart I left them.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, surely, surely, I cried to myself, we ought to find some
+means of possessing the past more fully and completely than we
+do. Life is not worth living for many of us, if a want so desperate
+and yet so natural can never be satisfied. Memory is but
+a poor rudimentary thing that we had better be without, if it can
+only lead us to the verge of consummation like this, and madden
+us with a desire it cannot slake. The touch of a vanished hand,
+the sound of a voice that is still, the tender grace of a day that
+is dead, should be ours forever at our beck and call, by some
+exquisite and quite conceivable illusion of the senses.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! alas! I have hardly the hope of ever meeting my
+beloved ones again in another life. Oh, to meet their too dimly
+remembered forms in this, just as they once were, by some trick
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5053" id="Page_5053">[Pg 5053]</a></span>
+of my own brain! To see them with the eye, and hear them with
+the ear, and tread with them the old obliterated ways as in a
+waking dream! It would be well worth going mad, to become
+such a self-conjurer as that.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la Michodi&egrave;re.</p>
+
+<p>Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still
+jingling in my ears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its
+ineffable smile, still printed on the retina of my closed eyes, I
+fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real,
+inner life began!</p>
+
+<p>All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbled
+together after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a
+kind of nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode;
+everything that I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now
+the strange, vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the
+distressing sense of change and desolation.</p>
+
+<p>As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my
+left there was a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer,
+three feet high and much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress
+no bigger than himself, were cunningly watching me out of
+the corners of their eyes, and toothlessly smiling. Presently they
+began to waltz together to an old familiar tune, with their enormous
+keys dangling at their sides; and they looked so funny that
+I laughed and applauded. But soon I perceived that their
+crooked faces were not really funny; indeed, they were fatal and
+terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious that these
+deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the avenue
+gate for which I was bound&mdash;to cut me off, that they might run
+me into the prison, where it was their custom to hang people of
+a Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue gate, and
+there stood the Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes
+and a kind smile&mdash;a heavenly vision of strength and reality.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid&mdash;those
+little people don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5054" id="Page_5054">[Pg 5054]</a></span>
+And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; and
+I felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else&mdash;some
+strange thing that had happened to me, some new life that I had woke
+up to.</p>
+
+<p>For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my sense of
+being I, myself, which hitherto in my dream (as in all previous
+dreams up to then) had been only partial, intermittent, and
+vague, suddenly blazed into full, consistent, practical activity&mdash;just
+as it is in life, when one is well awake and much interested
+in what is going on; only with perceptions far keener and more
+alert.</p>
+
+<p>I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and remembered all the
+events of the previous day. I was conscious that my real body,
+undressed and in bed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the
+fourth floor of an <i>h&ocirc;tel garni</i> in the Rue de la Michodi&egrave;re. I knew
+this perfectly; and yet here was my body too, just as substantial,
+with all my clothes on; my boots rather dusty, my shirt collar damp
+with the heat, for it was hot. With my disengaged hand I felt in my
+trousers pocket; there were my London latch-key, my purse, my
+penknife; my handkerchief in the breast pocket of my coat, and in its
+tail pockets my gloves and pipe-case, and the little water-color box I
+had bought that morning. I looked at my watch; it was going, and
+marked eleven. I pinched myself, I coughed, I did all one usually does
+under the pressure of some immense surprise, to assure myself that I
+was awake; and I <i>was</i>, and yet here I stood, actually hand in hand
+with a lady to whom I had never been introduced (and who seemed much
+tickled at my confusion); and staring now at her, now at my old
+school.</p>
+
+<p>The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards, and lo!
+in its place was M. Saindou's <i>maison d'&eacute;ducation</i>, just as it had
+been of old. I even recognized on the yellow wall the stamp of
+a hand in dry mud, made fifteen years ago by a day boy called
+Parisot, who had fallen down in the gutter close by, and thus
+left his mark on getting up again; and it had remained there for
+months, till it had been whitewashed away in the holidays.
+Here it was anew, after fifteen years.</p>
+
+<p>The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus
+was drawn up to the gates of the school; the horses stamped and
+neighed, and bit each other, as French horses always did in those
+days. The driver swore at them perfunctorily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5055" id="Page_5055">[Pg 5055]</a></span>
+A crowd was looking on&mdash;le P&egrave;re et la M&egrave;re Fran&ccedil;ois,
+Madame Liard the grocer's wife, and other people, whom I
+remembered at once with delight. Just in front of us a small
+boy and girl were looking on, like the rest, and I recognized the
+back and the cropped head and thin legs of Mimsey Seraskier.</p>
+
+<p>A barrel organ was playing a pretty tune I knew quite well,
+and had forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and full of
+self-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen boys whose
+faces and names were quite familiar to me, in smart white trousers
+and shining boots, and silken white bands round their left
+arms, got into the omnibus, and were driven away in a glorified
+manner&mdash;as it seemed&mdash;to heaven in a golden chariot. It was
+beautiful to see and hear.</p>
+
+<p>I was still holding the duchess's hand, and felt the warmth of it
+through her glove; it stole up my arm like a magnetic current. I was
+in Elysium; a heavenly sense had come over me that at last my
+periphery had been victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine&mdash;a
+most powerful and beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault in my
+impenetrable armor of self, after all, and the genius of strength and
+charity and loving-kindness had found it out.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you're dreaming true," she said. "Where are those
+boys going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To church, to make their <i>premi&egrave;re communion</i>," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. You're dreaming true because I've got you
+by the hand. Do you know that tune?"</p>
+
+<p>I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of the
+past, and I said them to her, and she laughed again, with her
+eyes screwed up deliciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right&mdash;quite!" she exclaimed. "How odd that you
+should know them! How well you pronounce French for an
+Englishman! For you are Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray's architect?"</p>
+
+<p>I assented, and she let go my hand.</p>
+
+<p>The street was full of people&mdash;familiar forms and faces and
+voices, chatting together and looking down the road after the
+yellow omnibus; old attitudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old
+forgotten French ways of speech&mdash;all as it was long ago.
+Nobody noticed us, and we walked up the now deserted avenue.</p>
+
+<p>The happiness, the enchantment of it all! Could it be that
+I was dead, that I had died suddenly in my sleep, at the hotel
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5056" id="Page_5056">[Pg 5056]</a></span>
+in the Rue de la Michodi&egrave;re? Could it be that the Duchess of
+Towers was dead too&mdash;had been killed by some accident on her
+way from St. Cloud to Paris? and that, both having died, so near
+each other, we had begun our eternal after-life in this heavenly
+fashion?</p>
+
+<p>That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told
+me that this was not death, but transcendent earthly life&mdash;and
+also, alas! that it would not endure forever!</p>
+
+<p>I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every
+movement of her body, every detail of her dress,&mdash;more so than
+I could have been in actual life,&mdash;and said to myself, "Whatever
+this is, it is no dream." But I felt there was about me the
+unspeakable elation which can come to us only in our waking
+moments when we are at our very best; and then only feebly, in
+comparison with this, and to many of us never. It never had to
+me, since that morning when I had found the little wheelbarrow.</p>
+
+<p>I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a
+slight touch of the dream in it. It was no longer quite right,
+and was getting out of drawing and perspective, so to speak. I
+had lost my stay&mdash;the touch of her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid not quite," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"You must try by yourself a little&mdash;try hard. Look at this
+house; what is written on the portico?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw written in gold letters the words "T&ecirc;te Noire," and said so.</p>
+
+<p>She rippled with laughter, and said, "No, try again;" and
+just touched me with the tip of her finger for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>I tried again, and said "Parvis Notre Dame."</p>
+
+<p>"That's rather better," she said, and touched me again; and I
+read, "Parva sed Apta," as I had so often read there before in
+old days.</p>
+
+<p>"And now look at that old house over there," pointing to my
+old home; "how many windows are there in the top story?"</p>
+
+<p>I said seven.</p>
+
+<p>"No; there are five. Look again!" and there were five; and
+the whole house was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it
+had been once upon a time. I could see Th&eacute;r&egrave;se through one of
+the windows, making my bed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's better," said the duchess; "you will soon do it&mdash;it's
+very easy&mdash;<i>ce n'est que le premier pas</i>! My father taught me;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5057" id="Page_5057">[Pg 5057]</a></span>
+you must always sleep on your back with your arms above your
+head, your hands clasped under it and your feet crossed, the
+right one over the left, unless you are left-handed; and you must
+never for a moment cease thinking of where you want to be in
+your dream till you are asleep and get there; and you must
+never forget in your dream where and what you were when
+awake. You must join the dream on to reality. Don't forget.
+And now I will say good-by; but before I go, give me both
+your hands, and look round everywhere as far as your eye can
+see."</p>
+
+<p>It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes,
+and through them all my heart; but I did as she told me, and
+took in the whole familiar scene, even to the distant woods of
+Ville d'Avray, a glimpse of which was visible through an opening
+in the trees; even to the smoke of a train making its way to
+Versailles, miles off; and the old telegraph, working its black
+arms on the top of Mont Val&eacute;rien.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward,
+whenever you come here, you will be safe as far as your sight
+can reach,&mdash;from this spot,&mdash;all through my introduction.
+See what it is to have a friend at court! No more little dancing
+jailers! And then you can gradually get farther by yourself.</p>
+
+<p>"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne&mdash;there's
+a gap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything
+plain in front of you&mdash;<i>true</i>, before you go a step farther, or else
+you'll have to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will
+it, and think yourself as awake, and it will come&mdash;on condition, of
+course, that you have been there before. And mind, also, you must take
+care how you touch things or people&mdash;you may hear, see, and smell; but
+you mustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about.
+It blurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why,
+but it does. You must remember that everything here is dead and gone
+by. With you and me it is different; we're alive and real&mdash;that is,
+<i>I</i> am; and there would seem to be no mistake about your being real
+too, Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you're <i>not</i>; and
+why you are here, and what business you have in this my particular
+dream, I cannot understand; no living person has ever come into it
+before. I can't make it out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality
+this afternoon, looking out of the window at the T&ecirc;te Noire, and you are
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5058" id="Page_5058">[Pg 5058]</a></span>
+just a stray figment of my over-tired brain&mdash;a very agreeable
+figment, I admit; but you don't exist here just now&mdash;you can't
+possibly; you are somewhere else, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille,
+perhaps, or fast asleep somewhere, and dreaming of French churches and
+palaces, and public fountains, like a good young British
+architect&mdash;otherwise I shouldn't talk to you like this, you may be
+sure!</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you,
+and you are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come&mdash;especially as
+you are only a false dream of mine, for what else <i>can</i> you be? And
+now I must leave you: so good-by."</p>
+
+<p>She disengaged her hands and laughed her angelic laugh, and then
+turned towards the park. I watched her tall straight figure and
+blowing skirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a
+thicket that I remembered well, and she was soon out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had taken
+flight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from my
+possession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.</p>
+
+<p>Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she had
+disappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered this
+would not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream
+of mine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a stray
+figment of my over-tired and excited brain&mdash;a <i>more</i> than agreeable
+figment (what else <i>could</i> she be!)&mdash;she was also a great lady, and
+had treated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singular
+courtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep
+and strong that my very life was hers to do what she liked with, and
+always had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long as
+there was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an
+acquaintance without a proper introduction, even in France&mdash;even in a
+dream. Even in dreams one must be polite, even to stray figments of
+one's tired, sleeping brain.</p>
+
+<p>And then what business had <i>she</i> in <i>this</i>, <i>my</i> particular dream&mdash;as
+she herself had asked of me?</p>
+
+<p>But <i>was</i> it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville,
+that I had left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was&mdash;why
+I came to Paris; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel
+where I was now fast asleep, its loudly ticking
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5059" id="Page_5059">[Pg 5059]</a></span>
+clock, and all the meagre furniture. And here was I, broad awake and
+conscious in the middle of an old avenue that had long ceased to
+exist&mdash;that had been built over by a huge brick edifice covered
+with newly painted trellis-work. I saw it,&mdash;this
+edifice,&mdash;myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was
+everything as it had been when I was a child; and all through the
+agency of this solid phantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose
+warm gloved hands I had only this minute been holding in mine! The
+scent of her gloves was still in my palm. I looked at my watch; it
+marked twenty-three minutes to twelve. All this had happened in less
+than three-quarters of an hour!</p>
+
+<p>Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my steps
+towards my old home, and to my surprise, was just able to look over
+the garden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high.</p>
+
+<p>Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning small
+socks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them)
+half concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. My
+heart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breath was
+short.</p>
+
+<p>At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, rather
+quaintly dressed in a bygone fashion, with a frill round his wide
+shirt collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and
+rather long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a
+very nice little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and
+a gilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it
+was 'Elegant Extracts.' The dog M&eacute;dor lay asleep in the shade. The
+bees were droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.</p>
+
+<p>A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed the
+garden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into the
+garden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did the
+others. It was Mimsey Seraskier.</p>
+
+<p>I went and sat at my mother's feet, and looked long in her face.</p>
+
+<p>I must not speak to her nor touch her&mdash;not even touch her
+busy hand with my lips, or I should "blur the dream."</p>
+
+<p>I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was
+translating Gray's Elegy into French; he had not got very far,
+and seemed to be stumped by the line&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<span class="i0">"And leaves the world to darkness and to me."</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5060" id="Page_5060">[Pg 5060]</a></span>
+Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her
+thumb in her mouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She
+seemed to be stumped also; it was an awkward line to translate.</p>
+
+<p>I stooped and put my hand to M&eacute;dor's nose, and felt his
+warm breath. He wagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered
+in his sleep. Mimsey said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Regarde M&eacute;dor, comme il remue la queue! <i>C'est le Prince
+Charmant qui lui chatouille le bout du nez.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do speak English, Mimsey, please."</p>
+
+<p>O my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar,
+so unutterably dear! I rushed to her and threw myself on my
+knees at her feet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying,
+"Mother, mother!"</p>
+
+<p>A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality
+was lost. All became as a dream&mdash;a beautiful dream, but only
+a dream; and I woke.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="BARTY" id="BARTY"></a>BARTY JOSSELIN AT SCHOOL</h3>
+<h4>From 'The Martian'</h4>
+<h4>From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1896, by Harper &amp; Brothers</h4>
+
+
+<p>Indeed, even from his early boyhood, he was the most extraordinarily
+gifted creature I have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of
+spontaneous humorous Crichton to whom all things came easily&mdash;and life
+itself as an uncommonly good joke. During that summer term of 1847 I
+did not see very much of him. He was in the class below mine, and took
+up with Lafert&eacute; and little Bussy-Rabutin, who were first-rate boys,
+and laughed at everything he said, and worshiped him. So did everybody
+else, sooner or later; indeed, it soon became evident that he was a
+most exceptional little person.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, his beauty was absolutely angelic, as will
+be readily believed by all who have known him since. The
+mere sight of him as a boy made people pity his father and
+mother for being dead!</p>
+
+<p>Then he had a charming gift of singing little French and English
+ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe,
+and accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar
+without really knowing a note of music. Then he could
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5061" id="Page_5061">[Pg 5061]</a></span>
+draw caricatures that we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than Cham's
+or Bertall's or Gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. I have dozens of them
+now&mdash;they make me laugh still, and bring back memories of which the
+charm is indescribable; and their pathos to me!</p>
+
+<p>And then how funny he was himself, without effort, and with
+a fun that never failed! He was a born buffoon of the graceful
+kind,&mdash;more whelp or kitten than monkey&mdash;ever playing the
+fool, in and out of season, but somehow always apropos; and
+French boys love a boy for that more than anything else; or
+did in those days.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>His constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring
+Norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well-fed,
+well-bred Yorkshire squires), was magnificent. His spirits
+never failed. He could see the satellites of Jupiter with the
+naked eye; this was often tested by M. Dumollard, ma&icirc;tre de
+math&eacute;matiques (et de cosmographie), who had a telescope, which,
+with a little good-will on the gazer's part, made Jupiter look as
+big as the moon, and its moons like stars of the first magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>His sense of hearing was also exceptionally keen. He could hear a
+watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which
+ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we
+played blindman's buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell
+every boy he caught hold of&mdash;not by feeling him all over like the rest
+of us, but by the mere smell of his hair, or his hands, or his blouse!
+No wonder he was so much more alive than the rest of us! According to
+the amiable, modest, polite, delicately humorous, and ever tolerant
+and considerate Professor Max Nordau, this perfection of the olfactory
+sense proclaims poor Barty a degenerate! I only wish there were a few
+more like him, and that I were a little more like him myself!</p>
+
+<p>By the way, how proud young Germany must feel of its enlightened
+Max, and how fond of him, to be sure! <i>Mes compliments!</i></p>
+
+<p>But the most astounding thing of all (it seems incredible, but
+all the world knows it by this time, and it will be accounted for
+later on) is that at certain times and seasons Barty knew by an
+infallible instinct <i>where the north was</i>, to a point. Most of my
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5062" id="Page_5062">[Pg 5062]</a></span>
+readers will remember his extraordinary evidence as a witness in
+the "Rangoon" trial, and how this power was tested in open
+court, and how important were the issues involved, and how he
+refused to give any explanation of a gift so extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>It was often tried at school by blindfolding him, and turning
+him round and round till he was giddy, and asking him to point
+out where the North Pole was, or the North Star, and seven or
+eight times out of ten the answer was unerringly right. When
+he failed, he knew beforehand that for the time being he had
+lost the power, but could never say why. Little Doctor Larcher
+could never get over his surprise at this strange phenomenon,
+nor explain it; and often brought some scientific friend from
+Paris to test it, who was equally nonplussed.</p>
+
+<p>When cross-examined, Barty would merely say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Quelquefois je sais&mdash;quelquefois je ne sais pas&mdash;mais quand
+je sais, je sais, et il n'y pas &agrave; s'y tromper!"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, on one occasion that I remember well a very strange
+thing happened; he not only pointed out the north with absolute
+accuracy, as he stood carefully blindfolded in the gymnastic
+ground, after having been turned and twisted again and again&mdash;but
+still blindfolded, he vaulted the wire fence and ran round
+to the refectory door, which served as the home at rounders, all
+of us following; and there he danced a surprising dance of his
+own invention, that he called 'La Paladine,' the most humorously
+graceful and grotesque exhibition I ever saw; and then,
+taking a ball out of his pocket, he shouted, "&Agrave; l'amandier!" and
+threw the ball. Straight and swift it flew, and hit the almond
+tree, which was quite twenty yards off; and after this he ran
+round the yard from base to base, as at "la balle au camp," till
+he reached the camp again.</p>
+
+<p>"If ever he goes blind," said the wondering M. M&eacute;rov&eacute;e,
+"he'll never need a dog to lead him about."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have some special friend above!" said Madame
+Germain (M&eacute;rov&eacute;e's sister, who was looking on).</p>
+
+<p><i>Prophetic words!</i> I have never forgotten them, nor the tear
+that glistened in each of her kind eyes as she spoke. She was a
+deeply religious and very emotional person, and loved Barty
+almost as if he were a child of her own.</p>
+
+<p>Such women have strange intuitions.</p>
+
+<p>Barty was often asked to repeat this astonishing performance
+before skeptical people&mdash;parents of boys, visitors, etc.&mdash;who had
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5063" id="Page_5063">[Pg 5063]</a></span>
+been told of it, and who believed he could not have been properly
+blindfolded; but he could never be induced to do so.</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistake about the blindfolding&mdash;I helped in it
+myself; and he afterwards told me the whole thing was "aussi
+simple que bonjour" if once he felt the north&mdash;for then, with
+his back to the refectory door, he knew exactly the position and
+distance of every tree from where he was.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all nonsense about my going blind and being able to do
+without a dog," he added; "I should be just as helpless as any
+other blind man, unless I was in a place I knew as well as my
+own pocket&mdash;like this play-ground! Besides, <i>I</i> shan't go blind;
+nothing will ever happen to <i>my</i> eyes&mdash;they're the strongest and
+best in the whole school!"</p>
+
+<p>He said this exultingly, dilating his nostrils and chest; and
+looked proudly up and around, like Ajax defying the lightning.</p>
+
+<p>"But what <i>do</i> you feel when you feel the north, Barty&mdash;a
+kind of tingling?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I feel where it is&mdash;as if I'd got a mariner's compass trembling
+inside my stomach&mdash;and as if I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything in
+the world&mdash;as if I could go and have my head chopped off and not care
+a fig."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well&mdash;I can't make it out&mdash;I give it up," I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," exclaims Barty.</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me, Barty," I whispered&mdash;"<i>have</i> you&mdash;have you
+<i>really</i> got a&mdash;a&mdash;<i>special friend above</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said Barty, and
+winked at me one eye after the other&mdash;and went about his business,
+and I about mine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5064" id="Page_5064">[Pg 5064]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="WILLIAM_DUNBAR" id="WILLIAM_DUNBAR"></a>WILLIAM DUNBAR</h2>
+<h4>(1465?-1530?)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 93px;">
+<img src="images/capa408.png" width="93" height="89" alt="A" title="A" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">&nbsp;picturesque figure in a picturesque age is that of William Dunbar,
+court minstrel to James IV., and as Sir Walter Scott declared, "a poet
+unrivaled by any that Scotland has ever produced." Little of his
+personal history is known. Probably he was a native of East Lothian, a
+member of the family of the Earl of March, and a graduate of St.
+Andrews University about the year 1479. After his college days he
+joined the order of Franciscans and became a mendicant friar,
+preaching the queer sermons of his time, and begging his way through
+England and France. Yet in these pilgrimages the young scholar learned
+useful habits of self-denial, saw new phases of human character, and
+above all enjoyed that close communion with nature which is the need
+of the poet. Over and over there is a reflection of this life in that
+fanciful verse, which has caught the color of the morning hours when
+the hedgerows are wet and the grass dewy, when the wild roses scent
+the roadside and the lark is at matins&mdash;verse full of the joy of life
+and the hope of youth.</p>
+
+<p>After some years of this vagabond life, Dunbar left the Franciscans
+and attached himself to the court, where he speedily became a
+favorite. His day was one of pageant and show, of masque and
+spectacle, and into its gay assemblage of knights and courtiers,
+ladies and great nobles, Dunbar fitted perfectly. When an embassy was
+sent to England to negotiate the royal marriage with Margaret Tudor,
+Dunbar went along, being specially accredited by the king. He became a
+favorite with the young Princess, and a poem written in honor of the
+city of London, and one descriptive of the Queen's Progress, afford a
+faithful and valuable memorial of this mission. History is fortunate
+when she secures a poet as her scribe. Dunbar is principally known by
+his three poems 'The Thistle and the Rose,' 'The Golden Targe,' and
+'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins.'</p>
+
+<p>The first of these is an allegory celebrating the nuptials of the
+king. It suggests of course the allegories of Chaucer; but Dunbar's
+muse is his own, and the poem springs fresh and clear from native
+fonts. The poet represents himself as awakened by Aurora on a spring
+morning and told to do homage to May. Through the symbolism of the
+court of Nature, who crowns the Lion and Eagle, commissions the
+Thistle and Rose as her handmaidens, and orders their praises sung by
+the assembled birds of earth, the political significance
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5065" id="Page_5065">[Pg 5065]</a></span>
+of the allegory appears. But 'The Thistle and the Rose,' which is thus made
+to illustrate the union between the two great houses of Scotland and
+England, is far more than the poem of an occasion. It is full of the
+melody and fragrance of spring, saturated with that sensuous delight
+which at this bountiful season fills the veins of Nature. Here Dunbar
+is no longer the court laureate, but the begging friar, wandering
+through the green lanes and finding bed and board under the free
+skies.</p>
+
+<p>'The Golden Targe' is more artificial in construction. It is another
+allegory, descriptive of an encounter between Cupid and Reason, who is
+defended by a golden targe or shield from the attacks of love. Here
+again the rural landscape forms a background to his mimic action.
+Amazons dressed in green fight the battle of Cupid, and vanquish
+Reason, then magically vanish and leave the poet to awake from his
+dream. 'The Golden Targe' was a poem to be read in the royal presence,
+when the court assembled after a day's hunting or an afternoon of
+archery; but it is filled with the ethereal loveliness which only the
+true poet beholds.</p>
+
+<p>It is in 'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins' that Dunbar touches the
+note of seriousness, which characterizes his race and his individual
+genius. This satire is not so unsparing an indictment as the vision of
+Piers Ploughman, and yet it provokes inevitable comparison with the
+older poem. In a dream the poet sees heaven and hell opened. It is the
+eve of Ash Wednesday, and the Devil has commanded a dance to be
+performed by those spirits that had never received absolution. In
+obedience to this command the Seven Deadly Sins present a masque
+before his Satanic Majesty, and it is in the description of this
+grisly performance that Dunbar reveals a new aspect of power. The
+comedy here is not comic, but grotesque and horrid. The vision of the
+Scot is the vision that came to the poets of the 'Inferno' and
+'Paradise Lost,' and it shows that his imagination was capable of the
+loftiest flights.</p>
+
+<p>After the melancholy day of Flodden Field, the Scottish laureateship
+ceased to exist, but it is remarkable that so prominent a man as
+Dunbar should so completely have disappeared from contemporary view
+that his subsequent career and the time of his death are matters of
+doubt. His period is given as between the years 1465 and 1530, but
+these dates are only approximate.</p>
+
+<p>Had Dunbar held his genius in hand as completely as did Chaucer, his
+accomplishment would doubtless have been greater than it was. Yet his
+place in literature is that of one of the most important poets of the
+fifteenth century, the age of Caxton and bookmaking, the time of that
+first flush of radiance which ushered in the full day of Spenser and
+Shakespeare.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5066" id="Page_5066">[Pg 5066]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="THISTLE" id="THISTLE"></a>THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quhen Merche wes with variand windis past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Appryle had, with her silver schouris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tane leif at Nature with ane orient blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quhois armony to heir it wes delyt:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Me thocht Aurora with hir cristall ene<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In at the window lukit by the day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And halsit me, with visage paill and grene;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On quhois hand a lark sang fro the splene:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Awalk, luvaris, out of you slomering;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">S&eacute; hou the lusty morrow dois up spring.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed up stude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In weid depaynt of mony diverss hew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sobir, benyng, and full of mansuetude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In brycht atteir of flouris forgit new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hevinly of color, quhyt, reid, broun and blew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Balmit in dew, and gilt with Phebus bemys;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quhyll all the house illumynit of her lemys.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Slugird, sche said, awalk annone for schame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And in my honour sum thing thou go wryt;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lark hes done the mirry day proclame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To raise up luvaris with confort and delyt;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yit nocht incressis thy curage to indyt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quhois hairt sum tyme hes glaid and blisfull bene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sangis to mak undir the levis grene.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Than callit sche all flouris that grew on feild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Discirnyng all thair fassionis and effeiris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upone the awfull Thrissil sche beheld,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And saw him kepit with a busche of speiris;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Considering him so able for the weiris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A radius croun of rubeis sche him gaif,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said, In feild go furth and fend the laif:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And sen thou art a King, thou be discreit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Herb without vertew thow hald nocht of sic pryce<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As herb of vertew and of odour sueit;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5067" id="Page_5067">[Pg 5067]</a></span><span class="i1">And lat no nettill vyle, and full of vyce,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hir fallow to the gudly flour-de-lyce;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor latt no wyld weid, full of churlicheness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compair hir till the lilleis nobilness.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor hald non udir flour in sic denty<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As the fresche Rois, of cullour reid and quhyt:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For gife thow dois, hurt is thyne honesty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Considring that no flour is so perfyt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So full of vertew, plesans, and delyt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So full of blisful angeilik bewty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Imperiall birth, honour and dignit&eacute;.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="TARGE" id="TARGE"></a>FROM 'THE GOLDEN TARGE'</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bryght as the stern of day begouth to schyne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quhen gone to bed war Vesper and Lucyne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I raise, and by a rosere did me rest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up sprang the goldyn candill matutyne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With clere depurit bemes cristallyne<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Glading the mery foulis in thair nest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or Phebus was in purpur cape revest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up raise the lark, the hevyn's menstrale fyne<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In May, in till a morrow myrthfullest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Full angellike thir birdis sang thair houris<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within thair courtyns grene, in to thair bouris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Apparalit quhite and red, wyth blomes suete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Anamalit was the felde with all colouris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The perly droppis schuke in silvir schouris;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Quhill all in balme did branch and levis flete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To part fra Phebus did Aurora grete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hir cristall teris I saw hyng on the flouris<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Quhilk he for lufe all drank up with his hete.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For mirth of May, wyth skippis and wyth hoppis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The birdis sang upon the tender croppis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With curiouse notis, as Venus chapell clerkis;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rosis yong, new spreding of their knoppis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">War powderit brycht with hevinly beriall droppis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Throu bemes rede, birnyng as ruby sperkis;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The skyes rang for schoutyng of the larkis.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5068" id="Page_5068">[Pg 5068]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="GLADNESS" id="GLADNESS"></a>NO TREASURE AVAILS WITHOUT GLADNESS</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wavering of this wretchit warld of sorrow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To God be humble, and to thy friend be kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And with thy neighbour gladly lend and borrow:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His chance to-nicht, it may be thine to-morrow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be blyth in heart for ony avent&uacute;re;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For oft with wise men't has been said aforrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without Gladn&eacute;ss availis no Treas&uacute;re.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mak thee gude cheer of it that God thee sendis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For warldis wrak but weilfare nocht availis;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nae gude is thine, save only that thou spendis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Remenant all thou brukis but with bailis:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Seek to sol&aacute;ce when sadness thee assailis;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In dolour lang thy life may not indure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sailis;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without Gladn&eacute;ss availis no Treas&uacute;re.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Follow on pit&yacute;, flee trouble and debate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With famous folkis hald thy company;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be charit&aacute;ble and humble in thine estate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For warldly honour lastis but a cry:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For trouble in erd tak no m&eacute;lanchol&yacute;;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be rich in patience, give thou in guids be puir;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who livis merry he livis michtily;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without Gladn&eacute;ss availis no Treas&uacute;re.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou sees thir wretches set with sorrow and care<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To gather guids in all their livis space;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when their bags are full, their selves are bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And of their riches but the keeping has:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While others come to spend it that has grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whilk of thy winning no labour had nor cure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Tak thou example, and spend with merriness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without Gladn&eacute;ss availis no Treas&uacute;re.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though all the work that e'er had living wicht<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Were only thine, no more thy part does fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But meat, drink, clais, and of the lave a sicht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yet to the Judge thou sall give compt of all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ane reckoning richt comes of ane ragment small:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But just and joyous, do to none inj&uacute;re,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ane Truth sail mak thee strang as ony wall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without Gladn&eacute;ss availis no Treas&uacute;re.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5069" id="Page_5069">[Pg 5069]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="JEAN_VICTOR_DURUY" id="JEAN_VICTOR_DURUY"></a>JEAN VICTOR DURUY</h2>
+<h4>(1811-1894)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/capd413.png" width="90" height="90" alt="D" title="D" />
+</div><p class="dropcap">uruy, whose monumental works upon Grecian and Roman history have been
+worthily reproduced in England under the editorship of Professor
+Mahaffy, and in America in sumptuous illustrated editions, was a
+figure of the first importance both in the educational and in the
+distinctly literary history of France, throughout nearly half the
+present century. He became one of the "Immortals" in 1884, succeeding
+to the chair of Mignet; but his 'History of Ancient Greece,' which was
+published in 1862, had been already crowned by the Academy. His more
+extensive 'History of the Grecian People,' published in 1885-1887, won
+from the Academy the Jean Renaud prize of 10,000 francs.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 178px;">
+<img src="images/Illus413.png" width="178" height="220" alt="Jean Victor Duruy" title="Jean Victor Duruy" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Jean Victor Duruy</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>He was born September 11th, 1811, of a family employed in the Gobelins
+tapestry works in Paris. His predilection for study secured him an
+opportunity to enter the College of Sainte-Barbe, whence he passed to
+the Normal School.</p>
+
+<p>When he was twenty-two he began teaching history, first at Rheims, and
+then in the College of Henry IV. in Paris. Here he began his literary
+work, mostly upon school-books, of which he wrote many, mainly
+historical and geographical. He received the degree of Doctor of
+Letters in 1853, and became successively Inspector of the Academy of
+Paris, Master of Conferences at the Normal School, Professor of
+History at the Polytechnic School, and Inspector-General of Secondary
+Instruction. During the whole of this period he had been engaged with
+secondary classes, and had become strongly impressed by the faulty
+condition of the primary and secondary schools. In 1863 Louis Napoleon
+put him at the head of the educational system of the empire as Minister
+of Public Instruction. This appointment gave him the opportunity to carry
+out numerous and important secularizing reforms which brought him into
+sharp collision with the clerical party. He held his post as minister
+for six years&mdash;six years of struggle with the parsimonious
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5070" id="Page_5070">[Pg 5070]</a></span>
+disposition of the administration upon the one hand, and with the hostile
+clericals upon the other.</p>
+
+<p>The measures in which he was especially interested were the
+reorganization of the Museum of Natural History, the extension of
+scientific study, the introduction of the study of modern and
+contemporary history in the lyceums (a dreadful experiment, according
+to his opponents), gratuitous and compulsory primary education, the
+improvement of the night schools, and popular classes for adults. He
+was to a large extent successful in all these, except in the direction
+of compulsory education. The efforts which he made to improve the
+instruction given to young girls brought upon him the tempest. The
+bishops, with Monsignor Dupanloup of Orl&eacute;ans at their head, raised a
+veritable crusade, and Pope Pio Nono himself at length entered the
+hostile ranks. Probably in part because of this conflict, he was
+superseded in 1869 and was made a member of the Senate, from which he
+retired to private life, and the prosecution of his literary labors on
+the fall of the empire, in the following year. He died in 1894.</p>
+
+<p>As an author his style is clear and direct. Among his numerous works
+the most important are the two great histories, for which, as for
+other achievements, honors were heaped upon him. In these he laid
+particular stress upon the <i>milieu</i>&mdash;the conditions of place, time,
+and race. Consequently he has therein written the history of the Greek
+and Roman peoples, and not merely the history of Greece and Rome,&mdash;and
+has pictured them, so far as possible, as they looked and felt and
+thought and acted. He exhibits, for example, the growth of the
+magnificent power of Rome, and its decadence; and shows the
+all-conquering empire subdued to the manners, the gods, and the
+institutions of the conquered. And worse:&mdash;"They had become enamored
+of the arts, the letters, and the philosophy of Greece, and dying
+Greece had avenged itself by transmitting to them the corruption which
+had dishonored its old age."</p>
+
+<p>The drift of his argument appears in this paragraph, in which he sums
+up his story of the Eternal City:&mdash;"In the earlier portion of its
+history may be seen the happy effects of a progressively liberal
+policy; in the later the baneful consequences of absolute power,
+governing a servile society through a venal administration."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5071" id="Page_5071">[Pg 5071]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="POLICY" id="POLICY"></a>THE NATIONAL POLICY</h3>
+<h4>From the 'History of Rome'</h4>
+
+<p>The Roman power, till then confined to the West, was now to penetrate
+into another universe,&mdash;that of the successors of Alexander. The
+eternal glory of Rome, the immense benefaction by which she effaces
+the memory of so many unjust wars, is to have reunited those two
+worlds that in all former ages were divided in interest, and strangers
+to each other; is to have mingled and fused the brilliant but corrupt
+civilization of the East with the barbaric energy of the West. The
+Mediterranean became a Roman lake,&mdash;<i>mare nostrum</i>, they said,&mdash;and
+the same life circulated on all its shores, called for the first and
+the last time to a common existence.</p>
+
+<p>In this work were employed a century and a half of struggles and
+diplomacy; for Rome, working for a patient aristocracy and not for a
+man, was not compelled to attain her end at a bound. Instead of
+rearing suddenly one of those colossal monarchies formed like the
+statue of gold with feet of clay, she founded slowly an empire which
+fell only under the weight of years and of the Northern hordes. After
+Zama she could have attempted the conquest of Africa, but she left
+Carthage and the Numidians to enfeeble each other. After Cynoscephal&aelig;
+and Magnesia, Greece and Asia were all ready for the yoke, but she
+accorded them fifty years more of liberty. This was because, along
+with the pride of the Roman name and the necessity for dominion, she
+always retained some of her ancient virtues. The Popiliuses were more
+numerous than the Verreses. Now she preferred to rule the world; later
+she will put it to pillage. Thus, wherever Rome saw strength she sent
+her legions; all power was broken; the ties of States and leagues were
+shattered; and when her soldiers were recalled they left behind them
+only weakness and anarchy. But the task of the legions accomplished,
+that of the Senate began. After force came craft and diplomacy. Those
+senators, grown old amidst the terrors of the second Punic war, seemed
+now to have less pleasure in arms than in the game of politics,&mdash;the
+first, in all ages, of Italian arts.</p>
+
+<p>Several other causes dictated this policy of reserve. Against the
+Gauls, the Samnites, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal,&mdash;in other
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5072" id="Page_5072">[Pg 5072]</a></span>
+words, for the defense of Latium and of Italy,&mdash;Rome had employed all
+her strength; it was then a question of her existence: whereas, in the
+wars with Greece and with Asia, her ambition and her pride alone were
+interested; and wisdom demanded that some relaxation be given to the
+plebeians and the allies. The Senate had moreover too many affairs on
+its hands&mdash;the wars with Spain, with Corsica, with Cisalpina, and with
+Istria&mdash;to admit of its becoming deeply involved in the East.
+Therefore two legions only will fight Philip and Antiochus&mdash;that
+will suffice to conquer, but would be too little to despoil them.
+Furthermore, the Senate believed that in penetrating into this Greek
+world, where an old glory concealed so much weakness, they could not
+accord too much to prudence. These pitiless enemies of the Volscians
+and the Samnites will not proceed in their next wars by exterminating
+their adversaries and wasting their country. "It was not with such a
+purpose," said they, "that they came to pour out their blood; they
+took in hand the cause of oppressed Greece." And that language and
+that policy they will not change after victory. The first act of
+Flamininus, on the day after Cynoscephal&aelig;, was to proclaim the liberty
+of the Greeks. All who bore that respected name seemed to have the
+right to Roman protection; and the little Greek cities of Caria, and
+of the coasts of Asia and Thrace, received with astonishment their
+liberty from a people that they hardly knew. All were captivated by
+this apparent generosity. None perceived that in restoring
+independence to the cities and States, Rome wished to break up the
+confederations that sought to reorganize and would perhaps have given
+new force to Greece. In isolating them and attaching them to herself
+by grateful ties, she placed them almost insensibly under her
+influence. She made allies of them; and every one knows what the
+allies of Rome became. Thus the Senate was so well satisfied with
+this policy, which created division everywhere and awakened extinct
+rivalries, that for half a century it followed no other.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5073" id="Page_5073">[Pg 5073]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="DOMINION" id="DOMINION"></a>RESULTS OF THE ROMAN DOMINION</h3>
+<h4>From the 'History of Rome'</h4>
+
+<p>Although in literature Rome was but the echo of Greece, she civilized
+all the Western world, for which the Greeks had done nothing. Her
+language, out of which sprang the various languages of the Romance
+nations, is in case of need a means of communication among scholars of
+all countries, and her books will always remain&mdash;a wise selection
+being made&mdash;the best for the higher culture of the mind. They have
+merited above all others the title of <i>litter&aelig; humaniores</i>, the
+literature by which men are made. A cardinal, reading the 'Thoughts of
+Marcus Aurelius' (written in Greek, it is true, but written by a
+Roman), exclaimed, "My soul blushes redder than my scarlet at sight
+of the virtues of this Gentile."</p>
+
+<p>Suppose Rome destroyed by Pyrrhus or Hannibal, before Marius and C&aelig;sar
+had driven the German tribes back from Gaul: their invasion would have
+been effected five centuries sooner; and since they would have found
+opposed to them only other barbarians, what a long night would have
+settled down upon the world!</p>
+
+<p>It is true that when the Roman people had laid hands upon the
+treasures of Alexander's successors, the scandal of their orgies
+exceeded for a century anything that the East had ever seen; that
+their amusements were sanguinary games or licentious plays; that the
+Roman mind, after receiving a temporary benefit from Greek philosophy,
+went astray in Oriental mysticism; and that finally, after having
+loved liberty, Rome accepted despotism, as if willing to astonish the
+world as much by her great corruption as she did by the greatness of
+her empire.</p>
+
+<p>But can we say that no other age or nation has known servility of
+soul, licentiousness in public amusements, and the conspicuous
+depravity in morals that is always to be seen where indolence and
+wealth are united?</p>
+
+<p>To the legacies left by Rome which have now been enumerated, we must add
+another, which ranks among the most precious. Notwithstanding the poetic
+piety of Virgil, and Livy's official credulity, the dominant note of Latin
+literature is the indifference of Horace, when it is not the daring skepticism of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5074" id="Page_5074">[Pg 5074]</a></span>
+Lucretius. To Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, and the great jurisconsults,
+the prime necessity was the free possession of themselves, that
+independence of philosophic thought which they owed to Greece. This
+spirit, begotten of pure reason, was almost stifled during the Middle
+Ages. It reappeared when antiquity was recovered. From that day the
+renascent world set forward again; and in the new path France, heir of
+Athens and of Rome, was long her guide&mdash;for art in its most
+charming form, and for thought, developed in the light.</p>
+
+<p>Upon a medal of Constantine his son presents to him a globe surmounted
+by a ph&#339;nix, symbol of immortality. For once the courtiers were not
+in the wrong. The sacred bird which springs from her own ashes is a
+fitting emblem of this old Rome, dead fifteen centuries ago, yet alive
+to-day through her genius: <i>Siamo Romani</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best
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@@ -0,0 +1,18372 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best literature,
+Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12, by Various
+
+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: Library of the World's Best literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2010 [EBook #32308]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: _JAVANESE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT._
+
+    The origin of the Oceanic dialects, and of those of India
+    beyond the Ganges more especially the civilized idioms of the
+    Indian Archipelago, is referred to a language which was that
+    of an unknown people inhabiting the island of Java. From this
+    primitive language the modern Javanese is supposed to be
+    immediately derived. Javanese literature consists of poems,
+    dramas, songs, and historical and religious writings. The
+    accompanying facsimile is from a mythological-religious tract
+    written upon a vegetable paper of native manufacture, and
+    ornamented with grotesque drawings.]
+
+
+
+
+                            LIBRARY OF THE
+                       WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
+                          ANCIENT AND MODERN
+
+
+                        CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
+
+                                EDITOR
+
+
+            HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE    LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE
+                         GEORGE HENRY WARNER
+
+                          ASSOCIATE EDITORS
+
+
+                         Connoisseur Edition
+
+                              VOL. XII.
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                      THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
+
+
+
+
+                         Connoisseur Edition
+
+            LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA
+
+                         _No_.    ..........
+
+
+                         Copyright, 1896, by
+                      R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
+                        _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+                         THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
+
+
+  CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D.,
+    Professor of Hebrew,        HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.
+
+  THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D.,
+    Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
+                                   YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.
+
+  WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH. D., L. H. D.,
+    Professor of History and Political Science,
+                              PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N. J.
+
+  BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B.,
+    Professor of Literature,     COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.
+
+  JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D.,
+    President of the        UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.
+
+  WILLARD FISKE, A. M., PH. D.,
+    Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
+    and Literatures,               CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N. Y.
+
+  EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D.,
+    Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
+                            UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.
+
+  ALCEE FORTIER, LIT. D.,
+    Professor of the Romance Languages,
+                                 TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.
+
+  WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A.,
+    Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
+    English and History,     UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
+
+  PAUL SHOREY, PH. D.,
+    Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
+                                UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.
+
+  WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D.,
+    United States Commissioner of Education,
+                              BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.
+
+  MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D.,
+    Professor of Literature in the
+                   CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.
+
+
+
+
+                          TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+                               VOL. XII
+
+
+                                                    LIVED       PAGE
+  DENIS DIDEROT                                   1713-1784     4689
+    From 'Rameau's Nephew'
+
+  FRANZ VON DINGELSTEDT                           1814-1881     4704
+    A Man of Business ('The Amazon')
+    The Watchman (same)
+
+  DIOGENES LAERTIUS                           200-250 A. D.?    4711
+    Life of Socrates ('Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers')
+    Examples of Greek Wit and Wisdom: Bias; Plato; Aristippus;
+            Aristotle; Theophrastus; Demetrius; Antisthenes;
+            Diogenes; Cleanthes; Pythagoras
+
+  ISAAC D'ISRAELI                                 1766-1848     4725
+    Poets, Philosophers, and Artists Made by Accident
+            ('Curiosities of Literature')
+    Martyrdom of Charles the First ('Commentaries on the
+            Reign of Charles the First')
+
+  SYDNEY DOBELL                                   1824-1874     4733
+    Epigram on the Death of Edward Forbes
+    How's My Boy?
+    The Sailor's Return
+    Afloat and Ashore
+    The Soul ('Balder')
+    England (same)
+    America
+    Amy's Song of the Willow ('Balder')
+
+  AUSTIN DOBSON                                   1840-         4741
+                         BY ESTHER SINGLETON
+    On a Nankin Plate
+    The Old Sedan-Chair
+    Ballad of Prose and Rhyme
+    The Cure's Progress
+    "Good-Night, Babbette"
+    The Ladies of St. James's
+    Dora _versus_ Rose
+    Une Marquise
+    A Ballad to Queen Elizabeth
+    The Princess De Lamballe ('Four Frenchwomen')
+
+  MARY MAPES DODGE                                1840?-        4751
+    The Race ('Hans Brinker')
+
+  JOHN DONNE                                      1573-1631     4771
+    The Undertaking
+    A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
+    Song
+    Love's Growth
+    Song
+
+  FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY                 1821-1881     4779
+                         BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
+    From 'Poor People': Letter from Varvara Debrosyeloff to
+            Makar Dyevushkin; Letter from Makar Dyevushkin
+            to Varvara Alexievna Dobrosyeloff
+    The Bible Reading ('Crime and Punishment')
+
+  EDWARD DOWDEN                                   1843-         4806
+    The Humor of Shakespeare ('Shakespeare; a Critical
+            Study of His Mind and Art')
+    Shakespeare's Portraiture of Women ('Transcripts
+            and Studies')
+    The Interpretation of Literature (same)
+
+  A. CONAN DOYLE                                  1859-         4815
+    The Red-Headed League ('The Adventures of
+            Sherlock Holmes')
+    Bowmen's Song ('The White Company')
+
+  HOLGER DRACHMANN                                1846-         4840
+    The Skipper and His Ship ('Paul and Virginia
+            of a Northern Zone')
+    The Prince's Song ('Once Upon a Time')
+
+  JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE                             1795-1820     4851
+    A Winter's Tale ('The Croakers')
+    The Culprit Fay
+    The American Flag
+
+  JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER                             1811-1882     4865
+    The Vedas and Their Theology ('The Intellectual
+            Development of Europe')
+    Primitive Beliefs Dismissed by Scientific
+            Knowledge (same)
+    The Koran (same)
+
+  MICHAEL DRAYTON                                 1563-1631     4877
+    Sonnet
+    The Ballad of Agincourt
+    Queen Mab's Excursion ('Nymphidia, the Court of Faery')
+
+  GUSTAVE DROZ                                    1832-1895     4885
+    How the Baby Was Saved ('The Seamstress's Story')
+    A Family New-Year's ('Monsieur, Madame, and Bebe')
+    Their Last Excursion ('Making an Omelette')
+
+  HENRY DRUMMOND                                  1851-         4897
+    The Country and Its People ('Tropical Africa')
+    The East-African Lake Country (same)
+    White Ants (same)
+
+  WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN                 1585-1649     4913
+    Sextain
+    Madrigal
+    Reason and Feeling
+    On Death ('Cypress Grove')
+    Degeneracy of the World
+    Briefness of Life
+    The Universe
+
+  JOHN DRYDEN                                     1631-1700     4919
+                         BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
+    From 'The Hind and the Panther'
+    To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve
+    Ode to the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew
+    A Song
+    Lines Printed under Milton's Portrait
+    Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Music
+    Achitophel ('Absalom and Achitophel')
+
+  MAXIME DU CAMP                                  1822-         4951
+    Street Scene during the Commune ('The Convulsions
+            of Paris')
+
+  ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR                         1802-1870     4957
+                         BY ANDREW LANG
+    The Cure for Dormice that Eat Peaches ('The Count of
+            Monte Cristo')
+    The Shoulder of Athos, the Belt of Porthos, and the
+            Handkerchief of Aramis ('The Three Musketeers')
+    Defense of the Bastion St.-Gervais (same)
+    Consultation of the Musketeers (same)
+    The Man in the Iron Mask ('The Viscount of Bragelonne')
+    A Trick is Played on Henry III. by Aid of Chicot
+            ('The Lady of Monsoreau')
+
+  ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR                         1824-1895     5001
+                         BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
+    The Playwright Is Born--and Made (Preface to
+            'The Prodigal Father')
+    An Armed Truce ('A Friend to the Sex')
+    Two Views of Money ('The Money Question')
+    M. De Remonin's Philosophy of Marriage
+            ('L'Etrangere')
+    Reforming a Father ('The Prodigal Father')
+    Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson ('L'Etrangere')
+
+  GEORGE DU MAURIER                               1834-1896     5041
+    At the Heart of Bohemia ('Trilby')
+    Christmas in the Latin Quarter (same)
+    "Dreaming True" ('Peter Ibbetson')
+    Barty Josselin at School ('The Martian')
+
+  WILLIAM DUNBAR                                  1465?-1530?   5064
+    The Thistle and the Rose
+    From 'The Golden Targe'
+    No Treasure Avails Without Gladness
+
+  JEAN VICTOR DURUY                               1811-1894     5069
+    The National Policy ('History of Rome')
+    Results of the Roman Dominion (same)
+
+
+
+
+                       FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                              VOLUME XII
+
+                                                                PAGE
+  Javanese Manuscript (Colored Plate)                   Frontispiece
+  The Alexandrine Manuscript (Fac-simile)                        xii
+  Old Black-Letter Quarto (Fac-simile)                          4726
+  "Charles I. Going to Execution" (Photogravure)                4730
+  "The Skater of the Zuyder Zee" (Photogravure)                 4758
+  African Arabic Manuscript (Fac-simile)                        4870
+  John Dryden (Portrait)                                        4920
+  Alexandre Dumas (Portrait)                                    4958
+  Alexandre Dumas, Fils (Portrait)                              5002
+
+
+                          VIGNETTE PORTRAITS
+
+  Denis Diderot                      Joseph Rodman Drake
+  Franz von Dingelstedt              John William Draper
+  Isaac D'Israeli                    Michael Drayton
+  Austin Dobson                      Gustav Droz
+  Mary Mapes Dodge                   Henry Drummond
+  John Donne                         William Drummond
+  Feodor Dostoevsky                  Maxime Du Camp
+  A. Conan Doyle                     George du Maurier
+  Holger Drachmann                   Jean Victor Duruy
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: _CODEX ALEXANDRINUS._
+
+    Fifth Century.                                British Museum.
+
+    The Alexandrine Manuscript of the Christian Scriptures is
+    almost complete in both Testaments, the Septuagint version of
+    the Old and the original Greek of the New. It consists of 773
+    sheets, 12-3/4 by 10-3/4 inches, of very thin gray goatskin
+    vellum, written on both sides in two columns of faint but
+    clear characters. It was made in the early part of the fifth
+    century, under the supervision of Thecla, a noble Christian
+    lady of Alexandria, in the fifth century. It was brought from
+    Alexandria to Constantinople by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of
+    Constantinople, who in 1624 gave it into the charge of the
+    English Ambassador for presentation to King James I.; but
+    owing to James' death before the presentation could be made,
+    it was presented instead to Charles I. It remained in the
+    possession of the English sovereigns until the Royal Library
+    was presented to the nation by George II. in 1753. With the
+    exception of the greater part of Matthew to Chapter xxv., two
+    leaves of John, and three of Second Corinthians, it contains
+    the whole Greek Bible, including the two Epistles of Clement
+    of Rome, which in early times ranked among the inspired
+    books. Its table of contents shows that it once included also
+    the "Psalms of Solomon," though, from their position and
+    title in the index, it is evident that they were regarded as
+    standing apart from the other books. The Museum has bound the
+    leaves of this precious manuscript in four volumes, and has
+    had photographic copies made of each page for the use of
+    students. The accompanying reproduction is from the last
+    chapter of the First Epistle of John, from "His Son," in
+    verse 9, to the end.]
+
+
+
+
+DENIS DIDEROT
+
+(1713-1784)
+
+[Illustration: DENIS DIDEROT]
+
+
+Among the French Encyclopaedists of the eighteenth century Denis
+Diderot holds the place of leader. There were intellects of broader
+scope and of much surer balance in that famous group, but none of such
+versatility, brilliancy, and outbursting force. To his associates he
+was a marvel and an inspiration.
+
+He was born in October 1713, in Langres, Haute-Marne, France; and
+died in Paris July 31st, 1784. After a classical education in Jesuit
+schools, he utterly disgusted his father by turning to the Bohemian
+life of a litterateur in Paris. Although very poor, he married at
+the age of thirty. The whole story of his married life--the common
+Parisian story in those days--reflects no credit on him; though
+his _liaison_ with Mademoiselle Voland presents the aspects of a
+friendship abiding through life. Poverty spurred him to exertion.
+Four days of work in 1746 are said to have produced 'Pensees
+Philosophiques' (Philosophic Thoughts). This book, with a little
+essay following it, 'Interpretation de la Nature,' was his first open
+attack on revealed religion. Its argument, though only negative, and
+keeping within the bounds of theism, foretokened a class of utterances
+which were frequent in Diderot's later years, and whose assurance of
+his materialistic atheism would be complete had they not been too
+exclamatory for settled conviction. He contents himself with
+glorifying the passions, to the annulling of all ethical standards.
+On this point at least his convictions were stable, for long afterward
+he writes thus to Mademoiselle Voland:--"The man of mediocre passion
+lives and dies like the brute.... If we were bound to choose between
+Racine, a bad husband, a bad father, a false friend, and a sublime
+poet, and Racine, good father, good husband, good friend, and dull
+worthy man, I hold to the first. Of Racine the bad man, what remains?
+Nothing. Of Racine the man of genius? The work is eternal."
+
+About 1747 he produced an allegory, 'Promenade du Sceptique.' This
+French 'Pilgrim's Progress' scoffs at the Church of Rome for denying
+pleasure, then decries the pleasures of the world, and ends by
+asserting the hopeless uncertainty of the philosophy which both scoffs
+at the Church and decries worldly pleasure. At this period he was
+evidently inclined to an irregular attack on the only forms of
+Christianity familiar to him, asceticism and pietism.
+
+In 1749 Diderot first showed himself a thinker of original power, in
+his Letter on the Blind. This work, 'Lettre sur les Avengles a l'Usage
+de Ceux qui Voient' (Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those who See)
+opened the eyes of the public to Diderot's peculiar genius, and the
+eyes of the authorities to the menace in his principles. The result
+was his imprisonment, and from that the spread of his views. His
+offense was, that through his ingenious supposition of the mind
+deprived of its use of one or more of the bodily senses, he had shown
+the relativity of all man's conceptions, and had thence deduced
+the relativity, the lack of absoluteness, of all man's ethical
+standards--thus invalidating the foundations of civil and social
+order. The broad assertion that Diderot and his philosophic group
+caused the French Revolution has only this basis, that these men
+were among the omens of its advance, feeling its stir afar but not
+recognizing the coming earthquake. Yet it may be conceded that Diderot
+anticipated things great and strange; for his mind, although neither
+precise nor capable of sustained and systematic thought, was amazingly
+original in conception and powerful in grasp. The mist, blank to his
+brethren, seems to have wreathed itself into wonderful shapes to his
+eye; he was the seer whose wild enthusiasm caught the oracles from
+an inner shrine. A predictive power appears in his Letter on the
+Blind, where he imagines the blind taught to read by touch; and
+nineteenth-century hypotheses gleam dimly in his random guess at
+variability in organisms, and at survival of those best adapted to
+their environment.
+
+Diderot's monumental work, 'L'Encyclopedie,' dates from the middle of
+the century. It was his own vast enlargement of Ephraim Chambers's
+Cyclopaedia of 1727, of which a bookseller had demanded a revision
+in French. D'Alembert was secured as his colleague, and in 1751 the
+first volume appeared. The list of contributors includes most of
+the great contemporary names in French literature. From these,
+Diderot and D'Alembert gathered the inner group known as the French
+Encyclopaedists, to whose writings has been ascribed a general tendency
+to destroy religion and to reconstitute society. The authorities
+interfered repeatedly, with threats and prohibitions of the
+publication; but the science of government included the science of
+connivance for an adequate consideration, and the great work went
+forward. Its danger lurked in its principles; for Diderot dealt but
+little in the cheap flattery which the modern demagogue addresses to
+the populace. D'Alembert, wearied by ten years of persecution, retired
+in 1759, leaving the indefatigable Diderot to struggle alone through
+seven years, composing and revising hundreds of articles, correcting
+proofs, supervising the unrivaled illustrations of the mechanic arts,
+while quieting the opposition of the authorities.
+
+The Encyclopaedia under Diderot followed no one philosophic path.
+Indeed, there are no signs that he ever gave any consideration to
+either the intellectual or the ethical force of consistency. His
+writing indicates his utter carelessness both as to the direction and
+as to the pace of his thought. He had an abiding conviction that
+Christianity was partly delusion and largely priestcraft, and was
+maintained chiefly for upholding iniquitous privilege. His antagonism
+was developed primarily from his emotions and sympathies rather than
+from his intellect; hence it sometimes swerved, drawing perilously
+near to formal orthodoxy. Moreover, this vivacious philosopher
+sometimes rambled into practical advice, and easily effervesced
+into fervid moralizings of the sentimental and almost tearful sort.
+His immense natural capacity for sentiment appears in his own account
+of his meeting with Grimm after a few months' absence. His
+sentimentalism, however, had its remarkable counterpoise in a most
+practical tendency of mind. In the Encyclopaedia the interests of
+agriculture and of all branches of manufacture were treated with great
+fullness; and the reform of feudal abuses lingering in the laws of
+France was vigorously urged in a style more practical than cyclopaedic.
+
+Diderot gave much attention to the drama, and his 'Paradoxe sur le
+Comedien' (Paradox on the Actor) is a valuable discussion. He is the
+father of the modern domestic drama. His influence upon the dramatic
+literature of Germany was direct and immediate; it appeared in the
+plays of Lessing and Schiller, and much of Lessing's criticism was
+inspired by Diderot. His 'Pere de Famille' (Family-Father) and 'Le
+Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son) marked the beginning of a new era in
+the history of the stage, in the midst of which we are now living.
+Breaking with the old traditions, Diderot abandoned the lofty themes
+of classic tragedy and portrayed the life of the _bourgeoisie_.
+The influence of England, frequently manifest in the work of the
+Encyclopaedists, is evident also here. Richardson was then the chief
+force in fiction, and the sentimental element so characteristic in
+him reappears in the dramas of Diderot.
+
+Goethe was strongly attracted by the genius of Diderot, and thought it
+worth his while not only to translate but to supply with a long and
+luminous commentary the latter's 'Essay on Painting.' It was by a
+singular trick of fortune, too, that one of Diderot's most powerful
+works should first have appeared in German garb, and not in the
+original French until after the author's death. A manuscript copy of
+the book chanced to fall into the hands of Goethe, who so greatly
+admired it that he at once translated, annotated, and published it.
+This was the famous dialogue 'Le Neveu de Rameau' (Rameau's Nephew),
+a work which only Diderot's peculiar genius could have produced.
+Depicting the typical parasite, shameless, quick-witted for every
+species of villainy, at home in every possible meanness, the dialogue
+is a probably unequaled compound of satire, high aesthetics, gleaming
+humor, sentimental moralizing, fine musical criticism, and scientific
+character analysis, with passages of brutal indecency.
+
+Among literary critics of painting, Diderot has his place in the
+highest rank. His nine 'Salons'--criticisms which in his good-nature
+he wrote for the use of his friend Grimm, on the annual exhibitions
+in the Paris Salon from 1759 onward--have never been surpassed among
+non-technical criticisms for brilliancy, freshness, and philosophic
+suggestiveness. They reveal the man's elemental strength; which was
+not in his knowledge, for he was without technical training in art
+and had seen scarcely any of the world's masterpieces, but in his
+sensuously sympathetic nature, which gave him quickness of insight
+and delicacy in interpretation.
+
+He had the faculty of making and keeping friends, being unaffected,
+genial, amiable, enthusiastically generous and helpful to his friends,
+and without vindictiveness to his foes. He needed these qualities to
+counteract his almost utter lack of conscientiousness, his gush of
+sentiment, his unregulated morals, his undisciplined genius, his
+unbalanced thought. His style of writing, often vivid and strong,
+is as often awkward and dull, and is frequently lacking in finish.
+As a philosophic author and thinker his voluminous work is of little
+enduring worth, for though plentiful in original power it totally
+lacks organic unity; his thought rambles carelessly, his method is
+confused. It has been said of him that he was a master who produced no
+masterpiece. But as a talker, a converser, all witnesses testify that
+he was wondrously inspiring and suggestive, speaking sometimes as from
+mysterious heights of vision or out of unsearchable deeps of thought.
+
+
+
+FROM 'RAMEAU'S NEPHEW'
+
+
+Be the weather fair or foul, it is my custom in any case at five
+o'clock in the afternoon to stroll in the Palais Royal. I am always to
+be seen alone and meditative, on the bench D'Argenson. I hold converse
+with myself on politics or love, on taste or philosophy, and yield up
+my soul entirely to its own frivolity. It may follow the first idea
+that presents itself, be the idea wise or foolish. In the Allee de Foi
+one sees our young rakes following upon the heels of some courtesan
+who passes on with shameless mien, laughing face, animated glance, and
+a pug nose; but they soon leave her to follow another, teasing them
+all, joining none of them. My thoughts are my courtesans.
+
+When it is really too cold or rainy, I take refuge in the Cafe de la
+Regence and amuse myself by watching the chess-players. Paris is the
+place of the world and the Cafe de la Regence the place of Paris where
+the best chess is played. There one witnesses the most carefully
+calculated moves; there one hears the most vulgar conversation; for
+since it is possible to be at once a man of intellect and a great
+chess-player, like Legal, so also one may be at once a great
+chess-player and a very silly person, like Foubert or Mayot.
+
+One afternoon I was there, observing much, speaking rarely, and
+hearing as little as possible, when one of the most singular
+personages came up to me that ever was produced by this land of ours,
+where surely God has never caused a dearth of singular characters.
+He is a combination of high-mindedness and baseness, of sound
+understanding and folly; in his head the conceptions of honor and
+dishonor must be strangely tangled, for the good qualities with which
+nature has endowed him he displays without boastfulness, and the bad
+qualities without shame. For the rest, he is firmly built, has an
+extraordinary power of imagination, and possesses an uncommonly strong
+pair of lungs. Should you ever meet him and succeed in escaping from
+the charm of his originality, it must be by stopping both ears with
+your fingers or by precipitate flight. Heavens, what terrible lungs!
+
+And nothing is less like him than he himself. Sometimes he is thin and
+wasted, like a man in the last stages of consumption; you could count
+his teeth through his cheeks; you would think he had not tasted food
+for several days, or had come from La Trappe.
+
+A month later he is fattened and filled out as if he had never left
+the banquets of the rich or had been fed among the Bernardines.
+To-day, with soiled linen, torn trousers, clad in rags, and almost
+barefoot, he passes with bowed head, avoids those whom he meets, till
+one is tempted to call him and bestow upon him an alms. To-morrow,
+powdered, well groomed, well dressed, and well shod, he carries his
+head high, lets himself be seen, and you would take him almost for a
+respectable man.
+
+So he lives from day to day, sad or merry, according to the
+circumstances. His first care, when he rises in the morning, is to
+take thought where he is to dine. After dinner he bethinks himself of
+some opportunity to procure supper, and with the night come new cares.
+Sometimes he goes on foot to his little attic, which is his home if
+the landlady, impatient at long arrears of rent, has not taken the key
+away from him. Sometimes he goes to one of the taverns in the suburbs,
+and there, between a bit of bread and a mug of beer, awaits the day.
+If he lacks the six sous necessary to procure him quarters for the
+night, which is occasionally the case, he applies to some cabman among
+his friends or to the coachman of some great lord, and a place on the
+straw beside the horses is vouchsafed him. In the morning he carries a
+part of his mattress in his hair. If the season is mild, he spends the
+whole night strolling back and forth on the Cours or in the Champs
+Elysees. With the day he appears again in the city, dressed yesterday
+for to-day and to-day often for the rest of the week.
+
+For such originals I cannot feel much esteem, but there are others who
+make close acquaintances and even friends of them. Once in the year
+perhaps they are able to put their spell upon me, when I meet them,
+because their character is in such strong contrast to that of
+every-day humanity, and they break the oppressive monotony which our
+education, our social conventions, our traditional proprieties have
+produced. When such a man enters a company, he acts like a cake of
+yeast that raises the whole, and restores to each a part of his
+natural individuality. He shakes them up, brings things into motion,
+elicits praise or censure, drives truth into the open, makes upright
+men recognizable, unmasks the rogues, and there the wise man sits and
+listens and is enabled to distinguish one class from another.
+
+This particular specimen I had long known; he frequented a house into
+which his talents had secured him the entree. These people had an only
+daughter. He swore to the parents that he would marry their daughter.
+They only shrugged their shoulders, laughed in his face, and assured
+him that he was a fool. But I saw the day come when the thing was
+accomplished. He asked me for some money, which I gave him. He had,
+I know not how, squirmed his way into a few houses, where a _couvert_
+stood always ready for him, but it had been stipulated that he should
+never speak without the consent of his hosts. So there he sat and
+ate, filled the while with malice; it was fun to see him under this
+restraint. The moment he ventured to break the treaty and open his
+mouth, at the very first word the guests all shouted "O Rameau!" Then
+his eyes flashed wrathfully, and he fell upon his food again with
+renewed energy.
+
+You were curious to know the man's name; there it is. He is the nephew
+of the famous composer who has saved us from the church music of Lulli
+which we have been chanting for a hundred years, ... and who, having
+buried the Florentine, will himself be buried by Italian virtuosi; he
+dimly feels this, and so has become morose and irritable, for no one
+can be in a worse humor--not even a beautiful woman who in the morning
+finds a pimple on her nose--than an author who sees himself threatened
+with the fate of outliving his reputation, as Marivaux and Crebillon
+_fils_ prove.
+
+Rameau's nephew came up to me. "Ah, my philosopher, do I meet you once
+again? What are you doing here among the good-for-nothings? Are you
+wasting your time pushing bits of wood about?"
+
+_I_--No; but when I have nothing better to do, I take a passing
+pleasure in watching those who push them about with skill.
+
+_He_--A rare pleasure, surely. Excepting Legal and Philidor, there is
+no one here that understands it....
+
+_I_--You are hard to please. I see that only the best finds favor with
+you.
+
+_He_--Yes, in chess, checkers, poetry, oratory, music, and such other
+trumpery. Of what possible use is mediocrity in these things?
+
+_I_--I am almost ready to agree with you....
+
+_He_--You have always shown some interest in me, because I'm a poor
+devil whom you really despise, but who after all amuses you.
+
+_I_--That is true.
+
+_He_--Then let me tell you. (Before beginning, he drew a deep sigh,
+covered his forehead with both hands, then with calm countenance
+continued:--) You know I am ignorant, foolish, silly, shameless,
+rascally, gluttonous.
+
+_I_--What a panegyric!
+
+_He_--It is entirely true. Not a word to be abated; no contradiction,
+I pray you. No one knows me better than I know myself, and I don't
+tell all.
+
+_I_--Rather than anger you, I will assent.
+
+_He_--Now, just think, I lived with people who valued me precisely
+because all these qualities were mine in a high degree.
+
+_I_--That is most remarkable. I have hitherto believed that people
+concealed these qualities even from themselves, or excused them, but
+always despised them in others.
+
+_He_--Conceal them? Is that possible? You may be sure that when
+Palissot is alone and contemplates himself, he tells quite a different
+story. You may be sure that he and his companion make open confession
+to each other that they are a pair of arrant rogues. Despise these
+qualities in others? My people were much more reasonable, and I fared
+excellently well among them. I was cock of the walk. When absent, I
+was instantly missed. I was pampered. I was their little Rameau, their
+good Rameau, the shameless, ignorant, lazy Rameau, the fool, the
+clown, the gourmand. Each of these epithets was to me a smile, a
+caress, a slap on the back, a box on the ears, a kick, a dainty morsel
+thrown upon my plate at dinner, a liberty permitted me after dinner as
+if it were of no account; for I am of no account. People make of me
+and do before me and with me whatever they please, and I never give it
+a thought....
+
+_I_--You have been giving lessons, I understand, in accompaniment and
+composition?
+
+_He_--Yes.
+
+_I_--And you knew absolutely nothing about it?
+
+_He_--No, by Heaven; and for that very reason I was a much better
+teacher than those who imagine they know something about it. At all
+events, I didn't spoil the taste nor ruin the hands of my young
+pupils. If when they left me they went to a competent master, they had
+nothing to unlearn, for they had learned nothing, and that was just so
+much time and money saved.
+
+_I_--But how did you do it?
+
+_He_--The way they all do it. I came, threw myself into a chair:--"How
+bad the weather is! How tired the pavement makes one!" Then some
+scraps of town gossip:... "At the last Amateur Concert there was an
+Italian woman who sang like an angel.... Poor Dumenil doesn't know
+what to say or do," etc., etc. ... "Come, mademoiselle, where is your
+music-book?" And as mademoiselle displays no great haste, searches
+every nook and corner for the book, which she has mislaid, and finally
+calls the maid to help her, I continue:--"Little Clairon is an enigma.
+There is talk of a perfectly absurd marriage of--what is her
+name?"--"Nonsense, Rameau, it isn't possible."--"They say the affair
+is all settled." ... "There is a rumor that Voltaire is dead,"--"All
+the better."--"Why all the better?"--"Then he is sure to treat us to
+some droll skit. That's a way he has, a fortnight before his death."
+What more should I say? I told a few scandals about the families in
+the houses where I am received, for we are all great scandal-mongers.
+In short, I played the fool; they listened and laughed, and exclaimed,
+"He is really too droll, isn't he?" Meanwhile the music-book had been
+found under a chair, where a little dog or a little cat had worried
+it, chewed it, and torn it. Then the pretty child sat down at the
+piano and began to make a frightful noise upon it. I went up to her,
+secretly making a sign of approbation to her mother. "Well, now, that
+isn't so bad," said the mother; "one needs only to make up one's mind
+to a thing; but the trouble is, one will not make up one's mind; one
+would rather kill time by chattering, trifling, running about, and God
+knows what. Scarcely do you turn your back but the book is closed, and
+not until you are at her side again is it opened. Besides, I have
+never heard you reprimand her." In the mean time, since something had
+to be done, I took her hands and placed them differently. I pretended
+to lose my patience; I shouted,--"Sol, sol, sol, mademoiselle, it's a
+_sol_." The mother: "Mademoiselle, have you no ears? I'm not at the
+piano, I'm not looking at your notes, but my own feeling tells me that
+it ought to be a _sol_. You give the gentleman infinite trouble. You
+remember nothing, and make no progress." To break the force of this
+reproof a little, I tossed my head and said: "Pardon me, madame,
+pardon me. It would be better if mademoiselle would only practice a
+little, but after all it is not so bad."--"In your place I would keep
+her a whole year at one piece."--"Rest assured, I shall not let her
+off until she has mastered every difficulty; and that will not take so
+long, perhaps, as mademoiselle thinks."--"Monsieur Rameau, you flatter
+her; you are too good." And that is the only thing they would remember
+of the whole lesson, and would upon occasion repeat to me. So the
+lesson came to an end. My pupil handed me the fee, with a graceful
+gesture and a courtesy which her dancing-master had taught her. I put
+the money into my pocket, and the mother said, "That's very nice,
+mademoiselle. If Favillier were here, he would praise you." For
+appearance's sake I chattered for a minute or two more; then I
+vanished; and that is what they called in those days a lesson in
+accompaniment.
+
+_I_--And is the case different now?
+
+_He_--Heavens! I should think so. I come in, I am serious, throw my
+muff aside, open the piano, try the keys, show signs of great
+impatience, and if I am kept a moment waiting I shout as if my purse
+had been stolen. In an hour I must be there or there; in two hours
+with the Duchess So-and-so; at noon I must go to the fair Marquise;
+and then there is to be a concert at Baron de Bagge's, Rue Neuve des
+Petits Champs.
+
+_I_--And meanwhile no one expects you at all.
+
+_He_--Certainly not.... And precisely because I can further my fortune
+through vices which come natural to me, which I acquired without labor
+and practice without effort, which are in harmony with the customs of
+my countrymen, which are quite to the taste of my patrons, and better
+adapted to their special needs than inconvenient virtues would be,
+which from morning to night would be standing accusations against
+them, it would be strange indeed if I should torture myself like one
+of the damned to twist and turn and make of myself something which I
+am not, and hide myself beneath a character foreign to me, and assume
+the most estimable qualities, whose worth I will not dispute, but
+which I could acquire and live up to only by great exertions, and
+which after all would lead to nothing,--perhaps to worse than nothing.
+Moreover, ought a beggar like me, who lives upon the wealthy,
+constantly to hold up to his patrons a mirror of good conduct? People
+praise virtue but hate it; they fly from it, let it freeze; and in
+this world a man has to keep his feet warm. Besides, I should always
+be in the sourest humor: for why is it that the pious and the
+devotional are so hard, so repellent, so unsociable? It is because
+they have imposed upon themselves a task contrary to their nature.
+They suffer, and when a man suffers he makes others suffer. Now, that
+is no affair of mine or of my patrons'. I must be in good spirits,
+easy, affable, full of sallies, drollery, and folly. Virtue demands
+reverence, and reverence is inconvenient; virtue challenges
+admiration, and admiration is not entertaining. I have to do with
+people whose time hangs heavy on their hands; they want to laugh. Now
+consider the folly: the ludicrous makes people laugh, and I therefore
+must be a fool; I must be amusing, and if nature had not made me so,
+then by hook or by crook I should have made myself seem so.
+Fortunately I have no need to play the hypocrite. There are hypocrites
+enough of all colors without me, and not counting those who deceive
+themselves.... Should it ever occur to friend Rameau to play Cato, to
+despise fortune, women, good living, idleness, what would he be? A
+hypocrite. Let Rameau remain what he is, a happy robber among wealthy
+robbers, and a man without either real or boasted virtue. In short,
+your idea of happiness, the happiness of a few enthusiastic dreamers
+like you, has no charm for me....
+
+_I_--He earns his bread dearly, who in order to live must assail
+virtue and knowledge.
+
+_He_--I have already told you that we are of no consequence. We
+slander all men and grieve none.
+
+    [The dialogue reverts to music.]
+
+_I_--Every imitation has its original in nature. What is the
+musician's model when he breaks into song?
+
+_He_--Why do you not grasp the subject higher up? What is song?
+
+_I_--That, I confess, is a question beyond my powers. That's the way
+with us all. The memory is stored with words only, which we think we
+understand because we often use them and even apply them correctly,
+but in the mind we have only indefinite conceptions. When I use the
+word "song," I have no more definite idea of it than you and the
+majority of your kind have when you say reputation, disgrace, honor,
+vice, virtue, shame, propriety, mortification, ridicule.
+
+_He_--Song is an imitation in tones, produced either by the voice or
+by instruments, of a scale invented by art, or if you will,
+established by nature; an imitation of physical sounds or passionate
+utterances; and you see, with proper alterations this definition could
+be made to fit painting, oratory, sculpture, and poetry. Now to come
+to your question, What is the model of the musician or of song? It is
+the declamation, when the model is alive or sensate; it is the tone,
+when the model is insensate. The declamation must be regarded as a
+line, and the music as another line which twines about it. The
+stronger and the more genuine is this declamation, this model of song,
+the more numerous the points at which the accompanying music
+intersects it, the more beautiful will it be. And this our younger
+composers have clearly perceived. When one hears "Je suis un pauvre
+diable," one feels that it is a miser's complaint. If he didn't sing,
+he would address the earth in the very same tones when he intrusts to
+its keeping his gold: "O terre, recois mon tresor." ... In such works
+with the greatest variety of characters, there is a convincing truth
+of declamation that is unsurpassed. I tell you, go, go, and hear the
+aria where the young man who feels that he is dying, cries out, "Mon
+coeur s'en va." Listen to the air, listen to the accompaniment, and
+then tell me what difference there is between the true tones of a
+dying man and the handling of this music. You will see that the line
+of the melody exactly coincides with the line of declamation. I say
+nothing of the time, which is one of the conditions of song; I confine
+myself to the expression, and there is nothing truer than the
+statement which I have somewhere read, "Musices seminarium
+accentus,"--the accent is the seed-plot of the melody. And for that
+reason, consider how difficult and important a matter it is to be able
+to write a good recitative. There is no beautiful aria out of which a
+beautiful recitative could not be made; no beautiful recitative out of
+which a clever man could not produce a beautiful aria. I will not
+assert that one who recites well will also be able to sing well, but I
+should be much surprised if a good singer could not recite well. And
+you may believe all that I tell you now, for it is true.
+
+(And then he walked up and down and began to hum a few arias from the
+"Ile des Fons," etc., exclaiming from time to time, with upturned eyes
+and hands upraised:--) "Isn't that beautiful, great heavens! isn't
+that beautiful? Is it possible to have a pair of ears on one's head
+and question its beauty?" Then as his enthusiasm rose he sang quite
+softly, then more loudly as he became more impassioned, then with
+gestures, grimaces, contortions of body. "Well," said I, "he is losing
+his mind, and I may expect a new scene." And in fact, all at once he
+burst out singing.... He passed from one aria to another, fully thirty
+of them,--Italian, French, tragic, comic, of every sort. Now with a
+deep bass he descended into hell; then, contracting his throat, he
+split the upper air with a falsetto, and in gait, mien, and action he
+imitated the different singers, by turns raving, commanding,
+mollified, scoffing. There was a little girl that wept, and he hit off
+all her pretty little ways. Then he was a priest, a king, a tyrant; he
+threatened, commanded, stormed; then he was a slave and submissive. He
+despaired, he grew tender, he lamented, he laughed, always in the
+tone, the time, the sense of the words, of the character, of the
+situation.
+
+All the chess-players had left their boards and were gathered around
+him; the windows of the cafe were crowded with passers-by, attracted
+by the noise. There was laughter enough to bring down the ceiling. He
+noticed nothing, but went on in such a rapt state of mind, in an
+enthusiasm so close to madness, that I was uncertain whether he would
+recover, or if he would be thrown into a cab and taken straight to the
+mad-house; the while he sang the Lamentations of Jomelli.
+
+With precision, fidelity, and incredible warmth, he rendered one of
+the finest passages, the superb obligato recitative in which the
+prophet paints the destruction of Jerusalem; he wept himself, and the
+eyes of the listeners were moist. More could not be desired in
+delicacy of vocalization, nor in the expression of overwhelming grief.
+He dwelt especially on those parts in which the great composer has
+shown his greatness most clearly. When he was not singing, he took the
+part of the instruments; these he quickly dropped again, to return to
+the vocal part, weaving one into the other so perfectly that the
+connection, the unity of the whole, was preserved. He took possession
+of our souls and held them in the strangest suspense I have ever
+experienced. Did I admire him? Yes, I admired him. Was I moved and
+melted? I was moved and melted, and yet something of the ludicrous
+mingled itself with these feelings and modified their nature.
+
+But you would have burst out laughing at the way he imitated the
+different instruments. With a rough muffled tone and puffed-out
+cheeks he represented horns and bassoon; for the oboe he assumed a
+rasping nasal tone; with incredible rapidity he made his voice run
+over the string instruments, whose tones he endeavored to reproduce
+with the greatest accuracy; the flute passages he whistled; he rumbled
+out the sounds of the German flute; he shouted and sang with the
+gestures of a madman, and so alone and unaided he impersonated the
+entire ballet corps, the singers, the whole orchestra,--in short, a
+complete performance,--dividing himself into twenty different
+characters, running, stopping, with the mien of one entranced, with
+glittering eyes and foaming mouth.... He was quite beside himself.
+Exhausted by his exertions, like a man awakening from a deep sleep or
+emerging from a long period of abstraction, he remained motionless,
+stupefied, astonished. He looked about him in bewilderment, like one
+trying to recognize the place in which he finds himself. He awaited
+the return of his strength, of his consciousness; he dried his face
+mechanically. Like one who upon awaking finds his bed surrounded by
+groups of people, in complete oblivion and profound unconsciousness of
+what he had been doing, he cried, "Well, gentlemen, what's the matter?
+What are you laughing at? What are you wondering about? What's the
+matter?"
+
+_I_--My dear Rameau, let us talk again of music. Tell me how it comes
+that with the facility you display for appreciating the finest
+passages of the great masters, for retaining them in your memory, and
+for rendering them to the delight of others with all the enthusiasm
+with which the music inspires you,--how comes it that you have
+produced nothing of value yourself?
+
+(Instead of answering me, he tossed his head, and raising his finger
+towards heaven, cried:--)
+
+The stars, the stars! When nature made Leo, Vinci, Pergolese, Duni,
+she wore a smile; her face was solemn and commanding when she created
+my dear uncle Rameau, who for ten years has been called the great
+Rameau, and who will soon be named no more. But when she scraped his
+nephew together, she made a face and a face and a face.--(And as he
+spoke he made grimaces, one of contempt, one of irony, one of scorn.
+He went through the motions of kneading dough, and smiled at the
+ludicrous forms he gave it. Then he threw the strange pagoda from
+him.) So she made me and threw me down among other pagodas, some with
+portly well-filled paunches, short necks, protruding goggle eyes, and
+an apoplectic appearance; others with lank and crooked necks and
+emaciated forms, with animated eyes and hawks' noses. These all felt
+like laughing themselves to death when they saw me, and when I saw
+them I set my arms akimbo and felt like laughing myself to death, for
+fools and clowns take pleasure in one another; seek one another out,
+attract one another. Had I not found upon my arrival in this world the
+proverb ready-made, that the money of fools is the inheritance of the
+clever, the world would have owed it to me. I felt that nature had put
+my inheritance into the purse of the pagodas, and I tried in a
+thousand ways to recover it.
+
+_I_--I know these ways. You have told me of them. I have admired them.
+But with so many capabilities, why do you not try to accomplish
+something great?
+
+_He_--That is exactly what a man of the world said to the Abbe Le
+Blanc. The abbe replied:--"The Marquise de Pompadour takes me in hand
+and brings me to the door of the Academy; then she withdraws her hand;
+I fall and break both legs."--"You ought to pull yourself together,"
+rejoined the man of the world, "and break the door in with your
+head."--"I have just tried that," answered the abbe, "and do you know
+what I got for it? A bump on the head." ... (Then he drank a swallow
+from what remained in the bottle and turned to his neighbor.) Sir, I
+beg you for a pinch of snuff. That's a fine snuff-box you have there.
+You are a musician? No! All the better for you. They are a lot of poor
+deplorable wretches. Fate made me one of them, me! Meanwhile at
+Montmartre there is a mill, and in the mill there is perhaps a miller
+or a miller's lad, who will never hear anything but the roaring of the
+mill, and who might have composed the most beautiful of songs. Rameau,
+get you to the mill, to the mill; it's there you belong . . . But it
+is half-past five. I hear the vesper bell which summons me too.
+Farewell. It's true, is it not, philosopher, I am always the same
+Rameau?
+
+_I_--Yes, indeed. Unfortunately.
+
+_He_--Let me enjoy my misfortune forty years longer. He laughs best
+who laughs last.
+
+        Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ VON DINGELSTEDT
+
+(1814-1881)
+
+[Illustration: DINGELSTEDT]
+
+
+Franz von Dingelstedt was born at Halsdorf, Hessen, Germany, June
+30th, 1814. He attained eminence as a poet and dramatist, but his best
+powers were devoted to his principal calling as theatre director.
+
+His boyhood's education was received at Rinteln. At the University
+of Marburg he applied himself to theology and philology, but more
+especially to modern languages and literature. After leaving the
+university he became instructor at Ricklingen, near Hanover. He was
+characterized, even as a young man, by his political freedom and
+independence of thought; and at Cassel, where in 1836 he was teacher
+in the Lyceum, he was on this account looked upon so much askance that
+it was found expedient to transfer him to the gymnasium at Fulda
+(1838). He resigned this position, however, in order to devote himself
+to writing. A collection of his poems appeared in 1838-45, and of
+these, 'Lieder eines Kosmopolitischen Nachtwaechters' (Songs of a
+Cosmopolitan Night-Watchman: 1841) may be said to have produced a
+genuine agitation. These were not only important as literature, but
+as political promulgations, boldly embodying the radical sentiments
+of freethinking Germany.
+
+In 1841 he went to Augsburg, connected himself with the Allgemeine
+Zeitung, and traveled as newspaper correspondent in France, Holland,
+Belgium, and England. 'Das Wanderbuch' (The Wander-Book), and 'Jusqu'
+a la Mer--Erinnerungen aus Holland' (As Far as the Sea--Remembrances
+of Holland: 1847), were the fruits of these journeys. He had in
+contemplation a voyage to the Orient, and preparatory to this he
+settled for a short time in Vienna; but the journey was not
+undertaken, for just at this time he was appointed librarian of the
+Royal Library of Stuttgart, and reader to the king, with the title of
+Court Councilor. Here in 1844 he married the celebrated singer Jenny
+Lutzer. He returned to Vienna, where in 1850 his drama 'Das Haus der
+Barneveldt' (The House of the Barneveldts) was produced with such
+brilliant success that he was thereupon appointed stage manager of the
+National Theatre at Munich. To this for six years he devoted his best
+efforts, presenting in the most admirable manner the finest of the
+German classics. The merit of his work was recognized by the king, who
+ennobled him in 1857. He was pre-eminently a theatrical manager, and
+served successively at Weimar (1857) and at Vienna, where he was
+appointed director of the Court Opera House in 1867, and of the Burg
+Theatre in 1870. He brought the classic plays of other lands upon the
+stage, and his revivals of Shakespeare's historical plays and the
+'Winter's Tale,' and of Moliere's 'L'Avare' (The Miser), were
+brilliant events in the theatrical annals of Vienna. He was made
+Imperial Councilor by the Emperor, and raised in 1876 to the rank of
+baron. In 1875 he took the position of general director of both court
+theatres of Vienna. He died at Vienna, May 15th, 1881.
+
+The novels 'Licht und Schatten der Liebe' (The Light and Shadow of
+Love: 1838); 'Heptameron,' 1841; and 'Novellenbuch,' 1855, were not
+wholly successful; but in contrast to these, 'Unter der Erde' (Under
+the Earth: 1840); 'Sieben Friedliche Erzaehlungen' (Seven Peaceful
+Tales: 1844), and 'Die Amazone' (The Amazon: 1868), are admirable.
+
+Regarded purely as literature, Dingelstedt's best productions are his
+early poems, although his commentaries upon Shakespeare and Goethe are
+wholly praiseworthy. He was successful chiefly as a political poet,
+but his muse sings also the joys of domestic life. 'Hauslieder'
+(Household Songs: 1844), and his poems upon Chamisso and Uhland,
+are among the most beautiful personal poems in German literature.
+
+
+
+A MAN OF BUSINESS
+
+From 'The Amazon': copyrighted by G.P. Putnam's Sons
+
+
+Herr Krafft was about to reply, but was prevented by the hasty
+appearance of Herr Heyboldt, the first procurist, who entered the
+apartment; not an antiquated comedy figure in shoe-buckles, coarse
+woolen socks, velvet pantaloons, and a long-tailed coat, his vest full
+of tobacco, and a goose-quill back of his comically flexible ear; no,
+but a fine-looking man, dressed in the latest style and in black, with
+a medal in his button-hole, and having an earnest, expressive
+countenance. He was house-holder, member of the City Council, and
+militia captain; the gold medal and colored ribbon on his left breast
+told of his having saved, at the risk of his own life, a Leander who
+had been carried away by the current in the swimming-baths.
+
+His announcement, urgent as it was, was made without haste, deliberate
+and cool, somewhat as the mate informs the captain that an ugly wind
+has sprung up. "Herr Principal," he said, "the crowd has broken in the
+barriers and one wing of the gateway; they are attacking the
+counting-house." "Who breaks, pays," said Krafft, with a joke; "we
+will charge the sport to their account."--"The police are not strong
+enough; they have sent to the Royal Watch for military."--"That is
+right, Heyboldt. No accident, no arms or legs broken?"--"Not that I
+know of."--"Pity for Meyer Hirsch; he would have thundered
+magnificently in the official Morning News against the excesses of the
+rage for speculation. Nor any one wounded by the police?"--"Not any,
+so far."--"Pity for Hirsch Meyer. The oppositional Evening Journal has
+missed a capital opportunity of weeping over the barbarity of the
+soldateska. At all events, the two papers must continue to write--one
+for, the other against us. Keep Hirsch Meyer and Meyer Hirsch
+going."--"All right, Herr Principal."--"Send each of them a polite
+line, to the effect that we have taken the liberty of keeping a few
+shares for him, to sell them at the most favorable moment, and pay him
+over the difference."--"It shall be attended to, Herr Principal."--"So
+our Southwestern Railway goes well, Heyboldt?"--"By steam, Herr
+Principal." The sober man smiled at his daring joke, and Herr Krafft
+smiled affably with him. "The amount that we have left to furnish will
+be exhausted before one has time to turn around. The people throw
+money, bank-notes, government bonds, at our cashiers, who cannot fill
+up the receipts fast enough. On the Bourse they fought for the
+blanks."--"For the next four weeks we will run the stock up, Heyboldt;
+after that it can fall, but slowly, with decorum."--"I understand,
+Herr Principal."
+
+A cashier came rushing in without knocking. "Herr Principal," he
+stammered in his panic, "we have not another blank, and the people are
+pouring in upon us more and more violently. Wild shouts call for you."
+"To your place, sir," thundered Krafft at him. "I shall come when I
+think it time. In no case," he added more quietly, "before the
+military arrive. We need an interference, for the sake of the market."
+The messenger disappeared; but pale, bewildered countenances were to
+be seen in the doorways of the comptoir; the house called for its
+master: the trembling daughter sent again and again for her father.
+
+"Let us bring the play to a close," said Herr Krafft, after brief
+deliberation; he stepped into the middle office, flung open a window,
+and raising his harsh voice to its loudest tones, cried to the throng
+below, "You are looking for me, folks. Here I am. What do you want of
+me?" "Shares, subscriptions," was the noisy answer.--"You claim
+without any right or any manners. This is my house, a peaceable
+citizen's house. You are breaking in as though it were a dungeon, an
+arsenal, a tax-office,--as though we were in the midst of a
+revolution. Are you not ashamed of yourselves?" A confused murmur rang
+through the astonished ranks. "If you wish to do business with me,"
+continued the merchant, "you must first learn manners and discipline.
+Have I invited your visit? Do I need your money, or do you need my
+shares? Send up some deputies to convey your requests. I shall have
+nothing to do with a turbulent mob." So saying, he closed the window
+with such violence that the panes cracked, and the fragments fell down
+on the heads of the assailants.
+
+"The Principal knows how to talk to the people," said Heyboldt with
+pride to Roland, the mute witness of this strange scene. "He speaks
+their own language. He replies to a broken door with a broken window."
+
+Meantime a company of soldiers had arrived on double-quick, with a
+flourish of drums. The officer's word of command rang through the
+crowd, now grown suddenly quiet: "Fix bayonets! form line! march!"
+Yard and passages were cleared, the doors guarded; in the street the
+low muttering tide, forced back, made a sort of dam. Three deputies,
+abashed and confused, appeared at Krafft's door and craved audience.
+The merchant received them like a prince surrounded by his court, in
+the midst of his clerks, in the large counting-room. The spokesman
+commenced: "We ask your pardon, Herr Krafft, for what has
+happened."--"For shame, that you should drag in soldiers as witnesses
+and peacemakers in a quiet little business affair among order-loving
+citizens."--"It was reported that we had been fooled with these
+subscriptions, and that the entire sum had been already disposed of on
+the Bourse."--"And even if that were so, am I to be blamed for it? The
+Southwestern Railway must raise thirty millions. Double, treble that
+amount is offered it. Can I prevent the necessity of reducing the
+subscriptions?"--"No; but they say that we poor folks shall not get a
+cent's worth; the big men of the Bourse have gobbled up the best bits
+right before our noses."--"They say so? Who says so? Court Cooper
+Taeubert, I ask you who says so?"--"Gracious Herr Court Banker--"
+"Don't Court or Gracious me. My name is Krafft, Herr Hans Heinrich
+Krafft. I think we know each other, Master Taeubert. It is not the
+first time that we have done business together. You have a very snug
+little share in my workingmen's bank. Grain-broker Wuest, you have
+bought one of the houses in my street. Do I ever dun you for the
+installments of purchase money?" "No indeed, Herr Krafft; you are a
+good man, a public-spirited man, no money-maker, no leech, no Jew!"
+cried the triumvirate of deputies in chorus.--"I am nothing more than
+you are: a man of business, who works for his living, the son of a
+peasant, a plain simple citizen. I began in a smaller way than any of
+you; but I shall never forget that I am flesh of your flesh, blood of
+your blood. Facts have proved it. I will give you a fresh proof
+to-day. Go home and tell the people who have sent you, Hans Heinrich
+Krafft will give up the share which his house has subscribed to the
+Southwestern Railway, in favor of the less wealthy citizens of this
+city. This sum of five hundred thousand thalers shall be divided up
+_pro rata_ among the subscriptions under five hundred dollars."
+
+"Heaven bless you, Herr Krafft!" stammered out the court cooper, and
+the grain-broker essayed to shed a tear of gratitude; the confidential
+clerk Herr Lange, the third of the group, caught at the hand of the
+patron to kiss it, with emotion. Krafft drew it back angrily. "No
+self-abasement, Herr Lange," he said. "We are men of the people; let
+us behave as such. God bless you, gentlemen. You know my purpose. Make
+it known to the good people waiting outside, and see that I am rid of
+my billeting. Let the subscriptions be conducted quietly and in good
+order. Adieu, children!" The deputation withdrew. A few minutes
+afterwards there was heard a thundering hurrah:--"Hurrah for Herr
+Krafft! Three cheers for Father Krafft!" He showed himself at the
+window, nodded quickly and soberly, and motioned to them to disperse.
+
+While the tumult was subsiding, Krafft and Roland retired into the
+private counting-room. "You have," the latter said, "spoken nobly,
+acted nobly."--"I have made a bargain, nothing more, nothing less;
+moreover, not a bad one."--"How so?"--"In three months I shall buy at
+70, perhaps still lower, what I am now to give up to them at
+90."--"You know that beforehand?"--"With mathematical certainty. The
+public expects an El Dorado in the Southwestern Railway, as it does in
+every new enterprise. The undertaking is a good one, it is true, or I
+should not have ventured upon it. But one must be able to wait until
+the fruit is ripe. The small holders cannot do that; they sow today,
+and tomorrow they wish to reap. At the first payment their heart and
+their purse are all right. At the second or third, both are gone. Upon
+the least rise they will throw the paper, for which they were ready to
+break each other's necks, upon the market, and so depreciate their
+property. But if some fortuitous circumstance should cause a pressure
+upon the money market, then they drop all that they have, in a perfect
+panic, for any price. I shall watch this moment, and buy. In a year or
+so, when the road is finished and its communications complete, the
+shares that were subscribed for at 90, and which I shall have bought
+at 60 to 70, will touch 100, or higher."
+
+"That is to say," said Roland, thoughtfully, "you will gain at the
+expense of those people whose confidence you have aroused, then
+satisfied with objects of artificial value, and finally drained for
+yourself." "Business is business," replied the familiar harsh voice.
+"Unless I become a counterfeiter or a forger I can do nothing more
+than to convert other persons' money into my own; of course, in an
+honest way."--"And you do this, without fearing lest one day some one
+mightier and luckier than you should do the same to you?"--"I must be
+prepared for that; I am prepared."--"Also for the storm,--not one of
+your own creating, but one sent by the wrath of God, that shall
+scatter all this paper splendor of our times, and reduce this
+appalling social inequality of ours to a universal zero?" "Let us
+quietly abide this Last Day," laughed the banker, taking the artist
+by the arm.
+
+
+
+THE WATCHMAN
+
+  The last faint twinkle now goes out
+    Up in the poet's attic;
+  And the roisterers, in merry rout,
+    Speed home with steps erratic.
+
+  Soft from the house-roofs showers the snow,
+    The vane creaks on the steeple,
+  The lanterns wag and glimmer low
+    In the storm by the hurrying people.
+
+  The houses all stand black and still,
+    The churches and taverns deserted,
+  And a body may now wend at his will,
+    With his own fancies diverted.
+
+  Not a squinting eye now looks this way,
+    Not a slanderous mouth is dissembling,
+  And a heart that has slept the livelong day
+    May now love and hope with trembling.
+
+  Dear Night! thou foe to each base end,
+    While the good still a blessing prove thee,
+  They say that thou art no man's friend,--
+    Sweet Night! how I therefore love thee!
+
+
+
+
+DIOGENES LAERTIUS
+
+(200-250 A. D.?)
+
+
+It is curious how often we are dependent, for our knowledge of some
+larger subject, upon a single ancient author, who would be hardly
+worthy of notice but for the accidental loss of the books composed by
+fitter and abler men. Thus, our only general description of Greece at
+the close of the classical period is written by a man who describes
+many objects that he certainly did not see, who leaves unmentioned
+numberless things we wish explained, and who has a genius for so
+misplacing an adverb as to bring confusion into the most commonplace
+statement. But not even to Pausanias do we proffer such grudging
+gratitude and such ungrateful objurgations as to Diogenes Laertius,
+our chief--often our sole--authority for the 'Lives and Sayings of the
+Philosophers.' His book is a fascinating one, and even amusing, if we
+can forget what we so much wanted in its stead. At second or third
+hand, from the compendiums of the schools rather than from the
+original works of the great masters themselves, Diogenes does give us
+a fairly intelligible sketch, as a rule, of the outward life lived by
+each sage. This slight frame is crammed with anecdotes, evidently
+culled with most eager and uncritical hand from miscellaneous
+collections. Many of these stories are so fragmentary as to be
+pointless. Others are unquestionably attached to the wrong person.
+This method is at its maddest in the author's sketch of his namesake,
+the Recluse of the Tub. (One of Ali Baba's _jars_, by the way, would
+give a better notion of the real hermitage.) Since this "philosopher"
+had himself little character and no doctrines, the loose string of
+anecdotes, puns, and saucy answers suits all our needs. Throughout the
+work are scattered, apocryphal letters, and feeble poetic epigrams
+composed by the compiler himself. The leaning of our most
+unphilosophic author was apparently toward Epicurus. The loss of that
+teacher's own works causes us to prize doubly the extensive fragments
+of them preserved in this relatively copious and serious study. The
+lover of the great Epicurean poem of Lucretius on the 'Nature of
+Things' will often be surprised to find here the source of many among
+the Roman poet's most striking doctrines and images. The sketch of
+Zeno is also an important authority on Stoicism. Instruction in these
+particular chapters, then, and rich diversion elsewhere, await the
+reader of this most gossipy, formless, and uncritical volume. The
+English reader, by the way, ought to be provided with something
+better than the "Bohn" version. This adds a goodly harvest of
+ludicrous misprints and other errors of every kind to Diogenes's own
+mixture of borrowed wisdom and native silliness. The classical student
+will prefer the _Didot_ edition by Cobet, with the Latin version in
+parallel columns.
+
+It has been thought desirable to offer here a version, slightly
+abridged, of Diogenes's chapter on Socrates. The original sources, in
+Plato's and Xenophon's extant works, will almost always explain, or
+correct, the statements of Diogenes. Such wild shots as the assertion
+that the plague repeatedly visited Athens, striking down _every
+inhabitant_ save the temperate Socrates, hardly need a serious
+rejoinder. Diogenes cannot even speak with approximate accuracy of
+Socrates's famous Daemon or Inward Monitor. We know, on the best
+authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing, but only
+vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But to apply the
+tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criticizing Uncle
+Remus for his sins against English syntax.
+
+Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to the
+third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers of
+the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.
+
+
+
+LIFE OF SOCRATES
+
+From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers'
+
+
+Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phaenarete a
+midwife [as Plato also states in the 'Theaetetus'], and an Athenian,
+of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid Euripides in composing his
+dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks thus:--
+
+  "This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians':
+  And Socrates has furnished him the sticks."
+
+And again:--
+
+  "Euripides, Socratically patched."
+
+Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:--
+
+  _A_--"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs?
+  _B_--Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates."
+
+Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:--
+
+  "And this is he who for Euripides
+  Composed the talkative wise tragedies."
+
+He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but also
+of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions.' After the former's
+condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the natural
+philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried stones. Some
+say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his; they are clothed
+figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli' declares:--
+
+  "From them proceeded the stone-polisher,
+  Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks,
+  Who taught the art of subtle argument,
+  The nose-in-air, mocker of orators,
+  Half Attic, the adept in irony."
+
+For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants, as
+Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing.
+Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse Argument
+seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his pupil AEschines,
+to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who conversed about life,
+and the first of the philosophers who came to his end by being
+condemned to death. We are also told that he lent out money. At least,
+investing it, he would collect what was due, and then after spending
+it invest again. But Demetrius the Byzantine says it was Crito who,
+struck by the charm of his character, took him out of the workshop and
+educated him.
+
+Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men, it is
+said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the agora, and used
+to say he was seeking
+
+  "Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil."
+
+And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he conversed
+too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out, and was
+usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked, and bore it
+patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said, "If an ass had
+kicked me, would I bring an action against him?"
+
+Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except when he had
+to serve in the army. At other times, remaining in Athens, he disputed
+in argumentative fashion with those who conversed with him, not so as
+to deprive them of their belief, but to strive for the ascertainment
+of truth. They say Euripides gave him the work of Heraclitus, and
+asked him, "What do you think of it?" And he said, "What I understood
+is fine; I suppose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a
+Delian diver!" He attended also to physical training, and was in
+excellent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to
+Amphipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the battle
+of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed, when all the other
+Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly, turning about calmly, and
+on the lookout to defend himself if attacked. He also joined the
+expedition to Potidaea--by sea, for the war prevented a march by land;
+and it was there he was said once to have remained standing in one
+position all night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in
+valor, but gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to
+have been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young he
+visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he went to
+Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his 'Commentaries' says
+he went to the Isthmus.
+
+He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the democracy,
+as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and his associates
+when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a wealthy man, to them to be
+put to death. He was also the only one who opposed the condemnation of
+the ten generals. When he could have escaped from prison, too, he
+would not. The friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in
+prison he composed those beautiful discourses.
+
+He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells us in the
+seventh book of her 'Commentaries,' Alcibiades offered him a great
+estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If I needed sandals,
+and you offered me a hide from which to make them for myself, I should
+be laughed at if I took it." Often, too, beholding the multitude of
+things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I do not
+need!" He used constantly to repeat aloud these iambic verses:--
+
+  "But silver plate and garb of purple dye
+  To actors are of use,--but not in life."
+
+He disdained the tyrants,--Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Crannon,
+Eurylochus of Melissa,--not accepting gifts from them nor visiting
+them. He was so regular in his way of living that he was frequently
+the only one not ill when Athens was attacked by the plague.
+
+Aristotle says he wedded two wives, the first Xanthippe, who bore him
+Lamprocles, and the second Myrto, daughter of Aristides the Just,
+whom he received without dowry and by whom he had Sophroniscus and
+Menexenus. Some however say he married Myrto first; and some again
+that he had them both at once, as the Athenians on account of scarcity
+of men passed a law to increase the population, permitting any one to
+marry one Athenian woman and have children by another; so Socrates did
+this.
+
+He was a man also able to disdain those who mocked him. He prided
+himself on his simple manner of living, and never exacted any pay.
+He used to say he who ate with best appetite had least need of
+delicacies, and he who drank with best appetite had least need to seek
+a draught not at hand; and that he who had fewest needs was nearest
+the gods. This indeed we may learn from the comic poets, who in their
+very ridicule covertly praise him. Thus Aristophanes says:--
+
+  "O thou who hast righteously set thy heart on attaining to noble
+            wisdom,
+  How happy the life thou wilt lead among the Athenians and the
+            Hellenes!
+  Shrewdness and memory both are thine, and energy unwearied
+  Of mind; and never art thou tired from standing or from walking.
+  By cold thou art not vexed at all, nor dost thou long for breakfast.
+  Wine thou dost shun, and gluttony, and every other folly."
+
+Ameipsias also, bringing him upon the stage in the philosopher's
+cloak, says:--
+
+  "O Socrates, best among few men, most foolish of many, thou also
+  Art come unto us; thou'rt a patient soul; but where didst get that
+            doublet?
+  That wretched thing in mockery was presented by the cobblers!
+  Yet though so hungry, he never however has stooped to flatter a
+            mortal."
+
+This disdain and arrogance in Socrates has also been exposed by
+Aristophanes, who says:--
+
+  "Along the streets you haughtily strut; your eyes roll hither and
+            thither:
+  Barefooted, enduring discomforts, you go with countenance solemn
+            among us."
+
+And yet sometimes, suiting himself to the occasion, he dressed finely;
+as when for instance in Plato's 'Symposium' he goes to Agathon's.
+
+He was a man able both to urge others to action, and to dissuade them.
+Thus, when he conversed with Theaetetus on Knowledge, he sent him away
+inspired, as Plato says. Again, when Euthyphron had indicted his own
+father for manslaughter, by conversing with him on piety Socrates
+turned him from his purpose. Lysis also by his exhortations he
+rendered a most moral man. He was moreover skillful in fitting his
+arguments to the circumstances. He changed the feeling of his son
+Lamprocles when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon somewhere
+relates. Plato's brother Glaucon, who wished to be active in politics,
+he dissuaded because of his inexperience, as Xenophon states; but
+Charmides on the other hand, who was well fitted, he urged on. He
+roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general also, pointing out to him
+the cocks of Midias the barber fighting those of Callias. He said it
+was strange that every man could tell easily how many sheep he had,
+but could not call by name the friends whom he had acquired, so
+negligent were men in that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great
+pains to captious arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to
+manage sophists--but men, never!" For he thought hair-splitting on
+such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus.'
+
+When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might make a profit
+on them, he did not take them.
+
+He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon also says
+in his 'Symposium.' He used to say, too, that there was but one
+good--knowledge; and one evil--ignorance. Wealth and birth, he said,
+had no value, but were on the contrary wholly an evil. So when some
+one told him Antisthenes's mother was a Thracian, "Did you think,"
+quoth he, "so fine a man must be the child of two Athenians?" When
+Phaedo had been captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade
+Crito ransom him, and made him a philosopher.
+
+He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre, saying
+there was no absurdity in learning what one did not know. He used to
+dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise helpful to health. This
+Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium.'
+
+He used to say that his Daemon foretold future events: and that he knew
+nothing, except that very fact that he did know nothing. Those who
+bought at a great price what was out of season, he said, had no hope
+of living till the season came around. Once being asked what was
+virtue in a young man, he said, "To avoid excess in all things." He
+used to say one should study geometry (surveying) just enough to be
+able to measure land in buying and selling it.
+
+When Euripides in the 'Auge' said of virtue:--
+
+  "These things were better left to lie untouched,"
+
+he rose up and left the theatre, saying it was absurd to think it
+proper to seek for a slave if he was not to be found, but to let
+virtue perish unregarded. When his advice was asked whether to marry
+or not, he said, "Whichever you do, you will regret it!" He used to
+say that he marveled that those who made stone statues took pains to
+make the stone as like the man as possible, but took none with
+themselves, that they might not be like the stone. He thought it
+proper for the young to look constantly in the mirror, so that if they
+had beauty they might prove themselves worthy of it, and if they were
+ugly, that they might conceal their ugliness by their accomplishments.
+
+When he had invited rich friends to dinner, and Xanthippe was ashamed,
+he said, "Do not be troubled. If they are sensible, they will bear
+with us. If not, we shall care nothing for them." Most men, he said,
+lived to eat; but he ate to live. As to those who showed regard for
+the opinions of the ignoble multitude, he said it was as if a man
+should reject one tetradrachm [coin] as worthless, but accept a heap
+of such coins as good. When AEschines said, "I am poor and have nothing
+else, but I give you myself," he said, "Do you then not realize you
+are offering me the greatest of gifts?" To him who said, "The
+Athenians have condemned you to death," he responded, "And nature has
+condemned them also thereto:" though some ascribe this to Anaxagoras.
+When his wife exclaimed, "You die innocent!" he answered, "Do you wish
+I were guilty?"
+
+When a vision in sleep seemed to say:--
+
+  "Three days hence thou'lt come to the fertile region of Phthia,"
+
+he said to AEschines, "On the third day I shall die." When he was to
+drink the hemlock, Apollodorus gave him a fine garment to die in: "But
+why," quoth he, "is this garment of mine good enough to live in, but
+not to perish in?" To him who said, "So-and-so speaks ill of you," he
+answered, "Yes, he has not learned to speak well." When Antisthenes
+turned the ragged side of his cloak to the light, he remarked, "I see
+your vanity through your cloak." He declared we ought to put
+ourselves expressly at the service of the comedy writers: "For if they
+say anything about us that is true, they will correct us; and if what
+they say be untrue, it does not concern us at all."
+
+When Xanthippe had first reviled him, then drenched him with water,
+"Didn't I tell you," said he, "it was thundering and would soon rain?"
+To Alcibiades, who said Xanthippe's scolding was unbearable, he
+replied, "I am accustomed to it, as to a constantly creaking pulley.
+And you," he added, "endure the cackling of geese." Alcibiades said,
+"Yes, for they bring me eggs and goslings." "And Xanthippe," retorted
+Socrates, "bears me children." Once when she pulled off his cloak in
+the agora, his friends advised him to defend himself with force.
+"Yes," said he, "by Jove, so that as we fight, each of you may cry,
+'Well done, Socrates!' 'Good for you, Xanthippe!'" He used to say he
+practiced on Xanthippe just as trainers do with spirited horses. "Just
+as they if they master them are able to control any other horse, so I
+who am accustomed to Xanthippe shall get on easily with any one else."
+
+It was for such words and acts as this that the Delphic priestess bore
+witness in his honor, giving to Chairephon that famous response:--
+
+  "Wisest of all mankind is Socrates."
+
+He became extremely unpopular on account of this oracle; but also
+because he convicted of ignorance those who had a great opinion of
+themselves, particularly Anytus, as Plato also says in the 'Meno.' For
+Anytus, enraged at the ridicule Socrates brought upon him, first urged
+Aristophanes and the rest on to attack him, and then induced Meletus
+to join in indicting him for impiety and for corrupting the young men.
+Plato in the 'Apology' says there were three accusers,--Anytus, Lycon,
+and Meletus: Anytus being incensed at him in behalf of the artisans
+and politicians, Lycon for the orators, and Meletus for the poets, all
+of whom Socrates pulled to pieces. The sworn statement of the
+plaintiffs ran as follows; for it is still recorded, Favorinus says,
+in the State archives:--"Socrates is guilty, not honoring the gods
+whom the State honors, but introducing other strange divinities; and
+he is further guilty of corrupting the young. Penalty, death."
+
+When Lysias wrote a speech for his defense, he read it, and said, "A
+fine speech, Lysias, but not suited to me;" for indeed it was rather
+a lawyer's plea than a philosopher's. Lysias said, "But why, if the
+speech is a fine one, should it not be suitable for you?" Socrates
+replied, "Would not fine robes, then, and sandals, be unfitting for
+me?"
+
+While he was on trial, it is stated that Plato ascended the _bema_ and
+began, "Being the youngest, O men of Athens, of all who ever came upon
+the bema"--but at this point the judges cried out, "Come down! come
+down!" So he was convicted by two hundred and eighty-one votes more
+than were cast for his acquittal. And when the judges considered what
+penalty or fine he should receive, he said he would pay
+five-and-twenty drachmae. Euboulides says he agreed to pay a hundred,
+but when the judges expressed their indignation aloud, he said, "For
+what I have done, I consider the proper return to be support at the
+public expense in the town hall." But they condemned him to death, the
+vote being larger than before by eighty.
+
+Not many days later he drank the hemlock in the prison, after uttering
+many noble words, recorded by Plato in the 'Phaedo.' According to some,
+he wrote a poem beginning--
+
+  "Greeting, Apollo of Delos, and Artemis, youthful and famous."
+
+He also versified, not very successfully, a fable of AEsop's which
+began--
+
+  "AEsop once to the people who dwell in the city of Corinth
+  Said, 'Let virtue be judged not by the popular voice.'"
+
+So he passed from among men; but straightway the Athenians repented of
+their action, so that they closed the gymnasia, and exiling the other
+accusers, put Meletus to death. Socrates they honored with a statue of
+bronze, the work of Lysippus, which was set up in the Pompeion. Anytus
+in exile, entering Heraclea, was warned out of town that very day.
+
+The Athenians have had the same experience not only in Socrates's
+case, but with many others. Indeed, it is stated that they fined Homer
+as a madman, and adjudged Tyrtaeus to be crazy. Euripides reproves them
+in the 'Palamedes,' saying:--
+
+    "Ye have slain, ye have slain the all-wise, the harmless
+    nightingale of the Muses."
+
+That is so. But Philochorus says Euripides died before Socrates.
+
+Socrates and Euripides were both disciples of Anaxagoras. It appears
+to me, too, that Socrates did talk on natural philosophy. In fact,
+Xenophon says so, though he states that Socrates held discourse only
+upon moral questions. Plato indeed, in the 'Apology,' mentioning
+Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, himself says of them things
+whereof Socrates denies any knowledge; yet it is all ascribed to
+Socrates.
+
+Aristotle states that a certain mage from Syria came to Athens, and
+among other prophecies concerning Socrates foretold that his death
+would be a violent one.
+
+The following verses upon him are our own:--
+
+  Drink, in the palace of Zeus, O Socrates, seeing that truly
+  Thou by a god wert called wise, who is wisdom itself.
+  Foolish Athenians, who to thee offered the potion of hemlock,
+  Through thy lips themselves draining the cup to the dregs!
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    William C. Lawton.
+
+
+
+EXAMPLES OF GREEK WIT AND WISDOM
+
+
+BIAS
+
+Once he was on a voyage with some impious men. The vessel was
+overtaken by a storm, and they began to call upon the gods for aid.
+But Bias said, "Be silent, so they may not discover that you are
+aboard our ship!"
+
+He declared it was pleasanter to decide a dispute between his enemies
+than between friends. "For of two friends," he explained, "one is sure
+to become my enemy; but of two enemies I make one friend."
+
+
+PLATO
+
+It is said Socrates, in a dream, seemed to be holding on his knees a
+cygnet, which suddenly grew wings and flew aloft, singing sweetly.
+Next day Plato came to him; and Socrates said he was the bird.
+
+It is told that Plato, once seeing a man playing at dice, reproved
+him. "The stake is but a trifle," said the other. "Yes, but,"
+responded Plato, "the habit is no trifle."
+
+Once when Xenocrates came into Plato's house, the latter bade him
+scourge his slave for him, explaining that he could not do it
+himself, because he was angry. Again, he said to one of his slaves,
+"You would have had a beating if I were not angry."
+
+
+ARISTIPPUS
+
+Dionysius once asked him why it is that the philosophers are seen at
+rich men's doors, not the rich men at the doors of the sages.
+Aristippus replied, "Because the wise realize what they lack, but the
+rich do not." On a repetition of the taunt on another occasion he
+retorted, "Yes, and physicians are seen at sick men's doors; yet none
+would choose to be the patient rather than the leech!"
+
+Once when overtaken by a storm on a voyage to Corinth, he was badly
+frightened. Somebody said to him, "We ordinary folk are not afraid,
+but you philosophers play the coward." "Yes," was his reply, "we are
+not risking the loss of any such wretched life as yours."
+
+Some one reproached him for his extravagance in food. He answered,
+"If you could buy these same things for threepence, wouldn't you
+do it?"--"Oh yes."--"Why then, 'tis not I who am too fond of the
+luxurious food, but you that are over-fond of your money!"
+
+
+ARISTOTLE
+
+When asked, "What is Hope?" he answered, "The dream of a man awake."
+Asked what grows old quickest, he replied, "Gratitude." When told that
+some one had slandered him in his absence, he said, "He may beat me
+too--in my absence!" Being asked how much advantage the educated have
+over the ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead."
+
+Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society of the
+beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a blind man!"
+[_Cf._ Emerson's 'Rhodora.']
+
+Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said, "As we
+would wish them to treat us." Asked what a friend is, he answered,
+"One soul abiding in two bodies."
+
+
+THEOPHRASTUS
+
+To a man who at a feast was persistently silent, he remarked, "If you
+are ignorant, you are acting wisely; if you are intelligent, you are
+behaving foolishly."
+
+
+DEMETRIUS
+
+It was a saying of his that to friends in prosperity we should go when
+invited, but to those in misfortune unbidden.
+
+When told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues, he answered,
+"But not my character, for which they erected them."
+
+
+ANTISTHENES
+
+Some one asked him what he gained from philosophy. He replied, "The
+power to converse with myself."
+
+He advised the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were horses. When
+they thought that irrational, he said, "But certainly, your generals
+are not such because they have learned anything, but simply because
+you have elected them!"
+
+
+DIOGENES
+
+He used to say that when in the course of his life he saw pilots, and
+physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the most sensible of
+animals; but when he saw interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, and
+those who paid attention to them, and those puffed up by fame or
+wealth, he believed no creature was sillier than man.
+
+Some said to him, "You are an old man. Take life easy now." He
+replied, "And if I were running the long-distance race, should I when
+nearing the goal slacken, and not rather exert myself?"
+
+When he saw a child drink out of his hands, he took the cup out of his
+wallet and flung it away, saying, "A child has beaten me in
+simplicity."
+
+He used to argue thus, "All things belong to the gods. The wise are
+the friends of the gods. The goods of friends are common property.
+Therefore all things belong to the wise."
+
+To one who argued that _motion_ was impossible, he made no answer, but
+rose and walked away.
+
+When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mysteries,
+assuring him that in Hades those who were initiated have the front
+seats, he replied, "It is ludicrous, if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are
+to abide in the mud, and some ignoble wretches who are initiated are
+to dwell in the Isles of the Blest!"
+
+Plato made the definition "Man is a two-footed featherless animal,"
+and was much praised for it. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it
+into his school, saying "This is Plato's man!" So the addition was
+made to the definition, "with broad nails."
+
+When a man asked him what was the proper hour for lunch, he said, "If
+you are rich, when you please; if you are poor, when you can get it."
+
+He used often to shout aloud that an easy life had been given by the
+gods to men, but they had covered it from sight in their search for
+honey-cakes and perfumes and such things.
+
+The musician who was always left alone by his hearers he greeted with
+"Good morning, cock!" When the other asked him the reason, he said,
+"Because your music starts everybody up."
+
+When an exceedingly superstitious man said to him, "With one blow I
+will break your head!" he retorted, "And with a sneeze at your left
+side I will make you tremble."
+
+When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, "Of wild beasts,
+the sycophant; and of tame creatures, the flatterer."
+
+Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded, "For
+young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all."
+
+When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drinking, he answered,
+"Another man's." [Of a different temper was Dante, who knew too well
+"how salt the bread of others tastes!"]
+
+Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But he replied, "It
+is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot
+without Manes."
+
+When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said,
+"Because they expect themselves to become lame and blind; but
+philosophers, never!"
+
+
+CLEANTHES
+
+When a comic actor apologized for having ridiculed him from
+the stage, he answered gently, "It would be preposterous, when
+Bacchus and Hercules bear the raillery of the poets without
+showing any anger, if I should be indignant when I chance to
+be attacked."
+
+
+PYTHAGORAS
+
+_Precepts_
+
+  Do not stir the fire with a sword.
+  Do not devour your heart.
+  Always have your bed packed up.
+  Do not walk in the main street.
+  Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.
+  Avoid a sharp sword.
+  When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.
+          [Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death.]
+  Consider nothing exclusively your own.
+  Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.
+  Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter,
+          and yet not looking stern. [_Cf._ Emerson on Manners.]
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    William C. Lawton.
+
+
+
+
+ISAAC D'ISRAELI
+
+(1766-1848)
+
+[Illustration: ISAAC D'ISRAELI]
+
+
+Among the writers whose education and whose tastes were the outcome
+of the classicism of the eighteenth century, yet whose literary life
+lapped over into the Victorian epoch, was Isaac D'Israeli, born at
+Enfield in May 1766. D'Israeli was of Jewish origin, his ancestors
+having fled from the Spanish persecutions of the fifteenth century to
+find a home in Venice, whence a younger branch migrated to England.
+
+At the time of his birth his family had stood for generations among
+the foremost English Jews, his father having been made a citizen by
+special legislation. The boy, however, did not inherit the commercial
+spirit which had established his house. He was a lover of books and a
+dreamer of dreams, and so early developed literary tendencies that his
+frightened father sent him off to Amsterdam to school, in the hope of
+curing proclivities so dangerous. Here he became familiar with the
+works of the Encyclopaedists, and adopted the theories of Rousseau.
+On returning to England in his nineteenth year, he replied to his
+father's proposition that he should enter a commercial house at
+Bordeaux, by a long poem in which he passionately inveighed against
+the commercial spirit, and avowed himself a student of philosophy and
+letters. His father's reluctant acquiescence was obtained at last
+through the good offices of the laureate Pye, to whom the youth had
+already dedicated his first book, 'A Defence of Poetry.'
+
+At the outset of his career he found himself received with
+consideration by the men whose acquaintance he most desired. Following
+the fashion of the day, and inspired by the books of anecdotes so
+successfully published by his friend Douce, D'Israeli in 1791 produced
+anonymously a small volume entitled 'Curiosities of Literature,' the
+copyright of which he magnanimously presented to his publisher. The
+extraordinary success of this book can be accounted for only by the
+curious taste of the time, which still reflected the more unworthy
+traditions of the Addisonian era. It was an age of clubs and
+tea-tables, of society scandal-mongering and fireside gossip; and the
+reading public welcomed a contribution whose refined dilettantism so
+well matched its own. The mysteries of Eleusis and the origin of wigs
+received the same grave attention. This popularity induced D'Israeli
+to buy back the copyright at a generous valuation; he enlarged the
+work to five volumes, which passed through twelve in his own lifetime,
+and still serves to illustrate a curious literary phase.
+
+Other compilations of similar nature met the same success: 'The
+Calamities of Authors,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' and 'Literary
+Recollections'; but the 'Amenities of Literature,' his last work, is
+the most purely literary in form, and affords perhaps the best index
+to D'Israeli's abilities as a writer. The reader of to-day, however,
+is struck by the ephemeral nature of this criticism, which yet by a
+curious literary experience is keeping a place among the permanent
+productions of its age. The reader is everywhere impressed by the
+human sympathy, by the wide if rather superficial knowledge, and by
+innumerable felicities of expression and style, which betray the
+cultivated mind. To lovers of the curious the books still appeal, and
+they will continue to hold an honorable place among the bric-a-brac of
+literature.
+
+The spirit of curiosity which characterized the mind of D'Israeli
+assumed its most dignified concrete form in the 'Commentaries on the
+Reign of Charles I.' D'Israeli had an artistic sense of the values in
+a historical picture, with a keen perception of the importance of side
+lights; and although the book is not a great contribution to the
+literature of history, yet it became popular, and in July 1832 earned
+for its author the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford.
+
+D'Israeli's romances were tedious tales, but his hold upon the public
+was secure, and the vast amount of miscellaneous matter which he
+published always found a delighted audience. 'The Genius of Judaism,'
+a philosophical inquiry into the historical significance of
+the permanence of the Jewish race, showed the author's psychic
+limitations. He designed a history of English literature, for which
+he had gathered much material, but increasing blindness forced him to
+abandon it. Much of D'Israeli's popularity was unquestionably due to
+his qualities of heart. His nature was fine; he was an affectionate
+and devoted friend, and held an enviable position in the literary
+circles of the day. Campbell, Byron, Rogers, and Scott alike admired
+and loved him, while a host of lesser men eagerly sought his
+friendship.
+
+Although brought up in the Jewish faith, D'Israeli affiliated early in
+life with the Church of England, in which his three sons and one
+daughter were baptized. He died in 1848, and was buried at Brandenham.
+Twenty years later his daughter-in-law, the Countess of Beaconsfield,
+erected at Hughenden a monument to his memory.
+
+    [Illustration: _OLD BLACK-LETTER QUARTO_.
+
+    Slightly reduced facsimile of title-page of first edition of
+                            "THE POSIES."
+
+    London, about 1572.           Original, 4-1/8 x 6-3/8 inches.
+
+    An example of title-page, typography, and spelling a hundred
+    years after the introduction of printing into England. The
+    Old English, Gothic, or Black-letter type was being superseded
+    by the modern "Roman;" and on this title page both forms were
+    used.
+
+    A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde vp in one small Poesie.
+
+    Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish
+    Gardins of Euripides, Ouid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others:
+    and partly by inuention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes
+    in Englande:
+
+    Yelding sundrie sweet fauours of Tragical, Comical, and
+    Morall Discourses, bothe pleasaunt and profitable to the well
+    smellyng noses of learned Readers.
+
+    =Meritum petere, graue.=
+
+    AT LONDON, Imprinted for Richarde Smith.]
+
+
+
+POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS MADE BY ACCIDENT
+
+From 'Curiosities of Literature'
+
+
+Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to
+display their powers. It was at Rome, says Gibbon, on the fifteenth of
+October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while
+the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,
+that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first
+started to my mind.
+
+Father Malebranche, having completed his studies in philosophy and
+theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some
+religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for
+him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and
+turning over a parcel of books, 'L'Homme de Descartes' fell into his
+hands. Having dipt into some parts, he read with such delight that the
+palpitations of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was
+this circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which
+made him the Plato of his age.
+
+Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found,
+when very young, Spenser's 'Fairy Queen,' and by a continual study of
+poetry he became so enchanted of the Muse that he grew irrecoverably a
+poet.
+
+Dr. Johnson informs us that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness
+of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's Treatise.
+
+Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was
+first determined by an accident: when young, he frequently attended
+his mother to the residence of her confessor; and while she wept with
+repentance, he wept with weariness! In this state of disagreeable
+vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the
+pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused; he
+approached the clock-case, and studied its mechanism; what he could
+not discover he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine, and
+gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first
+success, he proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which
+thus could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.
+
+If Shakespeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his wool trade
+and his town; if he had not engaged with a company of actors, and at
+length, disgusted with being an indifferent performer, he had not
+turned author, the prudent wool-seller had never been the celebrated
+poet.
+
+Accident determined the taste of Moliere for the stage. His
+grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The
+young man lived in dissipation; the father, observing it, asked in
+anger if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the
+grandfather, "he was as good an actor as Montrose." The words struck
+young Moliere; he took a disgust to his tapestry trade; and it is to
+this circumstance France owes her greatest comic writer.
+
+Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet,
+composed 'Melite,' and afterwards his other celebrated works. The
+discreet Corneille had remained a lawyer.
+
+Thus it is that the devotion of a mother, the death of Cromwell,
+deer-stealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the beauty of a
+woman, have given five illustrious characters to Europe.
+
+We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When
+a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague
+into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the
+fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed
+the smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the
+stroke. This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling
+bodies; from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the
+foundation of his philosophy.
+
+Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman who was dangerously wounded at
+the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the
+Lives of the Saints, which were brought to him in his illness instead
+of a romance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a
+religious order; whence originated the celebrated society of the
+Jesuits.
+
+Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the
+advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy of
+Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated
+Declamation against the arts and sciences; a circumstance which
+determined his future literary efforts.
+
+La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any profession or
+devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally heard some verses
+of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which directed his future
+life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so exquisitely
+delighted with this poet that after passing the nights in treasuring
+his verses in his memory, he would run in the daytime to the woods,
+where, concealing himself, he would recite his verses to the
+surrounding dryads.
+
+Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on
+account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book 'De Sphaera' having been
+lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a
+course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural
+history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of
+Willoughby's work on birds; the same accident, of finding on the table
+of his professor Reaumur's 'History of Insects,'--of which he read
+more than he attended to the lecture.--and having been refused the
+loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet that he hastened
+to obtain a copy, but found many difficulties in procuring this costly
+work. Its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life:
+this naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to
+the microscope.
+
+Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident.
+"I found a work of Defoe's, entitled an 'Essay on Projects,' from
+which perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of
+the principal events of my life."
+
+I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his
+'Schoolmaster,' one of the most curious and useful treatises among our
+elder writers.
+
+At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil during the plague in 1563, at
+his apartments at Windsor, where the Queen had taken refuge, a number
+of ingenious men were invited. Secretary Cecil communicated the news
+of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on account
+of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error in the
+education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe
+in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defense of hard flogging. Dr.
+Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the Secretary. Sir John Mason,
+adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted
+Sir William Petre, and adduced as an evidence that the best
+schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that
+Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed that if such a master had an able
+scholar it was owing to the boy's genius and not the preceptor's rod.
+Secretary Cecil and others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir
+Richard Sackville was silent; but when Ascham after dinner went to the
+Queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside,
+and frankly told him that though he had taken no part in the debate he
+would not have been absent from that conversation for a great deal;
+that he knew to his cost the truth Ascham had supported, for it was
+the perpetual flogging of such a schoolmaster that had given him an
+unconquerable aversion to study. And as he wished to remedy this
+defect in his own children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his
+observations on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance
+which produced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES THE FIRST
+
+From the 'Commentaries on the Reign of Charles the First'
+
+
+At Whitehall a repast had been prepared. The religious emotions of
+Charles had consecrated the sacrament, which he refused to mingle with
+human food. The Bishop, whose mind was unequal to conceive the
+intrepid spirit of the King, dreading lest the magnanimous monarch,
+overcome by the severity of the cold, might faint on the scaffold,
+prevailed on him to eat half a manchet of bread and taste some claret.
+But the more consolatory refreshment of Charles had been just imparted
+to him in that singular testimony from his son, who had sent a _carte
+blanche_ to save the life of his father at any price. This was a
+thought on which his affections could dwell in face of the scaffold
+which he was now to ascend.
+
+Charles had arrived at Whitehall about ten o'clock, and was not led to
+the scaffold till past one. It was said that the scaffold was not
+completed; it might have been more truly said that the conspirators
+were not ready. There was a mystery in this delay. The fate of Charles
+the First to the very last moment was in suspense. Fairfax, though at
+the time in the palace, inquired of Herbert how the King was, when the
+King was no more! and expressed his astonishment on hearing that the
+execution had just taken place. This extraordinary simplicity and
+abstraction from the present scene of affairs has been imputed to the
+General as an act of refined dissimulation, yet this seems uncertain.
+The Prince's _carte blanche_ had been that morning confided to his
+hands, and he surely must have laid it before the "Grandees of the
+Army," as this new order of the rulers of England was called. Fairfax,
+whose personal feelings respecting the King were congenial with those
+his lady had so memorably evinced, labored to defer for a few days the
+terrible catastrophe; not without the hope of being able, by his own
+regiment and others in the army, to prevent the deed altogether. It is
+probable--inexplicable as it may seem to us--that the execution of
+Charles the First really took place unknown to the General. Fairfax
+was not unaccustomed to discover that his colleagues first acted, and
+afterwards trusted to his own discernment.
+
+    [Illustration: _CHARLES I. GOING TO EXECUTION._
+    Photogravure from a painting by E. Crofts.]
+
+Secret history has not revealed all that passed in those three awful
+hours. We know, however, that the warrant for the execution was not
+signed till within a few minutes before the King was led to the
+scaffold. In an apartment in the Palace, Ireton and Harrison were in
+bed together, and Cromwell, with four colonels, assembled in it.
+Colonel Huncks refused to sign the warrant. Cromwell would have no
+further delay, reproaching the Colonel as "a peevish, cowardly
+fellow," and Colonel Axtell declared that he was ashamed for his
+friend Huncks, remonstrating with him, that "the ship is coming into
+the harbor, and now would he strike sail before we come to anchor?"
+Cromwell stepped to a table, and wrote what he had proposed to Huncks;
+Colonel Hacker, supplying his place, signed it, and with the ink
+hardly dry, carried the warrant in his hand and called for the King.
+
+At the fatal summons Charles rose with alacrity. The King passed
+through the long gallery by a line of soldiers. Awe and sorrow seem
+now to have mingled in their countenances. Their barbarous commanders
+were intent on their own triumph, and no farther required the forced
+cry of "Justice and Execution." Charles stepped out of an enlarged
+window of the Banqueting House, where a new opening leveled it with
+the scaffold. Charles came forward with the same indifference as "he
+would have entered Whitehall on a masque night," as an intelligent
+observer described. The King looked towards St. James's and smiled.
+Curious eyes were watchful of his slightest motions; and the
+Commonwealth papers of the day express their surprise, perhaps their
+vexation, at the unaltered aspect and the firm step of the Monarch.
+These mean spirits had flattered themselves that he who had been
+cradled in royalty, who had lived years in the fields of honor, and
+was now, they presumed, a recreant in imprisonment,--"the grand
+Delinquent of England,"--as they called him, would start in horror at
+the block.
+
+This last triumph at least was not reserved for them,--it was for the
+King. Charles, dauntless, strode "the floor of Death," to use Fuller's
+peculiar but expressive phraseology. He looked on the block with the
+axe lying upon it, with attention; his only anxiety was that the block
+seemed not sufficiently raised, and that the edge of the axe might be
+turned by being swept by the flappings of cloaks, or blunted by the
+feet of some moving about the scaffold. "Take care they do not put me
+to pain!--Take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!" exclaimed the
+King to a gentleman passing by. "Hurt not the axe; that may hurt me!"
+His continued anxiety concerning these _circumstances_ proves that he
+felt not the terror of death, solely anxious to avoid the pain, for he
+had an idea of their cruelty. With that sedate thoughtfulness which
+was in all his actions, he only looked at the business of the hour.
+One circumstance Charles observed with a smile. They had a notion that
+the King would resist the executioner; on the suggestion of Hugh
+Peters, it is said, they had driven iron staples and ropes into the
+scaffold, that their victim, if necessary, might be bound down upon
+the block.
+
+The King's speech has many remarkable points, but certainly nothing so
+remarkable as the place where it was delivered. This was the first
+"King's Speech" spoken from a scaffold. Time shall confirm, as history
+has demonstrated, his principle that "They mistook the nature of
+government; for people are free under a government, not by being
+sharers in it, but by the due administration of the laws." "It was for
+this," said Charles, "that now I am come here. If I could have given
+way to an arbitrary sway, for to have all laws changed according to
+the power of the sword, I need not have come here; and therefore I
+tell you that I am _the Martyr of the People_!"
+
+
+
+
+SYDNEY DOBELL
+
+(1824-1874)
+
+
+Sydney Dobell, the son of a wine merchant, was born at Cranbrook in
+Kent. His parents, both persons of strong individuality, believed in
+home training, and not one of their eight children went either to
+school or to university. They belonged to the Broad Church Community
+founded by Sydney's maternal grandfather, Samuel Thompson; a church
+intended to recall in its principles the primitive Christian ages. The
+parents looked upon Sydney, their eldest-born, as destined to become
+the apostle of this creed. He grew up in a kind of religious fervor,
+with his precocious mind unnaturally stimulated; a course of conduct
+which materially weakened his constitution, and made him a chronic
+invalid at the early age of thirty-three. He read whatever books came
+to hand, many of them far beyond his years. At the age of eight he
+filled his diary with theological discussions.
+
+Entering his father's counting-house as a mere lad, he remained to the
+end of his life a business man of great energy. Notwithstanding his
+rare poetic endowments, he never seems to have entertained a
+single-minded purpose to be a poet and nothing more. On the contrary,
+he thought the ideal and the practical life perfectly compatible, and
+he strove to unite in himself the poet and the man of affairs. He
+wrote habitually until 1856, when regular literary work was forbidden
+by his physicians. With characteristic energy he now turned his
+thoughts into other channels; identified himself with the affairs of
+Gloucester, where he was living, looked after his business, and was
+one of the first to adopt the system of industrial co-operation. The
+last four years of his life, a period of suffering and helplessness,
+he spent at Barton-End House, above the Stroud valley, where he died
+in the spring of 1874.
+
+In the work of Dobell it is curious to find so few traces of the
+influences under which he grew up. He had every encouragement to
+become a writer of religious poetry; yet much of his work is
+philosophic and recondite. His delicate health is in a measure
+responsible for his failure to achieve the success which his natural
+endowments promised. All his literary work was done between the ages
+of twenty-three and thirty-three. 'The Roman,' his first long poem,
+appeared in 1850. Dedicated to the Italian struggle for liberty, it
+showed his breadth of sympathy. In 'Balder,' finished in 1853, Dobell
+is at his best both as thinker and as poet. Yet its many fine
+passages, its wealth of metaphor, and the exquisite songs of Amy,
+hardly counterbalance the remoteness of its theme, and its over-subtle
+analysis of morbid psychic states. It is a poem to be read in
+fragments, and has aptly been called a mine for poets.
+
+With Alexander Smith he published in 1855 a series of sonnets inspired
+by the Crimean War. This was followed in 1856 by 'England in War
+Time,' a collection of Dobell's lyrical and descriptive poems, which
+possess more general human interest than any other of his books.
+
+After continuous work was interdicted, he still contributed verse and
+prose to the periodicals. His essays have been collected by Professor
+Nichol, under the title 'Thoughts on Art, Philosophy, and Religion.'
+As a poet Dobell belongs to the so-called "spasmodic school," a school
+"characterized by an undercurrent of discontent with the mystery of
+existence, by vain effort, unrewarded struggle, skeptical unrest, and
+an uneasy striving after some incomprehensible end.... Poetry of this
+kind is marked by an excess of metaphor which darkens rather than
+illustrates, and by a general extravagance of language. On the other
+hand, it manifests freshness and originality, and a rich natural
+beauty." Dobell's descriptions of scenery are among the finest in
+English literature. His senses were abnormally acute, like those of a
+savage, a condition which intensified his appreciation of natural
+beauty. Possessing a vivid imagination and wide sympathies, he was
+often over-subtle and obscure. He strove to realize in himself his
+ideal of a poet, and during his years of ill-health gave himself up to
+promoting the welfare of his fellow-men; but of his seventeen years of
+inactivity he says:--"The keen perception of all that should be done,
+and that so bitterly cries for doing, accompanies the consciousness of
+all that I might but cannot do."
+
+
+
+EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES
+
+
+  Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.
+    He wooed and won her; and, by love made bold,
+  She showed him more than mortal man should know--
+    Then slew him lest her secret should be told.
+
+
+
+HOW'S MY BOY?
+
+
+          "Ho, sailor of the sea!
+        How's my boy--my boy?"--
+      "What's your boy's name, good wife,
+        And in what good ship sailed he?"
+
+          "My boy John--
+        He that went to sea--
+    What care I for the ship, sailor?
+        My boy's my boy to me.
+
+        "You come back from the sea,
+          And not know my John?
+  I might as well have asked some landsman,
+          Yonder down in the town.
+      There's not an ass in all the parish
+          But knows my John.
+
+        "How's my boy--my boy?
+          And unless you let me know,
+        I'll swear you are no sailor,
+          Blue jacket or no--
+        Brass buttons or no, sailor,
+          Anchor and crown or no--
+
+    "Sure, his ship was the Jolly Briton--"
+        "Speak low, woman, speak low!
+
+      "And why should I speak low, sailor,
+          About my own boy John?
+        If I was loud as I am proud
+          I'd sing him over the town!
+      Why should I speak low, sailor?"--
+          "That good ship went down."
+
+        "How's my boy--my boy?
+      What care I for the ship, sailor?
+          I was never aboard her.
+      Be she afloat or be she aground,
+      Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound
+          Her owners can afford her!
+        I say, how's my John?"--
+      "Every man on board went down,
+          Every man aboard her."
+
+        "How's my boy--my boy?
+      What care I for the men, sailor?
+          I'm not their mother.
+        How's my boy--my boy?
+          Tell me of him and no other!
+        How's my boy--my boy?"
+
+
+
+THE SAILOR'S RETURN
+
+
+      This morn I lay a-dreaming,
+        This morn, this merry morn;
+  When the cock crew shrill from over the hill,
+      I heard a bugle horn.
+
+      And through the dream I was dreaming,
+        There sighed the sigh of the sea,
+      And through the dream I was dreaming,
+          This voice came singing to me:--
+
+            "High over the breakers,
+              Low under the lee,
+                Sing ho!
+                The billow,
+          And the lash of the rolling sea!
+
+            "Boat, boat, to the billow,
+              Boat, boat, to the lee!
+            Love, on thy pillow,
+              Art thou dreaming of me?
+
+            "Billow, billow, breaking,
+              Land us low on the lee!
+            For sleeping or waking,
+          Sweet love, I am coming to thee!
+
+          "High, high, o'er the breakers,
+              Low, low, on the lee,
+                  Sing ho!
+                  The billow
+          That brings me back to thee!"
+
+
+
+AFLOAT AND ASHORE
+
+
+      "Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
+              Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port;
+      Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
+              And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love!"
+
+              "I see the ship on the sea, love;
+                        I stand alone
+                          On this rock;
+                    The sea does not shock
+                        The stone;
+              The waters around it are swirled,
+                      But under my feet
+                      I feel it go down
+                To where the hemispheres meet
+              At the adamant heart of the world.
+                Oh that the rock would move!
+                Oh that the rock would roll
+              To meet thee over the sea, love!
+                    Surely my mighty love
+                Should fill it like a soul,
+              And it should bear me to thee, love;
+                Like a ship on the sea, love,
+              Bear me, bear me, to thee, love!"
+
+    "Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering,
+                      Low on our lee, love.
+  Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over
+          and over
+            The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love;
+        And on through the loud pealing pomp of her cloud
+            The great ship is going to thee, love,
+        Blind to her mark, like a world through the dark,
+        Thundering, sundering, to the crowds wondering,
+              Thundering over to thee, love."
+
+        "I have come down to thee coming to me, love;
+                      I stand, I stand
+                      On the solid sand;
+              I see thee coming to me, love;
+              The sea runs up to me on the sand:
+      I start--'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand
+              And touched me through the sea, love.
+            I feel as if I must die,
+            For there's something longs to fly,
+              Fly and fly, to thee, love.
+
+          As the blood of the flower ere she blows
+                Is beating up to the sun,
+            And her roots do hold her down,
+            And it blushes and breaks undone
+                        In a rose,
+            So my blood is beating in me, love!
+                I see thee nigh and nigher;
+          And my soul leaps up like sudden fire,
+                    My life's in the air
+                    To meet thee there,
+            To meet thee coming to me, love!
+                      Over the sea,
+                      Coming to me,
+            Coming, and coming to me, love!"
+
+        "The boats are lowered: I leap in first,
+        Pull, boys, pull! or my heart will burst!
+            More! more!--lend me an oar!--
+        I'm thro' the breakers! I'm on the shore!
+            I see thee waiting for me, love!"
+
+                    "A sudden storm
+                      Of sighs and tears,
+                    A clenching arm,
+                      A look of years.
+                In my bosom a thousand cries,
+                A flash like light before my eyes,
+                And I am lost in thee, love!"
+
+
+
+THE SOUL
+
+From 'Balder'
+
+
+  And as the mounting and descending bark,
+  Borne on exulting by the under deep,
+  Gains of the wild wave something not the wave,
+  Catches a joy of going and a will
+  Resistless, and upon the last lee foam
+  Leaps into air beyond it,--so the soul
+  Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tossed,
+  Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged
+  To darkness, and, still wet with drops of death,
+  Held into light eternal, and again
+  Cast down, to be again uplift in vast
+  And infinite succession, cannot stay
+  The mad momentum.
+
+
+
+ENGLAND
+
+From 'Balder'
+
+
+  This dear English land!
+  This happy England, loud with brooks and birds,
+  Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees,
+  And bloomed from hill to dell: but whose best flowers
+  Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair
+  Than any rose she weaves; whose noblest floods
+  The pulsing torrent of a nation's heart;
+  Whose forests stronger than her native oaks
+  Are living men; and whose unfathomed lakes,
+  Forever calm, the unforgotten dead
+  In quiet grave-yards willowed seemly round,
+  O'er which To-day bends sad, and sees his face.
+  Whose rocks are rights, consolidate of old
+  Through unremembered years, around whose base
+  The ever-surging peoples roll and roar
+  Perpetual, as around her cliffs the seas
+  That only wash them whiter; and whose mountains,
+  Souls that from this mere footing of the earth
+  Lift their great virtues through all clouds of Fate
+  Up to the very heavens, and make them rise
+  To keep the gods above us!
+
+
+
+AMERICA
+
+
+    Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
+    Who north or south, or east or western land,
+      Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
+    Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
+      For God; O ye who in eternal youth
+    Speak with a living and creative flood
+    This universal English, and do stand
+    Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
+    Heroic utterance--parted, yet a whole,
+      Far, yet unsevered,--children brave and free
+      Of the great Mother tongue, and ye shall be
+    Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
+          Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,
+  And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.
+
+
+
+AMY'S SONG OF THE WILLOW
+
+From 'Balder'
+
+
+  The years they come, and the years they go,
+      Like winds that blow from sea to sea;
+  From dark to dark they come and go,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+  Down by the stream there be two sweet willows,
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  One hale, one blighted, two wedded willows,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+
+  She is blighted, the fair young willow;
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  She hears the spring-blood beat in the bark;
+  She hears the spring-leaf bud on the bough;
+  But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+
+  The stream runs sparkling under the willow,
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  The summer rose-leaves drop in the stream;
+  The winter oak-leaves drop in the stream;
+  But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,
+      All in the dew-fall and the rain.
+
+  Sometimes the wind lifts the bright stream to her,
+    --Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,--
+  The false stream sinks, and her tears fall faster;
+  Because she touched it her tears fall faster;
+  Over the stream her tears fall faster,
+        All in the sunshine or the rain.
+
+  The years they come, and the years they go;
+        Sing well-away, sing well-away!
+  And under mine eyes shines the bright life-river;
+        Sing well-away, sing well-away!
+  Sweet sounds the spring in the hale green willow,
+  The goodly green willow, the green waving willow,
+  Sweet in the willow, the wind-whispering willow;
+        Sing well-away, sing well-away!
+  But I bend blighted, the wan weeping willow,
+      All in the sun, and the dew, and the rain.
+
+
+
+
+AUSTIN DOBSON
+
+(1840-)
+
+BY ESTHER SINGLETON
+
+[Illustration: AUSTIN DOBSON]
+
+
+At first thought it seems difficult to consider Austin Dobson as
+belonging to the Victorian period, so entirely is he saturated with
+the spirit of the eighteenth century. A careful study of his verse
+reveals the fact that the Georgian era, seen through the vista of his
+poetic imagination, is divested of all that is coarse, dark, gross,
+and prosaic. The mental atmosphere and the types and characters that
+he gives, express only beauty and charm.
+
+One approaches the poems of Austin Dobson as one stands before a rare
+collection of enamels, fan-mounts, jeweled snuff-boxes, and delicate
+carvings in ivory and silver; and after delighting in the beauty and
+finish of these graceful curios, passes into a gallery of paintings
+and water-colors, suggesting Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher, Meissonier,
+and Greuze. We also wander among trim box-hedges and quaint gardens of
+roses and bright hollyhocks; lean by sun-dials to watch the shadow of
+Time; and enjoy the sight of gay belles, patched and powdered and
+dressed in brocaded gowns and gypsy hats. Gallant beaux, such as are
+associated with Reynolds's portraits, appear, and hand them into
+sedan-chairs or lead them through stately minuets to the notes of
+Rameau, Couperin, and Arne.
+
+Just as the scent of rose-leaves, lavender, and musk rises from
+antique Chinese jars, so Dobson's delicate verse reconstructs a life
+
+  "Of fashion gone, and half-forgotten ways."
+
+He is equally at home in France. Nothing could be more sympathetic and
+exquisite than 'A Revolutionary Relic,' 'The Cure's Progress,' 'Une
+Marquise,' and the 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' one of which is cited
+below.
+
+In the 'Vers de Societe,' as well as his other poetry, Dobson fulfills
+all the requirements of light verse--charm, mockery, pathos, banter,
+and, while apparently skimming the surface, often shows us the
+strange depths of the human heart. He blends so many qualities that he
+deserves the praise of T.B. Aldrich, who says, "Austin Dobson has the
+grace of Suckling and the finish of Herrick, and is easily master of
+both in metrical art."
+
+Henry Austin Dobson, the son of Mr. George Clarisse Dobson, a civil
+engineer, was born in Plymouth, England, January 18th 1840. His early
+years were spent in Anglesea, and after receiving his education in
+Beaumaris, Coventry, and Strasburg, he returned to England to become a
+civil engineer. In 1856 he entered the civil service of Great Britain,
+and ever since that date he has held offices in the Board of Trade.
+His leisure was devoted to literature, and when Anthony Trollope first
+issued his magazine St. Paul's in 1868, he introduced to the public
+the verse of Austin Dobson. In 1873 his fugitive poems were published
+in a small volume entitled 'Vignettes in Rhyme' and 'Vers de Societe.'
+This was followed in 1877 by 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' and both books,
+with additional poems, were printed again in two volumes: 'Old World
+Idylls' (1883), and 'At the Sign of the Lyre' (1885). Mr. Dobson's
+original essays are contained in three volumes: 'Four Frenchwomen,'
+studies of Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, the Princess de Lamballe,
+and Madame de Genlis (1890), and 'Eighteenth-Century Vignettes' (first
+series 1892, second series 1894), which touch upon a host of
+picturesque and fascinating themes. He has written also several
+biographies: of Hogarth, of Fielding, of Steele (1886), of Goldsmith
+(1888), and a 'Memoir of Horace Walpole' (1890). He has also written
+felicitous critical introductions to many new editions of the
+eighteenth-century classics.
+
+Austin Dobson has been most happy in breathing English life into the
+old poems of French verse, such as ballades, villanelles, roundels,
+and rondeaux; and he has also written clever and satirical fables,
+cast in the form and temper of Gay and Prior, with quaint obsolete
+affectations, redolent of the classic age of Anne.
+
+So serious is his attitude towards art, and so large his audience,
+that the hope expressed in the following rondeau will certainly be
+realized:--
+
+  In after days, when grasses high
+  O'er-top the stone where I shall lie,
+    Though ill or well the world adjust
+    My slender claim to honored dust,
+  I shall not question nor reply.
+
+  I shall not see the morning sky,
+  I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;
+    I shall be mute, as all men must,
+            In after days.
+
+  But yet, now living, fain were I
+  That some one then should testify,
+    Saying--_He held his pen in trust_
+    _To Art, not serving shame or lust._
+  Will none?--Then let my memory die
+            In after days!
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Esther Singleton)]
+
+
+
+ON A NANKIN PLATE
+
+VILLANELLE
+
+
+  "Ah me, but it might have been!
+  Was there ever so dismal a fate?"
+  Quoth the little blue mandarin.
+
+  "Such a maid as was never seen:
+  She passed, tho' I cried to her, 'Wait,'--
+  Ah me, but it might have been!
+
+  "I cried, 'O my Flower, my Queen,
+  Be mine!'--'Twas precipitate,"
+  Quoth the little blue mandarin.
+
+  "But then ... she was just sixteen,--
+  Long-eyed, as a lily straight,--
+  Ah me, but it might have been!
+
+  "As it was, from her palankeen
+  She laughed--'You're a week too late!'"
+  (Quoth the little blue mandarin.)
+
+  "That is why, in a mist of spleen
+  I mourn on this Nankin Plate.
+  Ah me, but it might have been!"
+  Quoth the little blue mandarin.
+
+
+
+THE OLD SEDAN-CHAIR
+
+    "What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?
+    Where's Troy,--and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"
+                                  --BRAMSTON'S 'ART OF POLITICKS.'
+
+
+  It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,
+  Propped up by a broomstick and covered with leaves;
+  It once was the pride of the gay and the fair,
+  But now 'tis a ruin,--that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  It is battered and tattered,--it little avails
+  That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails;
+  For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square
+  Like a canvas by Wilkie,--that old Sedan-chair.
+
+  See, here come the bearing-straps; here were the holes
+  For the poles of the bearers--when once there were poles;
+  It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair,
+  As the birds have discovered,--that old Sedan-chair.
+
+  "Where's Troy?" says the poet! Look; under the seat
+  Is a nest with four eggs; 'tis a favored retreat
+  Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear,
+  Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan-chair.
+
+  And yet--Can't you fancy a face in the frame
+  Of the window,--some high-headed damsel or dame,
+  Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair,
+  While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan-chair?
+
+  Can't you fancy Sir Plume, as beside her he stands,
+  With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands,
+  With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire,
+  As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan-chair?
+
+  Then it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league
+  It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague;
+  Stout fellows!--but prone, on a question of fare,
+  To brandish the poles of that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  It has waited by portals where Garrick has played;
+  It has waited by Heidegger's "Grand Masquerade";
+  For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair,
+  It has waited--and waited, that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  Oh, the scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell
+  Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,--
+  Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!)
+  Of Fete-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan-chair!
+
+  "_Heu! quantum mutata_," I say as I go.
+  It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though!
+  We must furbish it up, and dispatch it,--"With Care,"--
+  To a Fine-Art Museum--that old Sedan-chair.
+
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND RHYME
+
+
+  When the ways are heavy with mire and rut,
+    In November fogs, in December snows,
+  When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,--
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+    But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,
+  And the jasmine-stars at the casement climb,
+    And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows,
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+  When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,
+    When the reason stands on its squarest toes,
+  When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"--
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+    But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows,
+  And the young year draws to the "golden prime,"
+    And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,--
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+  In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut,
+    In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"
+  In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"--
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+    But whenever a soft glance softer grows
+  And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,
+    And the secret is told "that no one knows,"--
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+ENVOY
+
+  In the work-a-day world,--for its needs and woes,
+  There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
+  But whenever the May-bells clash and chime,
+  Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
+
+
+
+THE CURE'S PROGRESS
+
+
+  Monsieur The Cure down the street
+    Comes with his kind old face,--
+  With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
+    And his green umbrella-case.
+
+  You may see him pass by the little "_Grande Place_,"
+    And the tiny "_Hotel-de-Ville_";
+  He smiles as he goes, to the _fleuriste_ Rose,
+    And the _pompier_ Theophile.
+
+  He turns as a rule through the "_Marche_" cool,
+    Where the noisy fishwives call;
+  And his compliment pays to the "_belle Therese_,"
+    As she knits in her dusky stall.
+
+  There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop,
+    And Toto, the locksmith's niece,
+  Has jubilant hopes, for the Cure gropes
+    In his tails for a _pain d'epice_.
+
+  There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit
+    Who is said to be heterodox,
+  That will ended be with a "_Ma foi, oui!_"
+    And a pinch from the Cure's box.
+
+  There is also a word that no one heard
+    To the furrier's daughter Lou;
+  And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,
+    And a "_Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!_"
+
+  But a grander way for the _Sous-Prefet_,
+    And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;
+  And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat,
+    And a nod to the Sacristan:--
+
+  For ever through life the Cure goes
+    With a smile on his kind old face--
+  With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair.
+    And his green umbrella-case.
+
+
+
+"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE"
+
+"Si vieillesse pouvait!"
+
+
+    SCENE.--_A small neat room. In a high Voltaire chair sits a
+    white-haired old gentleman._
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_turning querulously_]
+
+  Day of my life! Where _can_ she get?
+  BABETTE! I Say! BABETTE!--BABETTE!
+
+BABETTE [_entering hurriedly_]
+
+  Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks
+  So loud, he won't be well for weeks!
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+  Where have you been?
+
+BABETTE
+
+                                Why, M'sieu' knows:--
+  April!... Ville-d' Avray!... Ma'm'selle ROSE!
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+  Ah! I am old,--and I forget.
+  Was the place growing green, BABETTE?
+
+BABETTE
+
+  But of a greenness!--Yes, M'sieu'!
+  And then the sky so blue!--so blue!
+  And when I dropped my _immortelle_,
+  How the birds sang!
+    [_Lifting her apron to her eyes._]
+                          This poor Ma'm'selle!
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+  You're a good girl, BABETTE, but she,--
+  She was an angel, verily.
+  Sometimes I think I see her yet
+  Stand smiling by the cabinet;
+  And once, I know, she peeped and laughed
+  Betwixt the curtains....
+                            Where's the draught?
+          [_She gives him a cup._]
+  Now I shall sleep, I think, BABETTE;--
+  Sing me your Norman _chansonnette_.
+
+BABETTE [_sings_]
+
+      "_Once at the Angelus
+          (Ere I was dead),
+      Angels all glorious
+          Came to my bed;--
+      Angels in blue and white,
+          Crowned on the head._"
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_drowsily_]
+
+  "She was an Angel" ... "Once she laughed" ...
+            What! was I dreaming?
+                                   Where's the draught?
+
+BABETTE [_showing the empty cup_]
+
+  The draught, M'sieu'?
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS
+
+                        How I forget!
+  I am so old! But sing, BABETTE!
+
+BABETTE [_sings_]
+
+      "_One was the Friend I left
+          Stark in the Snow;
+      One was the Wife that died
+          Long,--long ago;
+      One was the Love I lost--
+          How could she know?_"
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_murmuring_]
+
+  Ah PAUL! ... old PAUL! ... EULALIE, too!
+  And ROSE ... And O! "the sky so blue!"
+
+BABETTE [_sings_]
+
+      "_One had my Mother's eyes,
+          Wistful and mild;
+      One had my Father's face;
+          One was a Child:
+      All of them bent to me,--
+          Bent down and smiled!_"
+  [He is asleep!]
+
+M. VIEUXBOIS [_almost inaudibly_]
+
+                   How I forget!
+  I am so old! ... Good-night, BABETTE!
+
+
+
+THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S
+
+A PROPER NEW BALLAD OF THE COUNTRY AND THE TOWN
+
+    "Phyllida amo ante alias."--VIRGIL.
+
+
+  The ladies of St. James's
+    Go swinging to the play;
+  Their footmen run before them
+    With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    She takes her buckled shoon,
+  When we go out a-courting
+    Beneath the harvest moon.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's
+    Wear satin on their backs;
+  They sit all night at _Ombre_,
+    With candles all of wax:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    She dons her russet gown,
+  And runs to gather May-dew
+    Before the world is down.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    They are so fine and fair,
+  You'd think a box of essences
+    Was broken in the air:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    The breath of heath and furze,
+  When breezes blow at morning,
+    Is not so fresh as hers.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    They're painted to the eyes;
+  Their white it stays forever,
+    Their red it never dies:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    Her color comes and goes;
+  It trembles to a lily,--
+    It wavers like a rose,
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    You scarce can understand
+  The half of all their speeches,
+    Their phrases are so grand:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    Her shy and simple words
+  Are clear as after rain-drops
+    The music of the birds.
+
+  The ladies of St. James's!
+    They have their fits and freaks;
+  They smile on you--for seconds;
+    They frown on you--for weeks:
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+    Come either storm or shine,
+  From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,
+    Is always true--and mine.
+
+  My Phyllida! my Phyllida!
+    I care not though they heap
+  The hearts of all St. James's,
+    And give me all to keep;
+  I care not whose the beauties
+    Of all the world may be,--
+  For Phyllida, my Phyllida,
+    Is all the world to me.
+
+
+
+DORA _VERSUS_ ROSE
+
+"The Case is Proceeding"
+
+
+  From the tragic-est novels at Mudie's--
+    At least on a practical plan--
+  To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys,
+    One love is enough for a man.
+  But no case that I ever yet met is
+    Like mine: I am equally fond
+  Of Rose, who a charming brunette is,
+                  And Dora, a blonde.
+
+  Each rivals the other in powers--
+    Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints--
+  Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers;
+    Miss Do., perpendicular saints.
+  In short, to distinguish is folly;
+    'Twixt the pair I am come to the pass
+  Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly,--
+                  Or Buridan's ass.
+
+  If it happens that Rosa I've singled
+    For a soft celebration in rhyme,
+  Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled
+    Somehow with the tune and the time;
+  Or I painfully pen me a sonnet
+    To an eyebrow intended for Do.'s,
+  And behold I am writing upon it
+                  The legend, "To Rose."
+
+  Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter
+    Is all over scrawled with her head),
+  If I fancy at last that I've got her,
+    It turns to her rival instead;
+  Or I find myself placidly adding
+    To the rapturous tresses of Rose
+  Miss Dora's bud-mouth, and her madding,
+                  Ineffable nose.
+
+  Was there ever so sad a dilemma?
+    For Rose I would perish (_pro tem._);
+  For Dora I'd willingly stem a--
+    (Whatever might offer to stem);
+  But to make the invidious election,--
+    To declare that on either one's side
+  I've a scruple,--a grain,--more affection,
+                  I _cannot_ decide.
+
+  And as either so hopelessly nice is,
+    My sole and my final resource
+  Is to wait some indefinite crisis,--
+    Some feat of molecular force,
+  To solve me this riddle conducive
+    By no means to peace or repose,
+  Since the issue can scarce be inclusive
+                  Of Dora _and_ Rose.
+
+(AFTER-THOUGHT)
+
+  But perhaps if a third (say, a Norah),
+    Not quite so delightful as Rose,
+  Nor wholly so charming as Dora,
+    Should appear, is it wrong to suppose,--
+  As the claims of the others are equal,--
+    And flight--in the main--is the best,--
+  That I might ... But no matter,--the sequel
+                  Is easily guessed.
+
+
+
+UNE MARQUISE
+
+A RHYMED MONOLOGUE IN THE LOUVRE
+
+    "Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour."
+                                                        --MOLIERE.
+
+
+I
+
+  As you sit there at your ease,
+                      O Marquise!
+  And the men flock round your knees
+                      Thick as bees,
+  Mute at every word you utter,
+  Servants to your least frill-flutter,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  As you sit there, growing prouder,
+    And your ringed hands glance and go,
+  And your fan's _frou-frou_ sounds louder,
+    And your "_beaux yeux_" flash and glow;--
+  Ah, you used them on the Painter,
+                      As you know,
+  For the Sieur Larose spoke fainter,
+                      Bowing low,
+  Thanked Madame and Heaven for Mercy
+  That each sitter was not Circe,--
+    Or at least he told you so;
+  Growing proud, I say, and prouder
+    To the crowd that come and go,
+  Dainty Deity of Powder,
+    Fickle Queen of Fop and Beau,
+  As you sit where lustres strike you,
+                      Sure to please,
+  Do we love you most, or like you,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+II
+
+  You are fair; oh yes, we know it
+                      Well, Marquise;
+  For he swore it, your last poet,
+                      On his knees;
+  And he called all heaven to witness
+  Of his ballad and its fitness,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  You were everything in _ere_
+  (With exception of _severe_),--
+  You were _cruelle_ and _rebelle_,
+  With the rest of rhymes as well;
+  You were "_Reine_" and "_Mere d' Amour_";
+    You were "_Venus a Cythere_";
+  "_Sappho mise en Pompadour_,"
+    And "_Minerve en Paravere_";
+  You had every grace of heaven
+    In your most angelic face,
+  With the nameless finer leaven
+    Lent of blood and courtly race;
+  And he added, too, in duty,
+  Ninon's wit and Boufflers's beauty;
+  And La Valliere's _yeux veloutes_
+                      Followed these;
+  And you liked it, when he said it
+                      (On his knees),
+  And you kept it, and you read it,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+III
+
+  Yet with us your toilet graces
+                      Fail to please,
+  And the last of your last faces,
+                      And your _mise_;
+  For we hold you just as real,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  As your _Bergers_ and _Bergeres_,
+    _Tes d' Amour_ and _Batelieres_;
+  As your _pares_, and your Versailles,
+  Gardens, grottoes, and _socailles_;
+  As your Naiads and your trees;--
+  Just as near the old ideal
+                      Calm and ease,
+  As the Venus there by Coustou,
+    That a fan would make quite flighty,
+  Is to her the gods were used to,--
+    Is to grand Greek Aphrodite,
+                      Sprung from seas.
+  You are just a porcelain trifle,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Just a thing of puffs and patches
+  Made for madrigals and catches,
+  Not for heart wounds, but for scratches,
+                      O Marquise!
+  Just a pinky porcelain trifle,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Wrought in rarest _rose-Dubarry,_
+  Quick at verbal point and parry,
+  Clever, doubtless;--but to marry,
+                      No, Marquise!
+
+
+IV
+
+  For your Cupid, you have clipped him,
+  Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him,
+  And with _chapeau-bras_ equipped him,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Just to arm you through your wife-time,
+  And the languors of your lifetime,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Say, to trim your toilet tapers
+  Or--to twist your hair in papers,
+  Or--to wean you from the vapors;--
+                      As for these,
+  You are worth the love they give you,
+  Till a fairer face outlive you,
+    Or a younger grace shall please;
+  Till the coming of the crows'-feet,
+  And the backward turn of beaux' feet,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Till your frothed-out life's commotion
+  Settles down to Ennui's ocean,
+  Or a dainty sham devotion,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+V
+
+  No: we neither like nor love you,
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+  Lesser lights we place above you,--
+    Milder merits better please.
+  We have passed from _Philosophe_-dom
+    Into plainer modern days,--
+  Grown contented in our oafdom,
+    Giving grace not all the praise;
+  And, _en partant, Arsinoe_,--
+  Without malice whatsoever,--
+  We shall counsel to our Chloe
+    To be rather good than clever;
+  For we find it hard to smother
+    Just one little thought, Marquise!
+  Wittier perhaps than any other,--
+  You were neither Wife nor Mother.
+                      "_Belle Marquise!_"
+
+
+
+A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH
+
+OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
+
+
+  King Philip had vaunted his claims;
+    He had sworn for a year he would sack us;
+  With an army of heathenish names
+    He was coming to fagot and stack us;
+    Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,
+  And shatter our ships on the main;
+    But we had bold Neptune to back us,--
+  And where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+  His carackes were christened of dames
+    To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
+  With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
+    He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
+    Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,
+  And Drake to his Devon again,
+    And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,--
+  For where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+  Let his Majesty hang to St. James
+    The axe that he whetted to hack us:
+  He must play at some lustier games.
+    Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;
+    To his mines of Peru he would pack us
+  To tug at his bullet and chain;
+    Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!--
+  But where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+ENVOY
+
+    GLORIANA!--the Don may attack us
+  Whenever his stomach be fain;
+    He must reach us before he can rack us,...
+  And where are the galleons of Spain?
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS DE LAMBALLE
+
+From 'Four Frenchwomen'
+
+
+A tender wife, a loving daughter, and a loyal friend,--shall we not
+here lay down upon the grave of Marie de Lamballe our reverential
+tribute, our little chaplet of _immortelles_, in the name of all good
+women, wives, and daughters?
+
+"_Elle etait mieux femme que les autres._"[A] To us that apparently
+indefinite, exquisitely definite sentence most fitly marks the
+distinction between the subjects of the two preceding papers and the
+subject of the present. It is a transition from the stately figure of
+a marble Agrippina to the breathing, feeling woman at your side; it is
+the transition from the statuesque Rachelesque heroines of a David to
+the "small sweet idyl" of a Greuze. And, we confess it, we were not
+wholly at ease with those tragic, majestic figures. We shuddered at
+the dagger and the bowl which suited them so well. We marveled at
+their bloodless serenity, their superhuman self-sufficiency; inly we
+questioned if they breathed and felt. Or was their circulation a
+matter of machinery--a mere dead-beat escapement? We longed for the
+_sexe prononce_ of Rivarol--we longed for the showman's "female
+woman!" We respected and we studied, but we did not love them. With
+Madame de Lamballe the case is otherwise. Not grand like this one, not
+heroic like that one, "_elle est mieux femme que les autres_."
+
+She at least is woman--after a fairer fashion--after a truer type. Not
+intellectually strong like Manon Philipon, not Spartan-souled like
+Marie de Corday, she has still a rare intelligence, a courage of
+affection. She has that _clairvoyance_ of the heart which supersedes
+all the stimulants of mottoes from Reynel or maxims from Rousseau; she
+has that "angel instinct" which is a juster lawgiver than Justinian.
+It was thought praise to say of the Girondist lady that she was a
+greater man than her husband; it is praise to say of this queen's
+friend that she was more woman than Madame Roland. Not so grand, not
+so great, we like the princess best. _Elle est mieux femme que les
+autres._
+
+    [A] She was more woman than the others.
+
+
+
+
+MARY MAPES DODGE
+
+(1840?-)
+
+[Illustration: MARY MAPES DODGE]
+
+
+To write a story which in thirty years should pass through more than a
+hundred editions, which should attain the apotheosis of an _edition de
+luxe_, which should be translated into at least four foreign
+languages, be allotted the Montyon prize of 1500 francs for moral as
+well as literary excellence, and be crowned by the French
+Academy--this is a piece of good fortune which falls to the lot of few
+story-tellers. The book which has deserved so well is 'Hans Brinker,
+or The Silver Skates,' a story of life in Holland. Its author, born in
+New York, is a daughter of Professor James Jay Mapes, an eminent
+chemist and inventor, an accomplished writer and brilliant talker.
+
+In a household where music, art, and literature were cultivated, and
+where the most agreeable society came, talents were not likely to be
+overlooked. Mrs. Dodge, very early widowed, began writing before she
+was twenty, publishing short stories, sketches, and poems in various
+periodicals. 'Hans Brinker' appeared in 1864,--her delight in Motley's
+histories and their appeal to her own Dutch blood inspiring her to
+write it. Of this book Mr. Frank R. Stockton says:--
+
+    "There are strong reasons why the fairest orange groves, the
+    loftiest mountain peaks, or the inspiriting waves of the
+    rolling sea, could not tempt average boys and girls from the
+    level stretches of the Dutch canals, until they had skated
+    through the sparkling story, warmed with a healthy glow.
+
+    "This is not only a tale of vivid description, interesting
+    and instructive; it is a romance. There are adventures,
+    startling and surprising, there are mysteries of buried gold,
+    there are the machinations of the wicked, there is the
+    heroism of the good, and the gay humor of happy souls. More
+    than these, there is love--that sentiment which glides into
+    a good story as naturally as into a human life; and whether
+    the story be for old or young, this element gives it an
+    ever-welcome charm. Strange fortune and good fortune come to
+    Hans and to Gretel, and to many other deserving characters in
+    the tale, but there is nothing selfish about these heroes and
+    heroines. As soon as a new generation of young people grows
+    up to be old enough to enjoy this perennial story, all these
+    characters return to the days of their youth, and are ready
+    to act their parts again to the very end, and to feel in
+    their own souls, as everybody else feels, that their story is
+    just as new and interesting as when it was first told."
+
+Besides this book, Mrs. Dodge has published several volumes of
+juvenile verse, such as 'Rhymes and Jingles,' and 'When Life was
+Young'; a volume of serious verse, 'Along the Way'; a volume of
+satirical and humorous sketches, 'Theophilus and Others'; a second
+successful story for young people, 'Donald and Dorothy,' and a
+number of other works. Her stories evince an unusual faculty of
+construction and marked inventiveness,--inherited perhaps from her
+father,--truthful characterization, literary feeling, a strong sense
+of humor, and a high ethical standard. Her whimsical character sketch,
+'Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question,' which has been reprinted
+thousands of times and repeated by every elocutionist in the land, is
+in its way as searching a satire as Bret Harte's 'Heathen Chinee.'
+
+Since its beginning in 1873, Mrs. Dodge has edited the St. Nicholas
+Magazine, whose pages bear witness to her enormous industry.
+
+
+
+THE RACE
+
+From 'Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates,' Copyright 1896, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons
+
+
+The 20th of December came at last, bringing with it the perfection of
+winter weather. All over the level landscape lay the warm sunlight. It
+tried its power on lake, canal, and river; but the ice flashed
+defiance, and showed no sign of melting. The very weathercocks stood
+still to enjoy the sight. This gave the windmills a holiday. Nearly
+all the past week they had been whirling briskly; now, being rather
+out of breath, they rocked lazily in the clear still air. Catch a
+windmill working when the weathercocks have nothing to do!
+
+There was an end to grinding, crushing, and sawing for that day. It
+was a good thing for the millers near Broek. Long before noon, they
+concluded to take in their sails and go to the race. Everybody would
+be there. Already the north side of the frozen Y was bordered with
+eager spectators; the news of the great skating-match had traveled far
+and wide. Men, women, and children, in holiday attire, were flocking
+toward the spot. Some wore furs and wintry cloaks or shawls; but
+many, consulting their feelings rather than the almanac, were dressed
+as for an October day.
+
+    [Illustration: _THE SKATER OF THE ZUYDER ZEE._
+    Photogravure from a Painting by G. H. Boughton, A. R. A.]
+
+The site selected for the race was a faultless plain of ice near
+Amsterdam, on that great _arm_ of the Zuyder Zee, which Dutchmen of
+course must call the Eye. The townspeople turned out in large numbers.
+Strangers in the city deemed it a fine chance to see what was to be
+seen. Many a peasant from the northward had wisely chosen the 20th as
+the day for the next city-trading. It seemed that everybody, young and
+old, who had wheels, skates, or feet at command, had hastened to the
+scene.
+
+There were the gentry in their coaches, dressed like Parisians fresh
+from the Boulevards; Amsterdam children in charity uniforms; girls
+from the Roman Catholic Orphan House, in sable gowns and white
+head-bands; boys from the Burgher Asylum, with their black tights and
+short-skirted harlequin coats. There were old-fashioned gentlemen in
+cocked hats and velvet knee-breeches; old-fashioned ladies too, in
+stiff quilted skirts and bodices of dazzling brocade. These were
+accompanied by servants bearing foot-stoves and cloaks. There were the
+peasant folk, arrayed in every possible Dutch costume,--shy young
+rustics in brazen buckles; simple village maidens concealing their
+flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women whose long narrow aprons were
+stiff with embroidery; women with short corkscrew curls hanging over
+their foreheads; women with shaved heads and close-fitting caps, and
+women in striped skirts and windmill bonnets; men in leather, in
+homespun, in velvet and broadcloth; burghers in modern European
+attire, and burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and
+steeple-crowned hats.
+
+There were beautiful Friesland girls in wooden shoes and coarse
+petticoats, with solid gold crescents encircling their heads, finished
+at each temple with a golden rosette, and hung with lace a century
+old. Some wore necklaces, pendants, and earrings of the purest gold.
+Many were content with gilt, or even with brass; but it is not an
+uncommon thing for a Friesland woman to have all the family treasure
+in her headgear. More than one rustic lass displayed the value of two
+thousand guilders upon her head that day.
+
+Scattered throughout the crowd were peasants from the Island of
+Marken, with sabots, black stockings, and the widest of breeches; also
+women from Marken, with short blue petticoats, and black jackets gayly
+figured in front. They wore red sleeves, white aprons, and a cap like
+a bishop's mitre over their golden hair.
+
+The children often were as quaint and odd-looking as their elders. In
+short, one-third of the crowd seemed to have stepped bodily from a
+collection of Dutch paintings.
+
+Everywhere could be seen tall women and stumpy men, lively-faced
+girls, and youths whose expressions never changed from sunrise to
+sunset.
+
+There seemed to be at least one specimen from every known town in
+Holland. There were Utrecht water-bearers, Gouda cheese-makers, Delft
+pottery-men, Schiedam distillers, Amsterdam diamond-cutters, Rotterdam
+merchants, dried-up herring-packers, and two sleepy-eyed shepherds
+from Texel. Every man of them had his pipe and tobacco pouch. Some
+carried what might be called the smoker's complete outfit,--a pipe,
+tobacco, a pricker with which to clean the tube, a silver net for
+protecting the bowl, and a box of the strongest of brimstone matches.
+
+A true Dutchman, you must remember, is rarely without his pipe on any
+possible occasion. He may for a moment neglect to breathe; but when
+the pipe is forgotten, he must be dying indeed. There were no such sad
+cases here. Wreaths of smoke were rising from every possible quarter.
+The more fantastic the smoke-wreath, the more placid and solemn the
+smoker.
+
+Look at those boys and girls on stilts! That is a good idea. They can
+look over the heads of the tallest. It is strange to see those little
+bodies high in the air, carried about on mysterious legs. They have
+such a resolute look on their round faces, what wonder that nervous
+old gentlemen with tender feet wince and tremble while the long-legged
+little monsters stride past them!
+
+You will read in certain books that the Dutch are a quiet people. So
+they are, generally. But listen! did you ever hear such a din? All
+made up of human voices--no, the horses are helping somewhat, and the
+fiddles are squeaking pitifully; (how it must pain fiddles to be
+tuned!) but the mass of the sound comes from the great _vox humana_
+that belongs to a crowd.
+
+That queer little dwarf, going about with a heavy basket, winding in
+and out among the people, helps not a little. You can hear his shrill
+cry above all other sounds, "Pypen en tabac! Pypen en tabac!"
+
+Another, his big brother, though evidently some years younger, is
+selling doughnuts and bonbons. He is calling on all pretty children,
+far and near, to come quickly or the cakes will be gone.
+
+You know quite a number among the spectators. High up in yonder
+pavilion, erected upon the border of the ice, are some persons whom
+you have seen very lately. In the centre is Madame Van Gleck. It is
+her birthday, you remember; she has the post of honor. There is
+Mynheer Van Gleck, whose meerschaum has not really grown fast to his
+lips; it only appears so. There are Grandfather and Grandmother, whom
+you met at the St. Nicholas fete. All the children are with them. It
+is so mild, they have brought even the baby. The poor little creature
+is swaddled very much after the manner of an Egyptian mummy; but it
+can crow with delight, and when the band is playing, open and shut its
+animated mittens in perfect time to the music.
+
+Grandfather, with his pipe and spectacles and fur cap, makes quite a
+picture as he holds Baby upon his knee. Perched high upon their
+canopied platforms, the party can see all that is going on. No wonder
+the ladies look complacently at the glassy ice; with a stove for a
+footstool, one might sit cosily beside the North Pole.
+
+There is a gentleman with them, who somewhat resembles St. Nicholas as
+he appeared to the young Van Glecks on the fifth of December. But the
+Saint had a flowing white beard, and this face is as smooth as a
+pippin. His Saintship was larger round the body too, and (between
+ourselves) he had a pair of thimbles in his mouth, which this
+gentleman certainly has not. It cannot be St. Nicholas, after all.
+
+Near by in the next pavilion sit the Van Holps, with their son and
+daughter (the Van Gends) from The Hague. Peter's sister is not one to
+forget her promises. She has brought bouquets of exquisite hot-house
+flowers for the winners.
+
+These pavilions,--and there are others beside,--have all been erected
+since daylight. That semicircular one, containing Mynheer Korbes's
+family, is very pretty, and proves that the Hollanders are quite
+skilled at tentmaking; but I like the Van Glecks' best,--the centre
+one, striped red and white, and hung with evergreens.
+
+The one with the blue flags contains the musicians. Those pagoda-like
+affairs, decked with sea-shells and streamers of every possible hue,
+are the judges' stands; and those columns and flagstaffs upon the ice
+mark the limit of the race-course. The two white columns twined with
+green, connected at the top by that long floating strip of drapery,
+form the starting point. Those flagstaffs, half a mile off, stand at
+each end of the boundary line, cut sufficiently deep to be distinct to
+the skaters, though not deep enough to trip them when they turn to
+come back to the starting-point.
+
+The air is so clear, it seems scarcely possible that the columns and
+flagstaffs are so far apart. Of course the judges' stands are but
+little nearer together. Half a mile on the ice, when the atmosphere is
+like this, is but a short distance after all, especially when fenced
+with a living chain of spectators.
+
+The music has commenced. How melody seems to enjoy itself in the open
+air! The fiddles have forgotten their agony, and everything is
+harmonious. Until you look at the blue tent, it seems that the music
+springs from the sunshine, it is so boundless, so joyous. Only the
+musicians are solemn.
+
+Where are the racers? All assembled together near the white columns.
+It is a beautiful sight,--forty boys and girls in picturesque attire,
+darting with electric swiftness in and out among each other, or
+sailing in pairs and triplets, beckoning, chatting, whispering, in the
+fullness of youthful glee.
+
+A few careful ones are soberly tightening their straps; others,
+halting on one leg, with flushed eager faces, suddenly cross the
+suspected skate over their knee, give it an examining shake, and dart
+off again. One and all are possessed with the spirit of motion. They
+cannot stand still. Their skates are a part of them, and every runner
+seems bewitched.
+
+Holland is the place for skaters, after all. Where else can nearly
+every boy and girl perform feats on the ice that would attract a crowd
+if seen on Central Park? Look at Ben! I did not see him before. He is
+really astonishing the natives; no easy thing to do in the
+Netherlands. Save your strength, Ben; you will need it soon. Now other
+boys are trying! Ben is surpassed already. Such jumping, such poising,
+such spinning, such india-rubber exploits generally! That boy with a
+red cap is the lion now; his back is a watch-spring, his body is
+cork--no, it is iron, or it would snap at that. He is a bird, a top, a
+rabbit, a corkscrew, a sprite, a flesh-ball, all in an instant. When
+you think he is erect, he is down; and when you think he is down, he
+is up. He drops his glove on the ice, and turns a somerset as he picks
+it up. Without stopping, he snatches the cap from Jacob Poot's
+astonished head, and claps it back again "hind side before."
+Lookers-on hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is arctic weather under
+your feet, but more than temperate overhead. Big drops already are
+rolling down your forehead. Superb skater as you are, you may lose the
+race.
+
+A French traveler, standing with a notebook in his hand, sees our
+English friend Ben buy a doughnut of the dwarf's brother, and eat it.
+Thereupon he writes in his note-book that the Dutch take enormous
+mouthfuls, and universally are fond of potatoes boiled in molasses.
+
+There are some familiar faces near the white columns. Lambert, Ludwig,
+Peter, and Carl are all there, cool, and in good skating order. Hans
+is not far off. Evidently he is going to join in the race, for his
+skates are on,--the very pair that he sold for seven guilders. He had
+soon suspected that his fairy godmother was the mysterious "friend"
+who bought them. This settled, he had boldly charged her with the
+deed; and she, knowing well that all her little savings had been spent
+in the purchase, had not had the face to deny it. Through the fairy
+god-mother, too, he had been rendered amply able to buy them back
+again. Therefore Hans is to be in the race. Carl is more indignant
+than ever about it; but as three other peasant boys have entered, Hans
+is not alone.
+
+Twenty boys and twenty girls. The latter by this time are standing in
+front, braced for the start; for they are to have the first "run."
+Hilda, Rychie, and Katrinka are among them. Two or three bend hastily
+to give a last pull at their skate-straps. It is pretty to see them
+stamp, to be sure that all is firm. Hilda is speaking pleasantly to a
+graceful little creature in a red jacket and a new brown petticoat.
+Why, it is Gretel! What a difference those pretty shoes make; and the
+skirt and the new cap! Annie Bouman is there too. Even Janzoon Kolp's
+sister has been admitted; but Janzoon himself has been voted out by
+the directors because he killed the stork, and only last summer was
+caught in the act of robbing a bird's nest,--a legal offense in
+Holland.
+
+This Janzoon Kolp, you see, was--There, I cannot tell the story just
+now. The race is about to commence.
+
+Twenty girls are formed in a line. The music has ceased.
+
+A man whom we shall call the crier stands between the columns and the
+first judges' stand. He reads the rules in a loud voice:--
+
+     "_The girls and boys are to race in turn, until one girl and
+     one boy have beaten twice. They are to start in a line from
+     the united columns, skate to the flagstaff line, turn, and
+     then come back to the starting-point; thus making a mile at
+     each run._"
+
+A flag is waved from the judges' stand. Madame Van Gleck rises in her
+pavilion. She leans forward with a white handkerchief in her hand.
+When she drops it, a bugler is to give the signal for them to start.
+
+The handkerchief is fluttering to the ground. Hark!
+
+They are off!
+
+No. Back again. Their line was not true in passing the judges' stand.
+
+The signal is repeated.
+
+Off again. No mistake this time. Whew! how fast they go!
+
+The multitude is quiet for an instant, absorbed in eager, breathless
+watching.
+
+Cheers spring up along the line of spectators. Huzza! five girls are
+ahead. Who comes flying back from the boundary mark? We cannot tell.
+Something red, that is all. There is a blue spot flitting near it, and
+a dash of yellow nearer still. Spectators at this end of the line
+strain their eyes, and wish they had taken their post nearer the
+flagstaff.
+
+The wave of cheers is coming back again. Now we can see. Katrinka is
+ahead!
+
+She passes the Van Holp pavilion. The next is Madame Van Gleck's. That
+leaning figure gazing from it is a magnet. Hilda shoots past Katrinka,
+waving her hand to her mother as she passes. Two others are close now,
+whizzing on like arrows. What is that flash of red and gray? Hurrah,
+it is Gretel! She too waves her hand, but toward no gay pavilion. The
+crowd is cheering; but she hears only her father's voice, "Well done,
+little Gretel!" Soon Katrinka, with a quick merry laugh, shoots past
+Hilda. The girl in yellow is gaining now. She passes them all,--all
+except Gretel. The judges lean forward without seeming to lift their
+eyes from their watches. Cheer after cheer fills the air; the very
+columns seem rocking. Gretel has passed them. She has won.
+
+"GRETEL BRINKER, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.
+
+The judges nod. They write something upon a tablet which each holds in
+his hand.
+
+While the girls are resting,--some crowding eagerly around our
+frightened little Gretel, some standing aside in high disdain,--the
+boys form in a line.
+
+Mynheer Van Gleck drops the handkerchief this time. The buglers give a
+vigorous blast. Off start the boys!
+
+Half-way already. Did ever you see the like!
+
+Three hundred legs flashing by in an instant. But there are only
+twenty boys. No matter; there were hundreds of legs, I am sure. Where
+are they now? There is such a noise one gets bewildered. What are the
+people laughing at? Oh! at that fat boy in the rear. See him go! See
+him! He'll be down in an instant; no, he won't. I wonder if he knows
+he is all alone: the other boys are nearly at the boundary line. Yes,
+he knows it. He stops. He wipes his hot face. He takes off his cap,
+and looks about him. Better to give up with a good grace. He has made
+a hundred friends by that hearty, astonished laugh. Good Jacob Poot!
+
+The fine fellow is already among the spectators, gazing as eagerly as
+the rest.
+
+A cloud of feathery ice flies from the heels of the skaters as they
+"bring to," and turn at the flagstaffs.
+
+Something black is coming now,--one of the boys: it is all we know. He
+has touched the _vox humana_ stop of the crowd; it fairly roars. Now
+they come nearer; we can see the red cap. There's Ben, there's Peter,
+there's Hans!
+
+Hans is ahead. Young Madame Van Gend almost crushes the flowers in her
+hand: she had been quite sure that Peter would be first. Carl Schummel
+is next, then Ben, and the youth with the red cap. The others are
+pressing close. A tall figure darts from among them. He passes the red
+cap, he passes Ben, then Carl. Now it is an even race between him and
+Hans. Madame Van Gend catches her breath.
+
+It is Peter! He is ahead! Hans shoots past him. Hilda's eyes fill with
+tears: Peter _must_ beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly. Gretel gazes
+with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her brother to the
+columns.
+
+He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second before. At
+the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had whizzed between
+them, and passed the goal.
+
+"CARL SCHUMMEL, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.
+
+Soon Madame Van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief starts the
+bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring, shoots off
+twenty girls like so many arrows.
+
+It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before we can
+fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance. This time they
+are close upon one another. It is hard to say, as they come speeding
+back from the flagstaff, which will reach the columns first. There are
+new faces among the foremost,--eager glowing faces, unnoticed before.
+Katrinka is there, and Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear.
+Gretel is wavering, but when Rychie passes her she starts forward
+afresh. Now they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in
+advance: she is almost "home." She has not faltered since that bugle
+note sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding toward the
+goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent, but his
+eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza!"
+
+The crier's voice is heard again.
+
+"HILDA VAN GLECK, ONE MILE!"
+
+A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching the music
+in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad rhythmic
+throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves all is still.
+
+Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the boys like
+chaff before the wind,--dark chaff, I admit, and in big pieces.
+
+It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the cheers
+and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming. There are
+three boys in advance this time, and all abreast,--Hans, Peter, and
+Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff.
+Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl beat again!--Carl the bitter,
+Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging, but you are as strong as
+ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans; which is foremost? We love them
+both. We scarcely care which is the fleeter.
+
+Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench, can
+remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so different! and
+yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats herself: none shall know
+how interested she is; none shall know how anxious, how filled with
+one hope. Shut your eyes then, Hilda, hide your face rippling with
+joy. Peter has beaten.
+
+"PETER VAN HOLP, ONE MILE!" calls the crier.
+
+The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take notes,
+the same throbbing of music through the din; but something is
+different. A little crowd presses close about some object near the
+column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though somewhat stunned. If
+he were less sullen, he would find more sympathy in these warm young
+hearts. As it is, they forget him as soon as he is fairly on his feet
+again.
+
+The girls are to skate their third mile.
+
+How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line! Some
+are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a smile, half
+bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination pervades them
+all.
+
+This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel nor
+Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the silver skates.
+
+Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the distance
+in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their runners! How
+nervously they examine each strap! How erect they stand at last, every
+eye upon Madame Van Gleck!
+
+The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eagerness they
+spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each flashing stroke
+seems longer than the last.
+
+Now they are skimming off in the distance.
+
+Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and cheering;
+again the thrill of excitement, as after a few moments, four or five
+in advance of the rest come speeding back, nearer, nearer to the white
+columns.
+
+Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor the girl in
+yellow, but Gretel,--Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a girl that ever
+skated. She was but playing in the earlier race: _now_ she is in
+earnest, or rather, something within her has determined to win. That
+blithe little form makes no effort; but it cannot stop,--not until the
+goal is passed!
+
+In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has no news
+to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,--_Gretel has won the
+silver skates!_
+
+Like a bird she has flown over the ice; like a bird she looks about
+her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the sheltered nook
+where her father and mother stand. But Hans is beside her; the girls
+are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous voice breathes in her ear.
+From that hour none will despise her. Goose-girl or not, Gretel stands
+acknowledged Queen of the Skaters.
+
+With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter Van Holp is witnessing
+his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward them at all. He is
+kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and working hastily at his
+skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.
+
+"Are you in trouble, mynheer?"
+
+"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes; my fun is over. I tried to tighten my strap
+to make a new hole, and this botheration of a knife has cut it nearly
+in two."
+
+"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate, "you must
+use my strap!"
+
+"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker!" cried Peter, looking up; "though I
+thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the bugle will sound in
+a minute."
+
+"Mynheer," pleaded Hans in a husky voice, "you have called me your
+friend. Take this strap--quick! There is not an instant to lose. I
+shall not skate this time: indeed, I am out of practice. Mynheer, you
+_must_ take it;" and Hans, blind and deaf to any remonstrance, slipped
+his strap into Peter's skate, and implored him to put it on.
+
+"Come, Peter!" cried Lambert from the line: "we are waiting for you."
+
+"For Madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is motioning to you
+to join the racers. There, the skate is almost on: quick, mynheer,
+fasten it. I could not possibly win. The race lies between Master
+Schummel and yourself."
+
+"You are a noble fellow, Hans!" cried Peter, yielding at last. He
+sprang to his post just as the handkerchief fell to the ground. The
+bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and ringing.
+
+Off go the boys!
+
+"Mein Gott!" cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They beat
+everything, these Amsterdam youngsters. See them!"
+
+See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of them. What
+mad errand are they on? Ah, I know; they are hunting Peter Van Holp.
+He is some fleet-footed runaway from Olympus. Mercury and his troop of
+winged cousins are in full chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the
+runaway. The pursuit grows furious. Ben is foremost!
+
+The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way. Who is
+hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter Van Holp! Fly, Peter!
+Hans is watching you. He is sending all his fleetness, all his
+strength, into your feet. Your mother and sister are pale with
+eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not look up, Fly, Peter! The
+crowd has not gone deranged; it is only cheering. The pursuers are
+close upon you. Touch the white column! It beckons; it is reeling
+before you--it--
+
+"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!"
+
+"PETER VAN HOLP!" shouted the crier. But who heard him? "Peter Van
+Holp!" shouted a hundred voices; for he was the favorite boy of the
+place. "Huzza! Huzza!"
+
+Now the music was resolved to be heard. It struck up a lively air,
+then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking something new was
+about to happen, deigned to listen and to look.
+
+The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood first.
+Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end. Hans, who had
+borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near the head.
+
+Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the river,
+facing the Van Gleck pavilion.
+
+Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys and girls
+moved forward, led on by Peter, It was beautiful to see the bright
+procession glide along like a living creature. It curved and doubled,
+and drew its graceful length in and out among the arches; whichever
+way Peter, the head, went, the body was sure to follow. Sometimes it
+steered direct for the centre arch; then, as if seized with a new
+impulse, turned away and curled itself about the first one; then
+unwound slowly, and bending low, with quick snake-like curvings,
+crossed the river, passing at length through the farthest arch.
+
+When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl like a thing
+afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted forward with a
+spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and out, curling,
+twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the shrill call of the
+bugle rising above the music it suddenly resolved itself into boys and
+girls, standing in double semicircle before Madame Van Gleck's
+pavilion.
+
+Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others. Madame
+Van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels that she
+must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what is said, there
+is such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking that she ought to
+try and make a courtesy, such as her mother makes to the _meester_,
+when suddenly something so dazzling is placed in her hand that she
+gives a cry of joy.
+
+Then she ventures to look about her. Peter too has something in his
+hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid!" she cries; and "Oh! how splendid!" is
+echoed as far as people can see.
+
+Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing dashes of
+light upon those two happy faces.
+
+"Mevrouw Van Gend sends a little messenger with her bouquets,--one for
+Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and Gretel."
+
+At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes
+uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers skates
+and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and darts off to
+search for her father and mother in the scattering crowd.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN DONNE
+
+(1573-1631)
+
+[Illustration: JOHN DONNE]
+
+
+"The memory of Dr. Donne must not, cannot die, as long as men speak
+English," wrote Izaak Walton, "whilst his conversation made him and
+others happy. His life ought to be the example of more than that age
+in which he died."
+
+Born in 1573, all the influences of the age in which Donne lived
+nourished his large nature and genius. Shakespeare and Marlowe were
+nine years older than he; Chapman fourteen; Spenser, Lyly, and Richard
+Hooker each twenty; while Sir Philip Sidney counted one year less.
+Lodge and Puttenham were grown men, and Greene and Nash riotous boys.
+In the following year Ben Jonson "came forth to warm our ears," and
+soon after we have his future co-worker Inigo Jones. It was the time
+of a multitude of poets,--Drayton, the Fletchers, Beaumont, Wither,
+Herrick, Carew, Suckling, and others. Imagination was foremost, and
+was stimulated by vast discoveries. Debates upon ecclesiastical
+reform, led by Wyclif, Tyndal, Knox, Foxe, Sternhold, Hopkins, and
+others, had prepared the way; and the luminous literatures of Greece
+and Italy, but recently brought into England, had made men's spirits
+receptive and creative. It was a period of vast conceptions, when men
+discovered themselves and the world afresh.
+
+Under such outward conditions Donne was born, in London, "of good and
+virtuous parents," says Walton, being descended on his mother's side
+from no less distinguished a personage than Sir Thomas More. In 1584,
+when he was eleven years old, with a good command both of French and
+Latin, he passed from the hands of tutors at home to Hare Hall, a much
+frequented college at Oxford. Here he formed a friendship with Henry
+Wotton, who, after the poet's death, collected the material from which
+Walton wrote his tender and sincere 'Life of Donne.'
+
+After leaving Oxford he traveled for three years on the Continent, and
+on his return in 1592 became a member of Lincoln's Inn, with intent to
+study law; but his law never, says Walton, "served him for other use
+than an ornament and self-satisfaction." While a member of Lincoln's
+Inn he became one of the coterie of the poets of his youth. To this
+time are to be referred those of his 'Divine Poems' which show him a
+sincere Catholic. Stirred by the increasing differences between the
+Romanist and the Anglican denominations, Donne turned toward
+theological questions, and finally cast his lot with the new
+doctrines. His large nature, impetuously reacting from the asceticism
+to which he had been bred, turned to excess and overboldness in
+action, and an occasional coarseness of phrasing in his poems.
+
+The first of his famous 'Satires' are dated 1593, and all were
+probably written before 1601. During this time also he squandered his
+father's legacy of L3000. In 1596, when the Earl of Essex defeated the
+Spanish navy and pillaged Cadiz, Donne, now one of the first poets of
+the time, was among his followers. "Not long after his return into
+England ... the Lord Ellesmere, the Keeper of the Great Seal,...
+taking notice of his learning, languages, and other abilities, and
+much affecting his person and behavior, took him to be his chief
+secretary, supposing and intending it to be an introduction to some
+weighty employment in the State;... and did always use him with much
+courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table." Here he met the
+niece of Lady Ellesmere,--the daughter of Sir George More, Lord
+Lieutenant of the Tower,--whom at Christmas, 1600, he married, despite
+the opposition of her father. Sir George, transported with wrath,
+obtained Donne's imprisonment; but the poet finally regained his
+liberty and his wife, Sir George in the end forgiving the young
+couple. "Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part spent in many
+chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience, he [being] out
+of all employment that might yield a support for himself and wife."
+The depth and intensity of Donne's feeling for this beautiful and
+accomplished woman are manifested, says Mr. Norton, in all the poems
+known to be addressed to her, such as 'The Anniversary' and 'The
+Token.'
+
+Of 'The Valediction Forbidding Mourning' Walton declares:--"I beg
+leave to tell that I have heard some critics, learned both in
+languages and poetry, say that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
+ever equal them;" while from Lowell's unpublished 'Lecture on Poetic
+Diction' Professor Norton quotes the opinion that "This poem is a
+truly sacred one, and fuller of the soul of poetry than a whole
+Alexandrian Library of common love verses."
+
+During this period of writing for court favors, Donne wrote many of
+his sonnets and studied the civil and canon law. After the death of
+his patron Sir Francis in 1606, Donne divided his time between
+Mitcham, whither he had removed his family, and London, where he
+frequented distinguished and fashionable drawing-rooms. At this time
+he wrote his admirable epistles in verse, 'The Litany,' and funeral
+elegies on Lady Markham and Mistress Bulstrode; but those poems are
+merely "occasional," as he was not a poet by profession. At the
+request of King James he wrote the 'Pseudo-Martyr,' published in 1610.
+In 1611 appeared his funeral elegy 'An Anatomy of the World,' and one
+year later another of like texture, 'On the Progress of the Soul,'
+both poems being exalted and elaborate in thought and fancy.
+
+The King, desiring Donne to enter into the ministry, denied all
+requests for secular preferment, and the unwilling poet deferred his
+decision for almost three years. All that time he studied textual
+divinity, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained about the beginning of
+1615. The King made him his chaplain in ordinary, and promised other
+preferments. "Now," says Walton, "the English Church had gained a
+second St. Austin, for I think none was so like him before his
+conversion, none so like St. Ambrose after it; and if his youth had
+the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellences of the other,
+the learning and holiness of both."
+
+In 1621 the King made him Dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St. Dunstan
+in the West. By these and other ecclesiastical emoluments "he was
+enabled to become charitable to the poor and kind to his friends, and
+to make such provision for his children that they were not left
+scandalous, as relating to their or his profession or quality."
+
+His first printed sermons appeared in 1622. The epigrammatic terseness
+and unexpected turns of imagination which characterize the poems, are
+found also in his discourses. Three years later, during a dangerous
+illness, he composed his 'Devotion.' He died on the 31st of March,
+1631.
+
+"Donne is full of salient verses," says Lowell in his 'Shakespeare
+Once More,' "that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with
+their beauty; of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and then
+delight us with the felicity of their solution." There are few in
+which an occasional loftiness is sustained throughout, but this
+occasional excellence is original, condensed, witty, showing a firm
+and strong mind, clear to a degree almost un-English. His poetry has
+somewhat of the stability of the Greeks, though it may lack their
+sweetness and art. His grossness was the heritage of his time. He is
+classed among the "metaphysical poets," of whom Dr. Johnson
+wrote:--"They were of very little care to clothe their notions with
+elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which
+are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to
+adorn their thoughts." It was in obedience to such a dictum, and to
+Dryden's suggestion, doubtless, that Pope and Parnell recast and
+re-versified the 'Satires.'
+
+The first edition of Donne's poems appeared two years after his death.
+Several editions succeeded during the seventeenth century. In the more
+artificial eighteenth century his harsh and abrupt versification and
+remote theorems made him difficult to understand. The best editions
+are 'The Complete Poems of John Donne,' edited by Dr. Alexander
+Grosart (1872); and 'The Poems of John Donne,' from the text of the
+edition of 1633, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895), from whose
+work the citations in this volume are taken.
+
+
+
+THE UNDERTAKING
+
+
+  I have done one braver thing
+    Than all the Worthies did,
+  And yet a braver thence doth spring,
+    Which is, to keep that hid.
+
+  It were but madness now t' impart
+    The skill of specular stone,
+  When he which can have learned the art
+    To cut it, can find none.
+
+  So, if I now should utter this,
+    Others (because no more
+  Such stuff to work upon there is)
+    Would love but as before:
+
+  But he who loveliness within
+    Hath found, all outward loathes;
+  For he who color loves, and skin,
+    Loves but their oldest clothes.
+
+  If, as I have, you also do
+    Virtue attired in women see,
+  And dare love that and say so too,
+    And forget the He and She;
+
+  And if this love, though placed so,
+    From profane men you hide,
+  Which will no faith on this bestow,
+    Or, if they do, deride;
+
+  Then you have done a braver thing
+    Than all the Worthies did,
+  And a braver thence will spring,
+    Which is, to keep that hid.
+
+
+
+A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
+
+
+  As virtuous men pass mildly away,
+    And whisper to their souls to go,
+  Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
+    "The breath goes now," and some say "No";
+
+  So let us melt and make no noise,
+    No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
+  'Twere profanation of our joys
+    To tell the laity our love.
+
+  Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
+    Men reckon what it did and meant;
+  But trepidation of the spheres,
+    Though greater far, is innocent.
+
+  Dull sublunary lovers' love
+    (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
+  Absence, because it doth remove
+    Those things which elemented it.
+
+  But we by a love so much refined
+    That ourselves know not what it is,
+  Inter-assured of the mind,
+    Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.
+
+  Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
+    Though I must go, endure not yet
+  A breach, but an expansion,
+    Like gold to airy thinness beat.
+
+  If they be two, they are two so
+    As stiff twin compasses are two;
+  Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
+    To move, but doth if the other do,
+
+  And though it in the centre sit,
+    Yet when the other far doth roam,
+  It leans and hearkens after it,
+    And grows erect as that comes home.
+
+  Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
+    Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
+  Thy firmness makes my circle just,
+    And makes me end where I begun.
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+  Go and catch a falling star,
+    Get with child a mandrake root,
+  Tell me where all past years are,
+    Or who cleft the devil's foot,
+  Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
+  Or to keep off envy's stinging,
+              And find
+              What wind
+  Serves to advance an honest mind.
+
+  If thou be'st born to strange sights,
+    Things invisible to see,
+  Ride ten thousand days and nights,
+    Till age snow white hairs on thee,
+  Then, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
+  All strange wonders that befell thee,
+              And swear,
+              Nowhere
+  Lives a woman true and fair.
+
+  If thou find'st one, let me know;
+    Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
+  Yet do not: I would not go,
+    Though at next door we might meet;
+  Though she were true when you met her,
+  And last till you write your letter,
+              Yet she
+              Will be
+  False, ere I come, to two or three.
+
+
+
+LOVE'S GROWTH
+
+
+  I scarce believe my love to be so pure
+            As I had thought it was,
+            Because it doth endure
+  Vicissitude and season as the grass;
+  Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
+  My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
+  But if this medicine love, which cures all sorrow
+    With more, not only be no quintessence
+    But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
+  And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
+  Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
+  To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
+  But as all else, being elemented too,
+  Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
+
+  And yet no greater, but more eminent,
+            Love by the spring is grown;
+            As in the firmament
+  Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
+  Gentle love-deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
+  From love's awakened root do bud out now.
+  If, as in water stirred, more circles be
+    Produced by one, love such additions take,
+    Thou, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
+  For they are all concentric unto thee;
+  And though each spring do add to love new heat,
+  As princes do in times of action get
+  New taxes and remit them not in peace,
+  No winter shall abate the spring's increase.
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+  Sweetest Love, I do not go
+    For weariness of thee,
+  Nor in hope the world can show
+    A fitter Love for me:
+      But since that I
+  Must die at last, 'tis best
+  To use myself in jest
+    Thus by feigned deaths to die.
+
+  Yesternight the sun went hence,
+    And yet is here to-day;
+  He hath no desire nor sense,
+    Nor half so short a way.
+      Then fear not me,
+  But believe that I shall make
+  Speedier journeys, since I take
+    More wings and spurs than he.
+
+  Oh, how feeble is man's power,
+    That, if good fortune fall,
+  Cannot add another hour,
+    Nor a lost hour recall!
+      But come bad chance,
+  And we join to it our strength,
+  And we teach it art and length,
+    Itself o'er us to advance.
+
+  When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
+    But sigh'st my soul away;
+  When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
+    My life's blood doth decay.
+        It cannot be
+  That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,
+  If in thine my life thou waste;
+    Thou art the best of me.
+
+  Let not thy divining heart
+    Forethink me any ill;
+  Destiny may take thy part,
+    And may thy fears fulfill:
+      But think that we
+  Are but turned aside to sleep:
+  They who one another keep
+    Alive, ne'er parted be.
+
+
+
+
+FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
+
+(1821-1881)
+
+BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
+
+[Illustration: FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY]
+
+
+In certain respects Dostoevsky is the most characteristically national
+of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his work does not
+appeal to so wide a circle outside of his own country as does the work
+of Turgenieff and Count L.N. Tolstoy. This result flows not only from
+the natural bent of his mind and temperament, but also from the
+peculiar vicissitudes of his life as compared with the comparatively
+even tenor of their existence, and the circumstances of the time in
+which he lived. These circumstances, it is true, were felt by the
+writers mentioned; but practically they affected him far more deeply
+than they did the others, with their rather one-sided training; and
+his fellow-countrymen--especially the young of both sexes--were not
+slow to express their appreciation of the fact. His special domain was
+the one which Turgenieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and have
+touched not at all, or only incidentally,--the great middle class of
+society, or what corresponds thereto in Russia.
+
+Through his father, Mikhail Andreevitch Dostoevsky, Feodor
+Mikhailovitch belonged to the class of "nobles,"--that is to say, to
+the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable, well-to-do
+merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and was even
+more so during the first half of the present century; and in personal
+appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. The father
+was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in Moscow,
+having entered the civil service at the end of the war of 1812, during
+which he had served as a physician in the army. In the very contracted
+apartment which he occupied in the hospital, Feodor was born--one of a
+family of seven children, all of whom, with the exception of the
+eldest and the youngest, were born there--on October 30th (November
+11th), 1821. The parents were very upright, well-educated, devoutly
+religious people; and as Feodor expressed it many years later to his
+elder brother, after their father died, "Do you know, our parents
+were very superior people, and they would have been superior even in
+these days." The children were brought up at home as long as possible,
+and received their instruction from tutors and their father. Even
+after the necessity of preparing the two elder boys for a government
+institution forced the parents to send them to a boarding-school
+during the week, they continued their strict supervision over their
+associates, discouraged nearly all friendships with their comrades,
+and never allowed them to go into the street unaccompanied, after the
+national custom in good families, even at the age of seventeen or
+more.
+
+Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives, was
+always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother Mikhail
+spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott and James
+Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors; though Russian
+writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. During many of these
+years the mother and children passed the summers on a little estate in
+the country which the father bought, and it was there that Feodor
+Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with the beauties of nature, to
+which he eloquently refers in after life, and especially with the
+peasants, their feelings and temper, which greatly helped him in his
+psychological studies and in his ability to endure certain trials
+which came upon him. There can be no doubt that his whole training
+contributed not only to the literary tastes which the famous author
+and his brother cherished throughout their lives, but to the formation
+of that friendship between them which was stronger than all others,
+and to the sincere belief in religion and the profound piety which
+permeated the spirit and the books of Feodor Mikhailovitch.
+
+In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest sons to
+St. Petersburg to enter them in the government School of Engineers.
+But the healthy Mikhail was pronounced consumptive by the doctor,
+while the sickly Feodor was given a certificate of perfect health.
+Consequently Mikhail was rejected, and went to the Engineers' School
+in Revel, while Feodor, always quiet and reserved, was left lonely in
+the St. Petersburg school. Here he remained for three years, studying
+well, but devoting a great deal of time to his passionately beloved
+literary subjects, and developing a precocious and penetrating
+critical judgment on such matters. It is even affirmed that he began
+or wrote the first draft of his famous book 'Poor People,' by night,
+during this period; though in another account he places its
+composition later. After graduating well as ensign in 1841, he studied
+for another year, and became an officer with the rank of
+sub-lieutenant, and entered on active service, attached to the
+draughting department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.
+
+A little more than a year later he resigned from the service, in order
+that he might devote himself wholly to literature. His father had died
+in the mean time, and had he possessed any practical talent he might
+have lived in comfort on the sums which his guardian sent him. But
+throughout his life people seemed to fleece him at will; he lost large
+sums at billiards with strangers, and otherwise; he was generous and
+careless; in short, he was to the end nearly always in debt, anxiety,
+and difficulties. Then came the first important crisis in his life. He
+wrote (or re-wrote) 'Poor People'; and said of his state of mind, as
+he reckoned up the possible pecuniary results, that he could not sleep
+for nights together, and "If my undertaking does not succeed, perhaps
+I shall hang myself." The history of that success is famous and
+stirring. His only acquaintance in literary circles was his old
+comrade D.V. Grigorovitch (also well known as a writer), and to him he
+committed the manuscript. His friend took it to the poet and editor
+Nekrasoff, in the hope that it might appear in the 'Collection' which
+the latter was intending to publish. Dostoevsky was especially afraid
+of the noted critic Byelinsky's judgment on it: "He will laugh at my
+'Poor People,'" said he; "but I wrote it with passion, almost with
+tears."
+
+He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the
+fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four
+o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early
+summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell rang,
+and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekrasoff, who flung themselves upon
+his neck. They had begun to read his story in the evening, remarking
+that "ten pages would suffice to show its quality." But they had gone
+on reading, relieving each other as their voices failed them with
+fatigue and emotion, until the whole was finished. At the point where
+Pokrovsky's old father runs after his coffin, Nekrasoff pounded the
+table with the manuscript, deeply affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take
+him!" Then they decide to hasten to Dostoevsky: "No matter if he is
+asleep--we will wake him up. _This_ is above sleep."
+
+This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed sort
+which Dostoevsky had longed for. When Nekrasoff went to Byelinsky with
+the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A new Gogol has made
+his appearance!" the critic retorted with severity, "Gogols spring up
+like mushrooms among us." But when he had read the story he said,
+"Bring him hither, bring him quickly;" and welcomed Dostoevsky when he
+came, with extreme dignity and reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do
+you understand yourself what sort of a thing this is that you have
+written?" From that moment the young author's fame was assured, and he
+became known and popular even in advance of publication in a wide
+circle of literary and other people, as was the fashion of those days
+in Russia. When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the
+judgment of the critics.
+
+The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dostoevsky
+was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence upon
+Dostoevsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Byelinsky
+was an atheist and a socialist, and Dostoevsky was brought into
+relations with persons who shared those views, although he himself
+never wavered, apparently, in his religious faith, and was never in
+harmony with any other aspirations of his associates except that of
+freeing the serfs. Notwithstanding this, he became involved in the
+catastrophe which overtook many visitors, occasional or constant, of
+the "circles" at whose head stood Petrashevsky. The whole affair is
+known as the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky. During the '40's the students
+at the St. Petersburg University formed small gatherings where
+sociological subjects were the objects of study, and read the works of
+Stein, Haxthausen, Louis Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon, and other similar
+writers. Gradually assemblies of this sort were formed outside of the
+University. Petrashevsky, an employee of the Department of Foreign
+Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and the University, and who
+was ambitious of winning power and a reputation for eccentricity,
+learned of these little clubs and encouraged their growth. He did not
+however encourage their close association among themselves, but
+rather, entire dependence on himself, as the centre of authority, the
+guide; and urged them to inaugurate a sort of propaganda. Dostoevsky
+himself declared, about thirty years later, that "the socialists
+sprang from the followers of Petrashevsky; they sowed much seed." He
+has dealt with them and their methods in his novel 'Demons'; though
+perhaps not with exact accuracy. But they helped him to an elucidation
+of the contemporary situation, which Turgenieff had treated in 'Virgin
+Soil.' The chief subject of their political discussions was the
+emancipation of the serfs, and many of Petrashevsky's followers
+reckoned upon a rising of the serfs themselves, though it was proved
+that Dostoevsky maintained the propriety and necessity of the reform
+proceeding from the government. This was no new topic; the Emperor
+Nicholas I. had already begun to plan the Emancipation, and it is
+probable that it would have taken place long before it did, had it not
+been for this very conspiracy. From the point of view of the
+government, the movement was naturally dangerous, especially in view
+of what was taking place in Europe at that epoch. Dostoevsky bore
+himself critically toward the socialistic writings and doctrines,
+maintaining that in their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds
+with reciprocal bonds there existed surer and more normal foundations
+than in all the dreams of Saint-Simon and all his school. He did not
+even visit very frequently the circle to which he particularly
+belonged, and was rarely at the house of Petrashevsky, whom many
+personally disliked.
+
+But on one occasion, as he was a good reader, he was asked to read
+aloud Byelinsky's famous letter to Gogol, which was regarded as a
+victorious manifest of "Western" (_i. e._, of socialistic) views.
+This, technically, was propagating revolution, and was the chief
+charge against him when the catastrophe happened, and he, together
+with over thirty other "Petrashevtzi," was arrested on April 23d (May
+5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was kept for
+eight months pending trial, Dostoevsky wrote 'The Little Hero,' two or
+three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor People.' At last
+he, with several others, was condemned to death and led out for
+execution. The history of that day, and the analysis of his sensations
+and emotions, are to be found in several of his books: 'Crime and
+Punishment,' 'The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Brothers.' At the last
+moment it was announced to them that the Emperor had commuted their
+sentence to exile in varying degrees, and they were taken to Siberia.
+Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three years of age, the man who sent
+Byelinsky's letter to Dostoevsky, was banished for a short term of
+years to the disciplinary brigade in Orenburg; and when I saw him in
+St. Petersburg forty years later, I was able to form a faint idea of
+what Dostoevsky's popularity must have been, by the way in which
+he,--a man of much less talent, originality, and personal power,--was
+surrounded, even in church, by adoring throngs of young people.
+Dostoevsky's sentence was "four years at forced labor in prison; after
+that, to serve as a common soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility
+and his civil rights, being the first noble to retain them under such
+circumstances.
+
+The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is to be
+found in his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' where, under the
+disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the murder of his
+wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some respects a
+consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own judgment as to
+his exile was, "The government only defended itself;" and when people
+said to him, "How unjust your exile was!" he replied, even with
+irritation, "No, it was just. The people themselves would have
+condemned us." Moreover, he did not like to give benefit readings in
+later years from his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' lest he might
+be thought to complain. Besides, this catastrophe was the making of
+him, by his own confession; he had become a confirmed hypochondriac,
+with a host of imaginary afflictions and ills, and had this affair not
+saved him from himself he said that he "should have gone mad." It
+seems certain, from the testimony of his friend and physician, that he
+was already subject to the epileptic fits which he himself was wont to
+attribute to his imprisonment; and which certainly increased in
+severity as the years went on, until they occurred once a month or
+oftener, in consequence of overwork and excessive nervous strain. In
+his novel 'The Idiot,' whose hero is an epileptic, he has made a
+psychological study of his sensations before and after such fits, and
+elsewhere he makes allusions to them.
+
+After serving in the ranks and being promoted officer when he had
+finished his term of imprisonment, he returned to Russia in 1859, and
+lived first at Tver; afterward, when permitted, in St. Petersburg. The
+history of his first marriage--which took place in Siberia, to the
+widow of a friend--is told with tolerable accuracy in his 'Humbled and
+Insulted,' which also contains a description of his early struggles
+and the composition of 'Poor People,' the hero who narrates the tale
+of his love and sacrifice being himself. Like that hero, he tried to
+facilitate his future wife's marriage to another man. He was married
+to his second wife, by whom he had four children, in 1867, and to her
+he owed much happiness and material comfort. It will be seen that much
+is to be learned concerning our author from his own novels, though it
+would hardly be safe to write a biography from them alone. Even in
+'Crime and Punishment,' his greatest work in a general way, he
+reproduces events of his own life, meditations, wonderfully accurate
+descriptions of the third-rate quarter of the town in which he lived
+after his return from Siberia, while engaged on some of his numerous
+newspaper and magazine enterprises.
+
+This journalistic turn of mind, combined in nearly equal measures with
+the literary talent, produced several singular effects. It rendered
+his periodical 'Diary of a Writer' the most enormously popular
+publication of the day, and a success when previous ventures had
+failed, though it consisted entirely of his own views on current
+topics of interest, literary questions, and whatever came into his
+head. On his novels it had a rather disintegrating effect. Most of
+them are of great length, are full of digressions from the point, and
+there is often a lack of finish about them which extends not only to
+the minor characters but to the style in general. In fact, his style
+is neither jewel-like in its brilliancy, as is Turgenieff's, nor has
+it the elegance, broken by carelessness, of Tolstoy's. But it was
+popular, remarkably well adapted to the class of society which it was
+his province to depict, and though diffuse, it is not possible to omit
+any of the long psychological analyses, or dreams, or series of
+ratiocinations, without injuring the web of the story and the moral,
+as chain armor is spoiled by the rupture of a link. This indeed is one
+of the great difficulties which the foreigner encounters in an
+attempt to study Dostoevsky: the translators have been daunted by his
+prolixity, and have often cut his works down to a mere skeleton of the
+original. Moreover, he deals with a sort of Russian society which it
+is hard for non-Russians to grasp, and he has no skill whatever in
+presenting aristocratic people or society, to which foreigners have
+become accustomed in the works of his great contemporaries Turgenieff
+and Tolstoy; while he never, despite all his genuine admiration for
+the peasants and keen sympathy with them, attempts any purely peasant
+tales like Turgenieff's 'Notes of a Sportsman' or Tolstoy's 'Tales for
+the People.' Naturally, this is but one reason the more why he should
+be studied. His types of hero, and of feminine character, are peculiar
+to himself. Perhaps the best way to arrive at his ideal--and at his
+own character, _plus_ a certain irritability and tendency to suspicion
+of which his friends speak--is to scrutinize the pictures of Prince
+Myshkin ('The Idiot'), Ivan ('Humbled and Insulted'), and Alyosha
+('The Karamazoff Brothers'). Pure, delicate both physically and
+morally, as Dostoevsky himself is described by those who knew him
+best; devout, gentle, intensely sympathetic, strongly masculine yet
+with a large admixture of the feminine element--such are these three;
+such is also, in his way, Raskolnikoff ('Crime and Punishment').
+His feminine characters are the precise counterparts of these in
+many respects, but are often also quixotic even to boldness and
+wrong-headedness, like Aglaya ('The Idiot'), or to shame, like Sonia
+('Crime and Punishment'), and the heroine of 'Humbled and Insulted.'
+But Dostoevsky could not sympathize with and consequently could not
+draw an aristocrat; his frequently recurring type of the dissolute
+petty noble or rich merchant is frequently brutal; and his unclassed
+women, though possibly quite as true to life as these men, are painful
+in their callousness and recklessness. His earliest work, 'Poor
+People,' written in the form of letters, is worthy of all the praises
+which have been bestowed upon it, simple as is the story of the
+poverty-stricken clerk who is almost too humble to draw his breath,
+who pleads that one must wear a coat and boots which do not show the
+bare feet, during the severe Russian winter, merely because public
+opinion forces one thereto; and who shares his rare pence with a
+distant but equally needy relative who is in a difficult position.
+As a compact, subtle psychological study, his 'Crime and Punishment'
+cannot be overrated, repulsive as it is in parts. The poor student who
+kills the aged usurer with intent to rob, after prolonged argument
+with himself that great geniuses, like Napoleon I. and the like, are
+justified in committing any crime, and that he has a right to relieve
+his poverty; and who eventually surrenders himself to the authorities
+and accepts his exile as moral salvation,--is one of the strongest in
+Russian literature, though wrong-headed and easily swayed, like all
+the author's characters.
+
+In June 1880 Dostoevsky made a speech at the unveiling of Pushkin's
+monument in Moscow, which completely overshadowed the speeches of
+Turgenieff and Aksakoff, and gave rise to what was probably the most
+extraordinary literary ovation ever seen in Russia. By that time he
+had become the object of pilgrimages, on the part of the young
+especially, to a degree which no other Russian author has ever
+experienced, and the recipient of confidences, both personal and
+written, which pressed heavily on his time and strength. That ovation
+has never been surpassed, save by the astonishing concourse at his
+funeral. He died of a lesion of the brain on January 28th (February
+8th), 1881. Thousands followed his coffin for miles, but there was no
+"demonstration," as that word is understood in Russia. Nevertheless it
+was a demonstration in an unexpected way, since all classes of
+society, even those which had not seemed closely interested or
+sympathetic, now joined in the tribute of respect, which amounted to
+loving enthusiasm.
+
+The works which I have mentioned are the most important, though he
+wrote also 'The Stripling' and numerous shorter stories. His own
+characterization of his work, when reproached with its occasional lack
+of continuity and finish, was that his aim was to make his point, and
+the exigencies of money and time under which he labored were to blame
+for the defects which, with his keen literary judgment, he perceived
+quite as clearly as did his critics. If that point be borne in mind,
+it will help the reader to appreciate his literary-journalistic style,
+and to pardon shortcomings for the sake of the pearls of principle and
+psychology which can be fished up from the profound depths of his
+voluminous tomes, and of his analysis. The gospel which Dostoevsky
+consistently preached, from the beginning of his career to the end,
+was love, self-sacrifice even to self-effacement. That was and is the
+secret of his power, even over those who did not follow his precepts.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Isabel F. Hapgood)]
+
+
+
+FROM 'POOR PEOPLE'
+
+LETTER FROM VARVARA DOBROSYELOFF TO MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN
+
+
+Pokrovsky was a poor, very poor young man; his health did not permit
+of his attending regularly to his studies, and so it was only by way
+of custom that we called him a student. He lived modestly, peaceably,
+quietly, so that we could not even hear him from our room. He was very
+queer in appearance; he walked so awkwardly, bowed so uncouthly, spoke
+in such a peculiar manner, that at first I could not look at him
+without laughing. Moreover, he was of an irritable character, was
+constantly getting angry, flew into a rage at the slightest trifle,
+shouted at us, complained of us, and often went off to his own room in
+a fit of wrath without finishing our lesson. He had a great many
+books, all of them expensive, rare books. He gave lessons somewhere
+else also, received some remuneration, and just as soon as he had a
+little money, he went off and bought more books.
+
+In time I learned to understand him better. He was the kindest, the
+most worthy man, the best man I ever met. My mother respected him
+highly. Later on, he became my best friend--after my mother, of
+course....
+
+From time to time a little old man made his appearance at our house--a
+dirty, badly dressed, small, gray-haired, sluggish, awkward old
+fellow; in short, he was peculiar to the last degree. At first sight
+one would have thought that he felt ashamed of something, that his
+conscience smote him for something. He writhed and twisted constantly;
+he had such tricks of manner and ways of shrugging his shoulders, that
+one would not have been far wrong in assuming that he was a little
+crazy. He would come and stand close to the glazed door in the
+vestibule, and not dare to enter. As soon as one of us, Sasha or I or
+one of the servants whom he knew to be kindly disposed toward him,
+passed that way, he would begin to wave his hands, and beckon us to
+him, and make signs; and only when we nodded to him or called to
+him,--the signal agreed upon, that there was no stranger in the house
+and that he might enter when he pleased,--only then would the old man
+softly open the door, with a joyous smile, rubbing his hands together
+with delight, and betake himself to Pokrovsky's room. He was his
+father.
+
+Afterward I learned in detail the story of this poor old man. Once
+upon a time he had been in the government service somewhere or other,
+but he had not the slightest capacity, and his place in the service
+was the lowest and most insignificant of all. When his first wife died
+(the mother of the student Pokrovsky), he took it into his head to
+marry again, and wedded a woman from the petty-merchant class. Under
+the rule of this new wife, everything was at sixes and sevens in his
+house; there was no living with her; she drew a tight rein over
+everybody. Student Pokrovsky was a boy at that time, ten years of age.
+His stepmother hated him. But fate was kind to little Pokrovsky.
+Bykoff, a landed proprietor, who was acquainted with Pokrovsky the
+father and had formerly been his benefactor, took the child under his
+protection and placed him in a school. He took an interest in him
+because he had known his dead mother, whom Anna Feodorovna had
+befriended while she was still a girl, and who had married her off to
+Pokrovsky. From school young Pokrovsky entered a gymnasium, and then
+the University, but his impaired health prevented his continuing his
+studies there. Mr. Bykoff introduced him to Anna Feodorovna,
+recommended him to her, and in this way young Pokrovsky had been taken
+into the house as a boarder, on condition that he should teach Sasha
+all that was necessary.
+
+But old Pokrovsky fell into the lowest dissipation through grief at
+his wife's harshness, and was almost always in a state of drunkenness.
+His wife beat him, drove him into the kitchen to live, and brought
+matters to such a point that at last he got used to being beaten and
+ill-treated, and made no complaint. He was still far from being an old
+man, but his evil habits had nearly destroyed his mind. The only sign
+in him of noble human sentiments was his boundless love for his son.
+It was said that young Pokrovsky was as like his dead mother as two
+drops of water to each other. The old man could talk of nothing but
+his son, and came to see him regularly twice a week. He dared not come
+more frequently, because young Pokrovsky could not endure his father's
+visits. Of all his failings, the first and greatest, without a doubt,
+was his lack of respect for his father. However, the old man certainly
+was at times the most intolerable creature in the world. In the first
+place he was dreadfully inquisitive; in the second, by his chatter and
+questions he interfered with his son's occupations; and lastly, he
+sometimes presented himself in a state of intoxication. The son broke
+the father, in a degree, of his faults,--of his inquisitiveness and
+his chattering; and ultimately brought about such a condition of
+affairs that the latter listened to all he said as to an oracle, and
+dared not open his mouth without his permission.
+
+There were no bounds to the old man's admiration of and delight in his
+Petinka, as he called his son. When he came to visit him he almost
+always wore a rather anxious, timid expression, probably on account of
+his uncertainty as to how his son would receive him, and generally
+could not make up his mind for a long time to go in; and if I happened
+to be present, he would question me for twenty minutes: How was
+Petinka? Was he well? In what mood was he, and was not he occupied in
+something important? What, precisely, was he doing? Was he writing, or
+engaged in meditation? When I had sufficiently encouraged and soothed
+him, the old man would at last make up his mind to enter, and would
+open the door very, very softly, very, very cautiously, and stick his
+head in first; and if he saw that his son was not angry, and nodded to
+him, he would step gently into the room, take off his little coat, and
+his hat, which was always crumpled, full of holes and with broken
+rims, and hang them on a hook, doing everything very softly, and
+inaudibly. Then he would seat himself cautiously on a chair and never
+take his eyes from his son, but would watch his every movement in his
+desire to divine the state of his Petinka's temper. If the son was not
+exactly in the right mood, and the old man detected it, he instantly
+rose from his seat and explained, "I only ran in for a minute,
+Petinka. I have been walking a good ways, and happened to be passing
+by, so I came in to rest myself." And then silently he took his poor
+little coat and his wretched little hat, opened the door again very
+softly, and went away, forcing a smile in order to suppress the grief
+which was seething up in his soul, and not betray it to his son.
+
+But when the son received his father well, the old man was beside
+himself with joy. His satisfaction shone forth in his face, in his
+gestures, in his movements. If his son addressed a remark to him, the
+old man always rose a little from his chair, and replied softly,
+cringingly, almost reverently, and always made an effort to employ the
+most select, that is to say, the most ridiculous expressions. But
+he had not the gift of language; he always became confused and
+frightened, so that he did not know what to do with his hands, or
+what to do with his person, and went on, for a long time afterward,
+whispering his answer to himself, as though desirous of recovering his
+composure. But if he succeeded in making a good answer, the old man
+gained courage, set his waistcoat to rights, and his cravat and his
+coat, and assumed an air of personal dignity. Sometimes his courage
+rose to such a point, his daring reached such a height, that he rose
+gently from his chair, went up to the shelf of books, took down a
+book. He did all this with an air of artificial indifference and
+coolness, as though he could always handle his son's books in this
+proprietary manner, as though his son's caresses were no rarity to
+him. But I once happened to witness the old man's fright when
+Pokrovsky asked him not to touch his books. He became confused,
+hurriedly replaced the book upside down, then tried to put it right,
+turned it round and set it wrong side to, leaves out, smiled,
+reddened, and did not know how to expiate his crime.
+
+One day old Pokrovsky came in to see us. He chatted with us for a long
+time, was unusually cheerful, alert, talkative; he laughed and joked
+after his fashion, and at last revealed the secret of his raptures,
+and announced to us that his Petinka's birthday fell precisely a week
+later, and that it was his intention to call upon his son, without
+fail, on that day; that he would don a new waistcoat, and that his
+wife had promised to buy him some new boots. In short, the old man was
+perfectly happy, and chattered about everything that came into his
+head.
+
+His birthday! That birthday gave me no peace, either day or night. I
+made up my mind faithfully to remind Pokrovsky of my friendship, and
+to make him a present. But what? At last I hit upon the idea of giving
+him some books. I knew that he wished to own the complete works of
+Pushkin, in the latest edition. I had thirty rubles of my own, earned
+by my handiwork. I had put this money aside for a new gown. I
+immediately sent old Matryona, our cook, to inquire the price of a
+complete set. Alas! The price of the eleven volumes, together with the
+expenses of binding, would be sixty rubles at the very least. I
+thought and thought, but could not tell what to do. I did not wish to
+ask my mother. Of course she would have helped me; but, in that case
+every one in the house would have known about our gift; moreover, the
+gift would have been converted into an expression of gratitude, a
+payment for Pokrovsky's labors for the whole year. My desire was to
+make the present privately, unknown to any one. And for his toilsome
+lessons to me I wished to remain forever indebted to him, without any
+payment whatever. At last I devised an escape from my predicament. I
+knew that one could often buy at half price from the old booksellers
+in the Gostinny Dvor, if one bargained well, little used and almost
+entirely new books. I made up my mind to go to the Gostinny Dvor
+myself. So it came about; the very next morning both Anna Feodorovna
+and we needed something. Mamma was not feeling well, and Anna
+Feodorovna, quite opportunely, had a fit of laziness, so all the
+errands were turned over to me, and I set out with Matryona.
+
+To my delight I soon found a Pushkin, and in a very handsome binding.
+I began to bargain for it. How I enjoyed it! But alas! My entire
+capital consisted of thirty rubles in paper, and the merchant would
+not consent to accept less than ten rubles in silver. At last I began
+to entreat him, and I begged and begged, until eventually he yielded.
+But he only took off two rubles and a half, and swore that he had done
+so only for my sake, because I was such a nice young lady, and that he
+would not have come down in his price for any one else. Two rubles and
+a half were still lacking! I was ready to cry with vexation. But the
+most unexpected circumstance came to my rescue in my grief. Not far
+from me, at another stall, I caught sight of old Pokrovsky. Four or
+five old booksellers were clustered about him; he had completely lost
+his wits, and they had thoroughly bewildered him. Each one was
+offering him his wares, and what stuff they were offering, and what
+all was he not ready to buy! I stepped up to him and asked him what he
+was doing there? The old man was very glad to see me; he loved me
+unboundedly,--no less than his Petinka, perhaps. "Why, I am buying a
+few little books, Varvara Alexievna," he replied; "I am buying some
+books for Petinka." I asked him if he had much money? "See here,"--and
+the poor old man took out all his money, which was wrapped up in a
+dirty scrap of newspaper; "here's a half-ruble, and a twenty-kopek
+piece, and twenty kopeks in copper coins." I immediately dragged him
+off to my bookseller. "Here are eleven books, which cost altogether
+thirty-two rubles and a half; I have thirty; put your two rubles and a
+half with mine, and we will buy all these books and give them to him
+in partnership." The old man was quite beside himself with joy, and
+the bookseller loaded him down with our common library.
+
+The next day the old man came to see his son, sat with him a little
+while, then came to us and sat down beside me with a very comical air
+of mystery. Every moment he grew more sad and uneasy; at last he could
+hold out no longer.
+
+"Listen, Varvara Alexievna," he began timidly, in a low voice: "do you
+know what, Varvara Alexievna?" The old man was dreadfully embarrassed.
+"You see, when his birthday comes, do you take ten of those little
+books and give them to him yourself, that is to say, from yourself, on
+your own behalf; then I will take the eleventh and give it from
+myself, for my share. So you see, you will have something to give, and
+I shall have something to give; we shall both have something to give."
+
+I was awfully sorry for the old man. I did not take long to think it
+over. The old man watched me anxiously. "Listen to me, Zakhar
+Petrovitch," I said: "do you give him all."--"How all? Do you mean all
+the books?"--"Yes, certainly, all the books."--"And from
+myself?"--"From yourself."--"From myself alone--that is, in my own
+name?"--"Yes, in your own name." I thought I was expressing myself
+with sufficient clearness, but the old man could not understand me for
+a long time.
+
+"You see," he explained to me at last, "I sometimes indulge myself,
+Varvara Alexievna,--that is to say, I wish to state to you that I
+nearly always indulge myself,--I do that which is not right,--that is,
+you know, when it is cold out of doors, and when various unpleasant
+things happen at times, or when I feel sad for any reason, or
+something bad happens,--then sometimes, I do not restrain myself, and
+I drink too much. This is very disagreeable to Petrushka, you see,
+Varvara Alexievna; he gets angry, and he scolds me and reads me moral
+lectures. So now I should like to show him by my gift that I have
+reformed, and am beginning to conduct myself well; that I have been
+saving up my money to buy a book, saving for a long time, because I
+hardly ever have any money, except when it happens that Petrushka
+gives me some now and then. He knows that. Consequently, he will see
+what use I have made of my money, and he will know that I have done
+this for his sake alone."...
+
+"Well, yes," he said, after thinking it over, "yes! That will be very
+fine, that would be very fine indeed,--only, what are you going to
+do, Varvara Alexievna?"--"Why, I shall not give anything."--"What!"
+cried the old man almost in terror; "so you will not give Petinka
+anything, so you do not wish to give him anything?" He was alarmed. At
+that moment it seemed as though he were ready to relinquish his own
+suggestions, so that I might have something to give his son. He was a
+kind-hearted old man! I explained that I would be glad to give
+something, only I did not wish to deprive him of the pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the festive day he made his appearance at precisely eleven o'clock,
+straight from the mass, in his dress coat, decently patched, and
+actually in a new waistcoat and new boots. We were all sitting in the
+hall with Anna Feodorovna, and drinking coffee (it was Sunday). The
+old man began, I believe, by saying that Pushkin was a good poet; then
+he lost the thread of his discourse and got confused, and suddenly
+jumped to the assertion that a man must behave well, and that if he
+does not behave himself well, then it simply means that he indulges
+himself; he even cited several terrible examples of intemperance, and
+wound up by stating that for some time past he had been entirely a
+reformed character, and that he now behaved with perfect propriety.
+That even earlier he had recognized the justice of his son's
+exhortations, and had treasured them all in his heart, and had
+actually begun to be sober. In proof of which he now presented these
+books, which had been purchased with money which he had been hoarding
+up for a long time.
+
+I could not refrain from tears and laughter, as I listened to the poor
+old fellow; he knew well how to lie when the occasion demanded! The
+books were taken to Pokrovsky's room and placed on the shelf.
+Pokrovsky immediately divined the truth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pokrovsky fell ill, two months after the events which I have described
+above. During those two months he had striven incessantly for the
+means of existence, for up to that time he had never had a settled
+position. Like all consumptives, he bade farewell only with his last
+breath to the hope of a very long life.... Anna Feodorovna herself
+made all the arrangements about the funeral. She bought the very
+plainest sort of a coffin, and hired a truckman. In order to repay
+herself for her expenditure, Anna Feodorovna took possession of all
+the dead man's books and effects. The old man wrangled with her,
+raised an uproar, snatched from her as many books as possible, stuffed
+all his pockets with them, thrust them into his hat and wherever he
+could, carried them about with him all the three days which preceded
+the funeral, and did not even part with them when the time came to go
+to the church. During all those days he was like a man stunned, who
+has lost his memory, and he kept fussing about near the coffin with a
+certain strange anxiety; now he adjusted the paper band upon the dead
+man's brow, now he lighted and snuffed the candles. It was evident
+that he could not fix his thoughts in orderly manner on anything.
+Neither my mother nor Anna Feodorovna went to the funeral services in
+the church. My mother was ill, but Anna Feodorovna quarreled with old
+Pokrovsky just as she was all ready to start, and so stayed away. The
+old man and I were the only persons present. A sort of fear came over
+me during the services--like the presentiment of something which was
+about to happen. I could hardly stand out the ceremony in church. At
+last they put the lid on the coffin and nailed it down, placed it on
+the cart and drove away. I accompanied it only to the end of the
+street. The truckman drove at a trot. The old man ran after the cart,
+weeping aloud; the sound of his crying was broken and shaken by his
+running. The poor man lost his hat and did not stop to pick it up. His
+head was wet with the rain; the sleet lashed and cut his face. The old
+man did not appear to feel the bad weather, but ran weeping from one
+side of the cart to the other. The skirts of his shabby old coat waved
+in the wind like wings. Books protruded from every one of his pockets;
+in his hands was a huge book, which he held tightly clutched. The
+passers-by removed their hats and made the sign of the cross. Some
+halted and stared in amazement at the poor old man. Every moment the
+books kept falling out of his pockets into the mud, People stopped
+him, and pointed out his losses to him; he picked them up, and set out
+again in pursuit of the coffin. At the corner of the street an old
+beggar woman joined herself to him to escort the coffin. At last the
+cart turned the corner, and disappeared from my eyes. I went home, I
+flung myself, in dreadful grief, on my mother's bosom.
+
+
+
+LETTER FROM MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN TO VARVARA ALEXIEVNA DOBROSYELOFF
+
+
+                                                    SEPTEMBER 9TH.
+
+_My dear Varvara Alexievna!_
+
+I am quite beside myself as I write this. I am utterly upset by a most
+terrible occurrence. My head is whirling. I feel as though everything
+were turning in dizzy circles round about me. Ah, my dearest, what a
+thing I have to tell you now! We had not even a presentiment of such a
+thing. No, I don't believe that I did not have a presentiment--I
+foresaw it all. My heart forewarned me of this whole thing! I even
+dreamed of something like it not long ago.
+
+This is what has happened! I will relate it to you without attempting
+fine style, and as the Lord shall put it into my soul. I went to the
+office to-day. When I arrived, I sat down and began to write. But you
+must know, my dear, that I wrote yesterday also. Well, yesterday
+Timofei Ivan'itch came to me, and was pleased to give me a personal
+order. "Here's a document that is much needed," says he, "and we're in
+a hurry for it. Copy it, Makar Alexievitch," says he, "as quickly and
+as neatly and carefully as possible: it must be handed in for
+signature to-day." I must explain to you, my angel, that I was not
+quite myself yesterday, and didn't wish to look at anything; such
+sadness and depression had fallen upon me! My heart was cold, my mind
+was dark; you filled all my memory, and incessantly, my poor darling.
+Well, so I set to work on the copy; I wrote clearly and well, only,--I
+don't know exactly how to describe it to you, whether the Evil One
+himself tangled me up, or whether it was decreed by some mysterious
+fate, or simply whether it was bound to happen so, but I omitted a
+whole line, and the sense was utterly ruined. The Lord only knows what
+sense there was--simply none whatever. They were late with the papers
+yesterday, so they only gave this document to his Excellency for
+signature this morning. To-day I presented myself at the usual hour,
+as though nothing at all were the matter, and set myself down
+alongside Emelyan Ivanovitch.
+
+I must tell you, my dear, that lately I have become twice as
+shamefaced as before, and more mortified. Of late I have ceased to
+look at any one. As soon as any one's chair squeaks, I am more dead
+than alive. So to-day I crept in, slipped humbly into my seat, and
+sat there all doubled up, so that Efim Akimovitch (he's the greatest
+tease in the world) remarked in such a way that all could hear him,
+"Why do you sit so like a y-y-y, Makar Alexievitch?" Then he made such
+a grimace that everybody round him and me split with laughter, and of
+course at my expense. They kept it up interminably! I drooped my ears
+and screwed up my eyes, and sat there motionless. That's my way; they
+stop the quicker. All at once I heard a noise, a running and a tumult;
+I heard--did my ears deceive me? They were calling for me, demanding
+me, summoning Dyevushkin. My heart quivered in my breast, and I didn't
+know myself what I feared, for nothing of the sort had ever happened
+to me in the whole course of my life. I was rooted to my chair,--as
+though nothing had occurred, as though it were not I. But then they
+began again, nearer at hand, and nearer still. And here they were,
+right in my very ear: "Dyevushkin! Dyevushkin!" they called; "where's
+Dyevushkin?" I raise my eyes, and there before me stands Evstafiy
+Ivanovitch; he says:--"Makar Alexievitch, hasten to his Excellency as
+quickly as possible! You've made a nice mess with that document!"
+
+That was all he said, but it was enough, wasn't it, my dear,--quite
+enough to say? I turned livid, and grew as cold as ice, and lost my
+senses; I started, and I simply didn't know whether I was alive or
+dead as I went. They led me through one room, and through another
+room, and through a third room, to the private office, and I presented
+myself! Positively, I cannot give you any account of what I was
+thinking about. I saw his Excellency standing there, with all of them
+around him. It appears that I did not make my salute; I forgot it
+completely. I was so scared that my lips trembled and my legs shook.
+And there was sufficient cause, my dear. In the first place, I was
+ashamed of myself; I glanced to the right, at a mirror, and what I
+beheld therein was enough to drive any man out of his senses. And in
+the second place, I have always behaved as though there were no place
+for me in the world. So that it is not likely that his Excellency was
+even aware of my existence. It is possible that he may have heard it
+cursorily mentioned that there was a person named Dyevushkin in the
+department, but he had never come into any closer relations.
+
+He began angrily, "What's the meaning of this, sir? What are you
+staring at? Here's an important paper, needed in haste, and you go
+and spoil it. And how did you come to permit such a thing?" Here his
+Excellency turned on Evstafiy Ivanovitch. I only listen, and the
+sounds of the words reach me: "It's gross carelessness. Heedlessness!
+You'll get yourself into trouble!" I tried to open my mouth for some
+purpose or other. I seemed to want to ask forgiveness, but I couldn't;
+to run away, but I didn't dare to make the attempt: and then--then, my
+dearest, something so dreadful happened that I can hardly hold my pen
+even now for the shame of it. My button--deuce take it--my button,
+which was hanging by a thread, suddenly broke loose, jumped off,
+skipped along (evidently I had struck it by accident), clattered and
+rolled away, the cursed thing, straight to his Excellency's feet, and
+that in the midst of universal silence. And that was the whole of my
+justification, all my excuse, all my answer, everything which I was
+preparing to say to his Excellency!
+
+The results were terrible! His Excellency immediately directed his
+attention to my figure and my costume. I remembered what I had seen in
+the mirror; I flew to catch the button! A fit of madness descended
+upon me! I bent down and tried to grasp the button, but it rolled and
+twisted, and I couldn't get hold of it, in short, and I also
+distinguished myself in the matter of dexterity. Then I felt my last
+strength fail me, and knew that all, all was lost! My whole reputation
+was lost, the whole man ruined! And then, without rhyme or reason,
+Teresa and Faldoni began to ring in both my ears. At last I succeeded
+in seizing the button, rose upright, drew myself up in proper salute,
+but like a fool, and stood calmly there with my hands lined down on
+the seams of my trousers! No, I didn't, though. I began to try to fit
+the button on the broken thread, just as though it would stick fast by
+that means; and moreover, I began to smile and went on smiling.
+
+At first his Excellency turned away; then he scrutinized me again, and
+I heard him say to Evstafiy Ivanovitch:--"How's this? See what a
+condition he is in! What a looking man! What's the matter with him?"
+Ah, my own dearest, think of that--"What a looking man!" and "What's
+the matter with him!"--"He has distinguished himself!" I heard
+Evstafiy say; "he has no bad marks, no bad marks on any score, and his
+conduct is exemplary; his salary is adequate, in accordance with the
+rates." "Well then, give him some sort of assistance," says his
+Excellency; "make him an advance on his salary."--"But he has had it,
+he has taken it already, for ever so long in advance. Probably
+circumstances have compelled him to do so; but his conduct is good,
+and he has received no reprimands, he has never been rebuked." My dear
+little angel, I turned hot and burned as though in the fires of the
+bad place! I was on the point of fainting. "Well," says his Excellency
+in a loud voice, "the document must be copied again as quickly as
+possible; come here, Dyevushkin, make a fresh copy without errors; and
+listen to me;" here his Excellency turned to the others and gave them
+divers orders, and sent them all away. As soon as they were all gone,
+his Excellency hastily took out his pocket-book, and from it drew a
+hundred-ruble bank-note. "Here," said he, "this is all I can afford,
+and I am happy to help to that extent; reckon it as you please, take
+it,"--and he thrust it into my hand. I trembled, my angel, my whole
+soul was in a flutter; I didn't know what was the matter with me; I
+tried to catch his hand and kiss it. But he turned very red in the
+face, my darling, and--I am not deviating from the truth by so much as
+a hair's-breadth--he took my unworthy hand, and shook it, indeed he
+did; he took it and shook it as though it were of equal rank with his
+own, as though it belonged to a General like himself. "Go," says he;
+"I am glad to do what I can. Make no mistakes, but now do it as well
+as you can."
+
+Now, my dear, this is what I have decided: I beg you and Feodor--and
+if I had children I would lay my commands upon them--to pray to God
+for him; though they should not pray for their own father, that they
+should pray daily and forever, for his Excellency! One thing more I
+will say, my dearest, and I say it solemnly,--heed me well, my
+dear,--I swear that, no matter in what degree I may be reduced to
+spiritual anguish in the cruel days of our adversity, as I look on you
+and your poverty, on myself, on my humiliation and incapacity,--in
+spite of all this, I swear to you that the hundred rubles are not so
+precious to me as the fact that his Excellency himself deigned to
+press my unworthy hand, the hand of a straw, a drunkard! Thereby he
+restored my self-respect. By that deed he brought to life again my
+spirit, he made my existence sweeter forevermore, and I am firmly
+convinced that, however sinful I may be in the sight of the Almighty,
+yet my prayer for the happiness and prosperity of his Excellency will
+reach his throne!
+
+My dearest, I am at present in the most terrible state of spiritual
+prostration, in a horribly overwrought condition. My heart beats as
+though it would burst out of my breast, and I seem to be weak all
+over. I send you forty-five rubles, paper money. I shall give twenty
+rubles to my landlady, and keep thirty-five for myself; with twenty I
+will get proper clothes, and the other fifteen will go for my living
+expenses. But just now all the impressions of this morning have shaken
+my whole being to the foundations. I am going to lie down for a bit.
+Nevertheless, I am calm, perfectly calm. Only, my soul aches, and down
+there, in the depths, my soul is trembling and throbbing and
+quivering. I shall go to see you; but just now I am simply intoxicated
+with all these emotions. God sees all, my dearest, my own darling, my
+precious one.
+
+                               Your worthy friend,
+                                                   MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN.
+
+                                     Translation of Isabel F. Hapgood.
+
+
+
+THE BIBLE READING
+
+From 'Crime and Punishment'
+
+
+Raskolnikoff went straight to the water-side, where Sonia was living.
+The three-storied house was an old building, painted green. The young
+man had some difficulty in finding the dvornik, and got from him vague
+information about the quarters of the tailor Kapernasumoff. After
+having discovered in a corner of the yard the foot of a steep and
+gloomy staircase, he ascended to the second floor, and followed the
+gallery facing the court-yard. Whilst groping in the dark, and asking
+himself how Kapernasumoff's lodgings could be reached, a door opened
+close to him; he seized it mechanically.
+
+"Who is there?" asked a timid female voice.
+
+"It is I. I am coming to see you," replied Raskolnikoff, on entering a
+small ante-room. There on a wretched table stood a candle, fixed in a
+candlestick of twisted metal.
+
+"Is that you? Good heavens!" feebly replied Sonia, who seemed not to
+have strength enough to move from the spot.
+
+"Where do you live? Is it here?" And Raskolnikoff passed quickly into
+the room, trying not to look the girl in the face.
+
+A moment afterwards Sonia rejoined him with the candle, and remained
+stock still before him, a prey to an indescribable agitation. This
+unexpected visit had upset her--nay, even frightened her. All of a
+sudden her pale face colored up, and tears came into her eyes. She
+experienced extreme confusion, united with a certain gentle feeling.
+Raskolnikoff turned aside with a rapid movement and sat down on a
+chair, close to the table. In the twinkling of an eye he took stock of
+everything in the room.
+
+This room was large, with a very low ceiling, and was the only one let
+out by the Kapernasumoffs; in the wall, on the left-hand side, was a
+door giving access to theirs. On the opposite side, in the wall on the
+right, there was another door, which was always locked. That was
+another lodging, having another number. Sonia's room was more like an
+out-house, of irregular rectangular shape, which gave it an uncommon
+character. The wall, with its three windows facing the canal, cut it
+obliquely, forming thus an extremely acute angle, in the back portion
+of which nothing could be seen, considering the feeble light of the
+candle. On the other hand, the other angle was an extremely obtuse
+one. This large room contained scarcely any furniture. In the
+right-hand corner was the bed; between the bed and the door, a chair;
+on the same side, facing the door of the next set, stood a deal table,
+covered with a blue cloth; close to the table were two rush chairs.
+Against the opposite wall, near the acute angle, was placed a small
+chest of drawers of unvarnished wood, which seemed out of place in
+this vacant spot. This was the whole of the furniture. The yellowish
+and worn paper had everywhere assumed a darkish color, probably the
+effect of the damp and coal smoke. Everything in the place denoted
+poverty. Even the bed had no curtains. Sonia silently considered the
+visitor, who examined her room so attentively and so unceremoniously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Her lot is fixed," thought he,--"a watery grave, the mad-house, or a
+brutish existence!" This latter contingency was especially repellent
+to him, but skeptic as he was, he could not help believing it a
+possibility. "Is it possible that such is really the case?" he asked
+himself. "Is it possible that this creature, who still retains a pure
+mind, should end by becoming deliberately mire-like? Has she not
+already become familiar with it, and if up to the present she has been
+able to bear with such a life, has it not been so because vice has
+already lost its hideousness in her eyes? Impossible again!" cried he,
+on his part, in the same way as Sonia had cried a moment ago. "No,
+that which up to the present has prevented her from throwing herself
+into the canal has been the fear of sin and its punishment. May she
+not be mad after all? Who says she is not so? Is she in full
+possession of all her faculties? Is it possible to speak as she does?
+Do people of sound judgment reason as she reasons? Can people
+anticipate future destruction with such tranquillity, turning a deaf
+ear to warnings and forebodings? Does she expect a miracle? It must be
+so. And does not all this seem like signs of mental derangement?"
+
+To this idea he clung obstinately. Sonia mad! Such a prospect
+displeased him less than the other ones. Once more he examined the
+girl attentively. "And you--you often pray to God, Sonia?" he asked
+her.
+
+No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply. "What could I
+be, what should I be without God?" cried she in a low-toned but
+energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolnikoff a rapid glance of
+her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand.
+
+"Come, I was not mistaken!" he muttered to himself.--"And what does
+God do for you?" asked he, anxious to clear his doubts yet more.
+
+For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of reply.
+Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay! Do not question me! You have no
+such right!" exclaimed she, all of a sudden, with looks of anger.
+
+"I expected as much!" was the man's thought.
+
+"God does everything for me!" murmured the girl rapidly, and her eyes
+sank.
+
+"At last I have the explanation!" he finished mentally, whilst eagerly
+looking at her.
+
+He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on watching
+this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft eyes which
+could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such passion; in a
+word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indignation and anger,
+struck him as weird,--nay, almost fantastic. "Mad! she must be mad!"
+he muttered once more. A book was lying on the chest of drawers.
+Raskolnikoff had noticed it more than once whilst moving about the
+room. He took it and examined it. It was a Russian translation of the
+Gospels, a well-thumbed leather-bound book.
+
+"Where does that come from?" asked he of Sonia, from the other end of
+the room.
+
+The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the table.
+"It was lent me," replied Sonia, somewhat loth, without looking at
+Raskolnikoff.
+
+"Who lent it you?"
+
+"Elizabeth--I asked her to!"
+
+"Elizabeth. How strange!" he thought. Everything with Sonia assumed to
+his mind an increasingly extraordinary aspect. He took the book to the
+light, and turned it over. "Where is mention made of Lazarus?" asked
+he abruptly.
+
+Sonia, looking hard on the ground, preserved silence, whilst moving
+somewhat from the table.
+
+"Where is mention made of the resurrection of Lazarus? Find me the
+passage, Sonia."
+
+The latter looked askance at her interlocutor. "That is not the
+place--it is the Fourth Gospel," said she dryly, without moving from
+the spot.
+
+"Find me the passage and read it out!" he repeated, and sitting down
+again rested his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, and
+glancing sideways with gloomy look, prepared to listen.
+
+Sonia at first hesitated to draw nearer to the table. The singular
+wish uttered by Raskolnikoff scarcely seemed sincere. Nevertheless she
+took the book. "Have you ever read the passage?" she asked him,
+looking at him from out the corners of her eyes. Her voice was getting
+harder and harder.
+
+"Once upon a time. In my childhood. Read!"
+
+"Have you never heard it in church?"
+
+"I--I never go there. Do you go often yourself?"
+
+"No," stammered Sonia.
+
+Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go tomorrow to
+your father's funeral service?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a requiem mass."
+
+"Whose was that?"
+
+"Elizabeth's. She was assassinated by means of an axe."
+
+Raskolnikoff's nervous system became more and more irritated. He was
+getting giddy. "Were you friends with her?"
+
+"Yes. She was straightforward. She used to come and see me--but not
+often. She was not able. We used to read and chat. She sees God."
+
+Raskolnikoff became thoughtful. "What," asked he himself, "could be
+the meaning of the mysterious interviews of two such idiots as Sonia
+and Elizabeth? Why, I should go mad here myself!" thought he. "Madness
+seems to be in the atmosphere of the place!--Read!" he cried all of a
+sudden, irritably.
+
+Sonia kept hesitating. Her heart beat loud. She seemed afraid to read.
+He considered "this poor demented creature" with an almost sad
+expression. "How can that interest you, since you do not believe?" she
+muttered in a choking voice.
+
+"Read! I insist upon it! Used you not to read to Elizabeth?"
+
+Sonia opened the book and looked for the passage. Her hands trembled.
+The words stuck in her throat. Twice did she try to read without being
+able to utter the first syllable.
+
+"Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany," she read, at
+last, with an effort; but suddenly, at the third word, her voice grew
+wheezy, and gave way like an overstretched chord. Breath was deficient
+in her oppressed bosom. Raskolnikoff partly explained to himself
+Sonia's hesitation to obey him; and in proportion as he understood her
+better, he insisted still more imperiously on her reading. He felt
+what it must cost the girl to lay bare to him, to some extent, her
+heart of hearts. She evidently could not, without difficulty, make up
+her mind to confide to a stranger the sentiments which probably since
+her teens had been her support, her _viaticum_--when, what with a
+sottish father and a stepmother demented by misfortune, to say nothing
+of starving children, she heard nothing but reproach and offensive
+clamor. He saw all this, but he likewise saw that notwithstanding this
+repugnance, she was most anxious to read,--to read to him, and that
+now,--let the consequences be what they may! The girl's look, the
+agitation to which she was a prey, told him as much, and by a violent
+effort over herself Sonia conquered the spasm which parched her
+throat, and continued to read the eleventh chapter of the Gospel
+according to St. John. She thus reached the nineteenth verse:--
+
+     "And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort
+     them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she
+     heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat
+     still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if
+     thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know
+     that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will
+     give it thee."
+
+Here she paused, to overcome the emotion which once more caused her
+voice to tremble.
+
+     "Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha
+     saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the
+     resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the
+     Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in me, though
+     he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and
+     believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She
+     saith unto  him,"--
+
+and although she had difficulty in breathing, Sonia raised her voice,
+as if in reading the words of Martha she was making her own confession
+of faith:--
+
+     "Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of
+     God, which should come into the world."
+
+She stopped, raised her eyes rapidly on him, but cast them down on her
+book, and continued to read. Raskolnikoff listened without stirring,
+without turning toward her, his elbows resting on the table, looking
+aside. Thus the reading continued till the thirty-second verse.
+
+     "Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she
+     fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst
+     been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw
+     her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her,
+     he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, Where
+     have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
+     Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him. And
+     some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes
+     of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have
+     died?"
+
+Raskolnikoff turned towards her and looked at her with agitation. His
+suspicion was a correct one. She was trembling in all her limbs, a
+prey to fever. He had expected this. She was getting to the miraculous
+story, and a feeling of triumph was taking possession of her. Her
+voice, strengthened by joy, had a metallic ring. The lines became
+misty to her troubled eyes, but fortunately she knew the passage by
+heart. At the last line, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of
+the blind--" she lowered her voice, emphasizing passionately the
+doubt, the blame, the reproach of these unbelieving and blind Jews,
+who a moment after fell as if struck by lightning on their knees, to
+sob and to believe. "Yes," thought she, deeply affected by this
+joyful hope, "yes, he--he who is blind, who dares not believe--he also
+will hear--will believe in an instant, immediately, now, this very
+moment!"
+
+     "Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the
+     grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said,
+     Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was
+     dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he
+     hath been dead four days."
+
+She strongly emphasized the word _four_.
+
+     "Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that if thou
+     wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? Then
+     they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
+     laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I
+     thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou
+     hearest me always; but because of the people which stand by
+     I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And
+     when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice,
+     Lazarus, come forth. _And he that was dead came  forth,_"--
+
+(on reading these words Sonia shuddered, as if she herself had been
+witness to the miracle)
+
+     "bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was
+     bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him,
+     and let him go. _Then many of the Jews which came to Mary,
+     and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him._"
+
+She read no more,--such a thing would have been impossible to
+her,--closed the book, and briskly rising, said in a low-toned and
+choking voice, without turning toward the man she was talking to, "So
+much for the resurrection of Lazarus." She seemed afraid to raise her
+eyes on Raskolnikoff, whilst her feverish trembling continued. The
+dying piece of candle dimly lit up this low-ceiled room, in which an
+assassin and a harlot had just read the Book of books.
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD DOWDEN
+
+(1843-)
+
+
+"We are all hunters, skillful or skilless, in literature--hunters for
+our spiritual good or for our pleasure," says Edward Dowden; and to
+his earnest research and careful exposition many readers owe a more
+thorough appreciation of literature. He was educated at Queen's
+College, Cork (his birthplace), and then at Trinity College, Dublin,
+where he received the Vice-Chancellor's prize in both English verse
+and English prose, and also the first English Moderatorship in logic
+and ethics. For two years he studied divinity. Then he obtained by
+examination a professorship of oratory at the University of Dublin,
+where he was afterwards elected professor of English literature. The
+scholarship of his literary work has won him many honors. In 1888 he
+was chosen president of the English Goethe Society, to succeed
+Professor Mueller. The following year he was appointed first Taylorian
+lecturer in the Taylor Institute, Oxford. The Royal Irish Academy has
+bestowed the Cunningham gold medal upon him, and he has also received
+the honorary degree LL. D. of the University of Edinburgh, and from
+Princeton University.
+
+Very early in life Professor Dowden began to express his feeling for
+literature, and the instinct which leads him to account for a work by
+study of its author's personality. For more than twenty years English
+readers have known him as a frequent contributor of critical essays to
+the leading reviews. These have been collected into the delightful
+volumes 'Studies in Literature' and 'Transcripts and Studies.' His has
+been called "an honest method, wholesome as sweet." He would offer
+more than a mere resume of what his author expresses. He would be one
+of the interpreters and transmitters of new forms of thought to the
+masses of readers who lack time or ability to discover values for
+themselves. Very widely read himself, he is fitted for just
+comparisons and comprehensive views. As has been pointed out, he is
+fond of working from a general consideration of a period with its
+formative influences, to the particular care of the author with whom
+he is dealing. Saintsbury tells us that Mr. Dowden's procedure is to
+ask his author a series of questions which seem to him of vital
+importance, and find out how he would answer them.
+
+Dowden's style is careful, clear, and thorough, showing his
+scholarship and incisive thought. His form of expression is strongly
+picturesque. It is nowhere more so than in 'Shakespeare: a Study of
+His Mind and Art.' This, his most noteworthy work, has been very
+widely read and admired. His intimate acquaintance with German
+criticism upon the great Elizabethan especially fitted him to present
+fresh considerations to the public.
+
+He has also written a brilliant 'Life of Shelley' (bitterly criticized
+by Mark Twain in the North American Review, 'A Defense of Harriet
+Shelley'), and a 'Life of Southey' in the English Men of Letters
+Series; and edited most capably 'Southey's Correspondence with
+Caroline Bowles,' 'The Correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor,'
+'Shakespeare's Sonnets,' 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' and a collection
+of 'Lyrical Ballads.'
+
+
+
+THE HUMOR OF SHAKESPEARE
+
+From 'Shakespeare: a Critical Study of His Mind and Art'
+
+
+A study of Shakespeare which fails to take account of Shakespeare's
+humor must remain essentially incomplete. The character and spiritual
+history of a man who is endowed with a capacity for humorous
+appreciation of the world must differ throughout, and in every
+particular, from that of the man whose moral nature has never rippled
+over with genial laughter. At whatever final issue Shakespeare arrived
+after long spiritual travail as to the attainment of his life, that
+precise issue, rather than another, was arrived at in part by virtue
+of the fact of Shakespeare's humor. In the composition of forces which
+determined the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, this must be
+allowed for as a force among others, in importance not the least, and
+efficient at all times even when little apparent. A man whose visage
+"holds one stern intent" from day to day, and whose joy becomes at
+times almost a supernatural rapture, may descend through circles of
+hell to the narrowest and the lowest; he may mount from sphere to
+sphere of Paradise until he stands within the light of the Divine
+Majesty; but he will hardly succeed in presenting us with an adequate
+image of life as it is on this earth of ours, in its oceanic amplitude
+and variety. A few men of genius there have been, who with vision
+penetrative as lightning have gazed as it were _through_ life, at some
+eternal significances of which life is the symbol. Intent upon its
+sacred meaning, they have had no eye to note the forms of the
+grotesque hieroglyph of human existence. Such men are not framed for
+laughter. To this little group the creator of Falstaff, of Bottom, and
+of Touchstone does not belong.
+
+Shakespeare, who saw life more widely and wisely than any other of the
+seers, could laugh. That is a comfortable fact to bear in mind; a fact
+which serves to rescue us from the domination of intense and narrow
+natures, who claim authority by virtue of their grasp of one-half of
+the realities of our existence and their denial of the rest.
+Shakespeare could laugh. But we must go on to ask, "What did he laugh
+at? and what was the manner of his laughter?" There are as many modes
+of laughter as there are facets of the common soul of humanity, to
+reflect the humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, in one of his
+pieces of coarse yet subtile engraving, has presented a group of
+occupants of the pit of a theatre, sketched during the performance of
+some broad comedy or farce. What proceeds upon the stage is invisible
+and undiscoverable, save as we catch its reflection on the faces of
+the spectators, in the same way that we infer a sunset from the
+evening flame upon windows that front the west. Each laughing face in
+Hogarth's print exhibits a different mode or a different stage of the
+risible paroxysm. There is the habitual enjoyer of the broad comic,
+abandoned to his mirth, which is open and unashamed; mirth which he is
+evidently a match for, and able to sustain. By his side is a companion
+female portrait--a woman with head thrown back to ease the violence of
+the guffaw; all her loose redundant flesh is tickled into an orgasm of
+merriment; she is fairly overcome. On the other side sits the
+spectator who has passed the climax of his laughter; he wipes the
+tears from his eyes, and is on the way to regain an insecure and
+temporary composure. Below appears a girl of eighteen or twenty, whose
+vacancy of intellect is captured and occupied by the innocuous folly
+still in progress; she gazes on expectantly, assured that a new
+blossom of the wonder of absurdity is about to display itself. Her
+father, a man who does not often surrender himself to an indecent
+convulsion, leans his face upon his hand, and with the other steadies
+himself by grasping one of the iron spikes that inclose the orchestra.
+In the right corner sits the humorist, whose eyes, around which the
+wrinkles gather, are half closed, while he already goes over the jest
+a second time in his imagination. At the opposite side an elderly
+woman is seen, past the period when animal violences are possible,
+laughing because she knows there is something to laugh at, though she
+is too dull-witted to know precisely what. One spectator, as we guess
+from his introverted air, is laughing to think what somebody else
+would think of this. Finally, the thin-lipped, perk-nosed person of
+refinement looks aside, and by his critical indifference condemns the
+broad, injudicious mirth of the company.
+
+All these laughers of Hogarth are very commonplace, and some are very
+vulgar persons; one trivial, ludicrous spectacle is the occasion of
+their mirth. When from such laughter as this we turn to the laughter
+of men of genius, who gaze at the total play of the world's life; and
+when we listen to this, as with the ages it goes on gathering and
+swelling, our sense of hearing is enveloped and almost annihilated by
+the chorus of mock and jest, of antic and buffoonery, of tender mirth
+and indignant satire, of monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of
+desperate misanthropic derision and genial affectionate caressing of
+human imperfection and human folly. We hear from behind the mask the
+enormous laughter of Aristophanes, ascending peal above peal until it
+passes into jubilant ecstasy, or from the uproar springs some
+exquisite lyric strain. We hear laughter of passionate indignation
+from Juvenal, the indignation of "the ancient and free soul of the
+dead republics." And there is Rabelais, with his huge buffoonery, and
+the earnest eyes intent on freedom, which look out at us in the midst
+of the zany's tumblings and indecencies. And Cervantes, with his
+refined Castilian air and deep melancholy mirth, at odds with the
+enthusiasm which is dearest to his soul. And Moliere, with his
+laughter of unerring good sense, undeluded by fashion or vanity or
+folly or hypocrisy, and brightly mocking these into modesty. And
+Milton, with his fierce objurgatory laughter,--Elijah-like insult
+against the enemies of freedom and of England. And Voltaire, with his
+quick intellectual scorn and eager malice of the brain. And there is
+the urbane and amiable play of Addison's invention, not capable of
+large achievement, but stirring the corners of the mouth with a humane
+smile,--gracious gayety for the breakfast-tables of England. And
+Fielding's careless mastery of the whole broad common field of mirth.
+And Sterne's exquisite curiosity of oddness, his subtile extravagances
+and humors prepense. And there is the tragic laughter of Swift, which
+announces the extinction of reason, and loss beyond recovery of human
+faith and charity and hope. How in this chorus of laughters, joyous
+and terrible, is the laughter of Shakespeare distinguishable?
+
+In the first place, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total genius,
+is many-sided. He does not pledge himself as dramatist to any one view
+of human life. If we open a novel by Charles Dickens, we feel assured
+beforehand that we are condemned to an exuberance of philanthropy; we
+know how the writer will insist that we must all be good friends, all
+be men and brothers, intoxicated with the delight of one another's
+presence; we expect him to hold out the right hand of fellowship to
+man, woman, and child; we are prepared for the bacchanalia of
+benevolence. The lesson we have to learn from this teacher is, that
+with the exception of a few inevitable and incredible monsters of
+cruelty, every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam is of
+his own nature inclined to every amiable virtue, Shakespeare abounds
+in kindly mirth: he receives an exquisite pleasure from the alert wit
+and bright good sense of a Rosalind; he can dandle a fool as tenderly
+as any nurse qualified to take a baby from the birth can deal with her
+charge. But Shakespeare is not pledged to deep-dyed ultra-amiability.
+With Jacques, he can rail at the world while remaining curiously aloof
+from all deep concern about its interests, this way or that. With
+Timon he can turn upon the world with a rage no less than that of
+Swift, and discover in man and woman a creature as abominable as the
+Yahoo. In other words, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total
+genius, is dramatic.
+
+Then again, although Shakespeare laughs incomparably, mere laughter
+wearies him. The only play of Shakespeare's, out of nearly forty,
+which is farcical,--'The Comedy of Errors,'--was written in the poet's
+earliest period of authorship, and was formed upon the suggestion of a
+preceding piece. It has been observed with truth by Gervinus that the
+farcical incidents of this play have been connected by Shakespeare
+with a tragic background, which is probably his own invention. With
+beauty, or with pathos, or with thought, Shakespeare can mingle his
+mirth; and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with play of wit or
+humorous characterization; but an entirely comic subject somewhat
+disconcerts the poet. On this ground, if no other were forthcoming, it
+might be suspected that 'The Taming of the Shrew' was not altogether
+the work of Shakespeare's hand. The secondary intrigues and minor
+incidents were of little interest to the poet. But in the buoyant
+force of Petruchio's character, in his subduing tempest of high
+spirits, and in the person of the foiled revoltress against the law of
+sex, who carries into her wifely loyalty the same energy which she had
+shown in her virgin _sauvagerie_, there were elements of human
+character in which the imagination of the poet took delight.
+
+Unless it be its own excess, however, Shakespeare's laughter seems to
+fear nothing. It does not, when it has once arrived at its full
+development, fear enthusiasm, or passion, or tragic intensity; nor do
+these fear it. The traditions of the English drama had favored the
+juxtaposition of the serious and comic: but it was reserved for
+Shakespeare to make each a part of the other; to interpenetrate
+tragedy with comedy, and comedy with tragic earnestness.
+
+
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAITURE OF WOMEN
+
+From 'Transcripts and Studies'
+
+
+Of all the daughters of his imagination, which did Shakespeare love
+the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we say one of the latest born of
+them all,--our English Imogen. And what most clearly shows us how
+Shakespeare loved Imogen is this--he has given her faults, and has
+made them exquisite, so that we love her better for their sake. No one
+has so quick and keen a sensibility to whatever pains and to whatever
+gladdens as she. To her a word is a blow; and as she is quick in her
+sensibility, so she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at once
+through the Queen's false show of friendship; quick in her contempt
+for what is unworthy, as for all professions of love from the
+clown-prince, Cloten; quick in her resentment, as when she discovers
+the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. Wronged she is indeed by her
+husband, but in her haste she too grows unjust; yet she is dearer to
+us for the sake of this injustice, proceeding as it does from the
+sensitiveness of her love. It is she, to whom a word is a blow, who
+actually receives a buffet from her husband's hand; but for Imogen it
+is a blessed stroke, since it is the evidence of his loyalty and zeal
+on her behalf. In a moment he is forgiven, and her arms are round his
+neck.
+
+Shakespeare made so many perfect women unhappy that he owed us some
+_amende_. And he has made that _amende_ by letting us see one perfect
+woman supremely happy. Shall our last glance at Shakespeare's plays
+show us Florizel at the rustic merry-making, receiving blossoms from
+the hands of Perdita? or Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess in
+Prospero's cave, and winning one a king and one a queen, while the
+happy fathers gaze in from the entrance of the cave? We can see a more
+delightful sight than these--Imogen with her arms around the neck of
+Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joy by the playful
+challenge and mock reproach--
+
+  "Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
+  Think that you are upon a rock, and now
+  Throw me again;"
+
+and he responds--
+
+                "Hang there like a fruit, my soul,
+  Till the tree die."
+
+We shall find in all Shakespeare no more blissful creatures than these
+two.
+
+
+
+THE INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE
+
+From 'Transcripts and Studies'
+
+
+The happiest moment in a critic's hours of study is when, seemingly by
+some divination, but really as the result of patient observation and
+thought, he lights upon the central motive of a great work. Then, of a
+sudden, order begins to form itself from the crowd and chaos of his
+impressions and ideas. There is a moving hither and thither, a
+grouping or coordinating of all his recent experiences, which goes on
+of its own accord; and every instant his vision becomes clearer, and
+new meanings disclose themselves in what had been lifeless and
+unilluminated. It seems as if he could even stand by the artist's side
+and co-operate with him in the process of creating. With such a sense
+of joy upon him, the critic will think it no hard task to follow the
+artist to the sources from whence he drew his material,--it may be
+some dull chapter in an ancient chronicle, or some gross tale of
+passion by an Italian novelist,--and he will stand by and watch with
+exquisite pleasure the artist handling that crude material, and
+refashioning and refining it, and breathing into it the breath of a
+higher life. Even the minutest difference of text between an author's
+earlier and later draft, or a first and second edition, has now become
+a point not for dull commentatorship, but a point of life, at which he
+may touch with his finger the pulse of the creator in his fervor of
+creation.
+
+From each single work of a great author we advance to his total work,
+and thence to the man himself,--to the heart and brain from which all
+this manifold world of wisdom and wit and passion and beauty has
+proceeded. Here again, before we address ourselves to the
+interpretation of the author's mind, we patiently submit ourselves to
+a vast series of impressions. And in accordance with Bacon's maxim
+that a prudent interrogation is the half of knowledge, it is right to
+provide ourselves with a number of well-considered questions which we
+may address to our author. Let us cross-examine him as students of
+mental and moral science, and find replies in his written words. Are
+his senses vigorous and fine? Does he see color as well as form? Does
+he delight in all that appeals to the sense of hearing--the voices of
+nature, and the melody and harmonies of the art of man? Thus
+Wordsworth, exquisitely organized for enjoying and interpreting all
+natural, and if we may so say, homeless and primitive sounds, had but
+little feeling for the delights of music. Can he enrich his poetry by
+gifts from the sense of smell, as did Keats; or is his nose like
+Wordsworth's, an idle promontory projecting into a desert air? Has he
+like Browning a vigorous pleasure in all strenuous muscular movements;
+or does he like Shelley live rapturously in the finest nervous
+thrills? How does he experience and interpret the feeling of sex, and
+in what parts of his entire nature does that feeling find its
+elevating connections and associations? What are his special
+intellectual powers? Is his intellect combative or contemplative? What
+are the laws which chiefly preside over the associations of his ideas?
+What are the emotions which he feels most strongly? and how do his
+emotions coalesce with one another? Wonder, terror, awe, love, grief,
+hope, despondency, the benevolent affections, admiration, the
+religious sentiment, the moral sentiment, the emotion of power,
+irascible emotion, ideal emotion--how do these make themselves felt in
+and through his writings? What is his feeling for the beautiful, the
+sublime, the ludicrous? Is he of weak or vigorous will? In the
+conflict of motives, which class of motives with him is likely to
+predominate? Is he framed to believe or framed to doubt? Is he
+prudent, just, temperate, or the reverse of these? These and
+such-like questions are not to be crudely and formally proposed, but
+are to be used with tact; nor should the critic press for hard and
+definite answers, but know how skillfully to glean its meaning from an
+evasion. He is a dull cross-examiner who will invariably follow the
+scheme which he has thought out and prepared beforehand, and who
+cannot vary his questions to surprise or beguile the truth from an
+unwilling witness. But the tact which comes from natural gift and from
+experience may be well supported by something of method,--method well
+hidden away from the surface and from sight.
+
+This may be termed the psychological method of study. But we may also
+follow a more objective method. Taking the chief themes with which
+literature and art are conversant--God, external nature, humanity--we
+may inquire how our author has dealt with each of these. What is his
+theology, or his philosophy of the universe? By which we mean no
+abstract creed or doctrine, but the tides and currents of feeling and
+of faith, as well as the tendencies and conclusions of the intellect.
+Under what aspect has this goodly frame of things, in whose midst we
+are, revealed itself to him? How has he regarded and interpreted the
+life of man? Under each of these great themes a multitude of
+subordinate topics are included. And alike in this and in what we have
+termed the psychological method of study, we shall gain double results
+if we examine a writer's works in the order of their chronology, and
+thus become acquainted with the growth and development of his powers,
+and the widening and deepening of his relations with man, with
+external nature, and with that Supreme Power, unknown yet well known,
+of which nature and man are the manifestation. As to the study of an
+artist's technical qualities, this, by virtue of the fact that he is
+an artist, is of capital importance; and it may often be associated
+with the study of that which his technique is employed to express and
+render--the characteristics of his mind, and of the vision which he
+has attained of the external universe, of humanity, and of God. Of all
+our study, the last end and aim should be to ascertain how a great
+writer or artist has served the life of man; to ascertain this, to
+bring home to ourselves as large a portion as may be of the gain
+wherewith he has enriched human life, and to render access to that
+store of wisdom, passion, and power, easier and surer for others.
+
+
+
+
+A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+(1859-)
+
+[Illustration: A. CONAN DOYLE]
+
+
+The author of 'The White Company,' 'The Great Shadow,' and 'Micah
+Clarke' has been heard to lament the fact that his introduction to
+American readers came chiefly through the good offices of his
+accomplished friend "Sherlock Holmes." Dr. Doyle would prefer to be
+judged by his more serious and laborious work, as it appears in his
+historic romances. But he has found it useless to protest. 'The
+Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' delighted a public which enjoys
+incident, mystery, and above all that matching of the wits of a clever
+man against the dumb resistance of the secrecy of inanimate things,
+which results in the triumph of the human intelligence. Moreover, in
+Sherlock Holmes himself the reader perceived a new character in
+fiction. The inventors of the French detective story,--that ingenious
+Chinese puzzle of literature,--have no such wizard as he to show. Even
+Poe, past master of mystery-making, is more or less empirical in his
+methods of mystery-solving.
+
+But Sherlock Holmes is a true product of his time. He is an embodiment
+of the scientific spirit seeing microscopically and applying itself to
+construct, from material vestiges and psychologic remainders, an
+unknown body of proof. From the smallest fragments he deduces the
+whole structure, precisely as the great naturalists do; and so
+flawless are his reasonings that a course of 'The Adventures of
+Sherlock Holmes' would not be bad training in a high-school class in
+logic.
+
+The creator of this eminent personage was born in Edinburgh in 1859,
+of a line of artists; his grandfather, John Doyle, having been a
+famous political caricaturist, whose works, under the signature "H.
+B.," were purchased at a high price by the British Museum. The quaint
+signature of his father--a capital D, with a little bird perched on
+top, gained him the affectionate sobriquet of "Dicky Doyle"; and Dicky
+Doyle's house was the gathering-place of artists and authors, whose
+talk served to decide the destiny of the lad Conan. For though he was
+intended for the medical profession, and after studying in Germany had
+kept his terms at the Medical College of Edinburgh University, the
+love of letters drove him forth in his early twenties to try his
+fortunes in the literary world of London.
+
+Inheriting from his artist ancestry a sense of form and color, a
+faculty of constructiveness, and a vivid imagination, his studiousness
+and his industry have turned his capacities into abilities. For his
+romance of 'The White Company' he read more than two hundred books,
+and spent on it more than two years of labor. 'Micah Clarke' and 'The
+Great Shadow' involved equal wit and conscience. In his historic
+fiction he has described the England of Edward III., of James II., and
+of to-day, the Scotland of George III., the France of Edward III., of
+Louis XIV., and of Napoleon, and the America of Frontenac; while, in
+securing this correctness of historic detail, he has not neglected the
+first duty of a story-teller, which is to be interesting.
+
+
+
+THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
+
+From 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.' Copyright 1892, by Harper &
+Brothers
+
+
+I had called upon my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes one day in the autumn
+of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout,
+florid-faced elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology
+for my intrusion I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me
+abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.
+
+"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,"
+he said, cordially.
+
+"I was afraid that you were engaged."
+
+"So I am. Very much so."
+
+"Then I can wait in the next room."
+
+"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and
+helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that
+he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also."
+
+The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of
+greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small,
+fat-encircled eyes.
+
+"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair and
+putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial
+moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is
+bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of every-day
+life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has
+prompted you to chronicle, and if you will excuse my saying so,
+somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures."
+
+"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me," I
+observed.
+
+"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went
+into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that
+for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life
+itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the
+imagination."
+
+"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."
+
+"You did, doctor; but none the less you must come round to my view,
+for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until your
+reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now,
+Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this
+morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most
+singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard me
+remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often
+connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes; and
+occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any
+positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard, it is
+impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of
+crime or not; but the course of events is certainly among the most
+singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would
+have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you, not
+merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part,
+but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to
+have every possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have
+heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to
+guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my
+memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts
+are, to the best of my belief, unique."
+
+The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some
+little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the
+inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down the advertisement
+column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon
+his knee, I took a good look at the man, and endeavored, after the
+fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be
+presented by his dress or appearance. I did not gain very much,
+however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an
+average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He
+wore rather baggy gray shepherd's-check trousers, a not over clean
+black frock-coat unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat, with a
+heavy brassy Albert chain and a square pierced bit of metal dangling
+down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with
+a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look
+as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his
+blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent
+upon his features.
+
+Sherlock Holmes's quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his
+head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "Beyond the
+obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he
+takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and
+that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce
+nothing else."
+
+Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the
+paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
+
+"How in the name of good fortune did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?"
+he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labor?
+It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter."
+
+"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than
+your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more
+developed."
+
+"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"
+
+"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that;
+especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use
+an arc-and-compass breastpin."
+
+"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"
+
+"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five
+inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where
+you rest it upon the desk?"
+
+"Well, but China?"
+
+"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist
+could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of
+tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the
+subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink
+is quite peculiar to China. When in addition I see a Chinese coin
+hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple."
+
+Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought
+at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was
+nothing in it, after all."
+
+"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in
+explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor little
+reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid.
+Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, I have got it now," he answered, with his thick red finger
+planted half-way down the column. "Here it is. This is what began it
+all. You just read it for yourself, sir."
+
+I took the paper from him, and read as follows:--
+
+    "TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE:--On account of the bequest of the
+    late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A., there is now
+    another vacancy open, which entitles a member of the League
+    to a salary of L4 a week for purely nominal services. All
+    red-headed men who are sound in body and mind, and above the
+    age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on
+    Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of
+    the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street."
+
+"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated, after I had twice read
+over the extraordinary announcement.
+
+Holmes chuckled, and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in
+high spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?" said
+he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all about
+yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had
+upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, doctor, of the paper
+and the date."
+
+"It is the Morning Chronicle of April 27th, 1890. Just two months
+ago."
+
+"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,"
+said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead: "I have a small pawnbroker's
+business at Coburg Square, near the city. It's not a very large
+affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a
+living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep
+one; and I would have a job to pay him, but that he is willing to
+come for half wages, so as to learn the business."
+
+"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth, either.
+It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr.
+Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself, and earn
+twice what I am able to give him. But after all, if he is satisfied,
+why should I put ideas in his head?"
+
+"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an _employe_ who comes
+under the full market price. It is not a common experience among
+employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is not as
+remarkable as your advertisement."
+
+"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a
+fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to
+be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a
+rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault;
+but on the whole, he's a good worker. There's no vice in him."
+
+"He is still with you, I presume?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple
+cooking, and keeps the place clean--that's all I have in the house,
+for I am a widower, and never had any family. We live very quietly,
+sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads, and pay our
+debts, if we do nothing more.
+
+"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding, he
+came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very
+paper in his hand, and he says:--
+
+"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'
+
+"'Why that?' I asks.
+
+"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the
+Red-Headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets
+it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men,
+so that the trustees are at their wits' end what to do with the money.
+If my hair would only change color, here's a nice little crib all
+ready for me to step into.'
+
+"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very
+stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having
+to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the
+door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what was going on
+outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.
+
+"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-Headed Men?' he asked,
+with his eyes open.
+
+"'Never.'
+
+"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the
+vacancies.'
+
+"'And what are they worth?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year; but the work is slight, and
+it need not interfere very much with one's other occupations.'
+
+"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for
+the business has not been over good for some years, and an extra
+couple of hundred would have been very handy.
+
+"'Tell me all about it,' said I.
+
+"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for
+yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where
+you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the League
+was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very
+peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had a great
+sympathy for all red-headed men; so when he died it was found that he
+had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with
+instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to
+men whose hair is of that color. From all I hear, it is splendid pay
+and very little to do.'
+
+"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who would
+apply.'
+
+"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is really
+confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had started
+from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good
+turn. Then again, I have heard it is no use your applying if your hair
+is light red, or dark red, or anything but real bright, blazing, fiery
+red. Now if you care to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in; but
+perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the
+way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.'
+
+"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my
+hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that if
+there was to be any competition in the matter, I stood as good a
+chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to
+know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just
+ordered him to put up the shutters for the day, and to come right away
+with me. He was very willing to have a holiday; so we shut the
+business up, and started off for the address that was given us in the
+advertisement.
+
+"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From
+north, south, east, and west, every man who had a shade of red in his
+hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet
+Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a
+coster's orange-barrow. I should not have thought there were so many
+in the whole country as were brought together by that single
+advertisement. Every shade of color they were--straw, lemon, orange,
+brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but as Spaulding said, there were
+not many who had the real vivid flame-colored tint. When I saw how
+many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding
+would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed
+and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up
+to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon
+the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but
+we wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the
+office."
+
+"Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked Holmes,
+as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of
+snuff. "Pray continue your very interesting statement."
+
+"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a
+deal table, behind which sat a small man, with a head that was even
+redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came up,
+and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would
+disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy
+matter, after all. However, when our turn came, the little man was
+much more favorable to me than to any of the others, and he closed the
+door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us.
+
+"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is willing to
+fill a vacancy in the League.'
+
+"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has
+every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.'
+He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my
+hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward,
+wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success.
+
+"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, however, I
+am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' With that he
+seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the
+pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he, as he released me. 'I
+perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for
+we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell
+you tales of cobbler's wax which would disgust you with human nature.'
+He stepped over to the window, and shouted through it at the top of
+his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came
+up from below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions,
+until there was not a red head to be seen except my own and that of
+the manager.
+
+"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the
+pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a
+married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?'
+
+"I answered that I had not.
+
+"His face fell immediately.
+
+"'Dear me,' he said, gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am sorry
+to hear you say that. The fund was of course for the propagation and
+spread of the red-heads, as well as for their maintenance. It is
+exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.'
+
+"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was not
+to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for a few
+minutes, he said that it would be all right.
+
+"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be fatal, but
+we must stretch a point in favor of a man with such a head of hair as
+yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?'
+
+"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' said
+I.
+
+"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. 'I
+shall be able to look after that for you.'
+
+"'What would be the hours?' I asked.
+
+"'Ten to two.'
+
+"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. Holmes,
+especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before pay-day;
+so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings.
+Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that he would
+see to anything that turned up.
+
+"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?'
+
+"'Is L4 a week.'
+
+"'And the work?'
+
+"'Is purely nominal.'
+
+"'What do you call purely nominal?'
+
+"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the
+whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position forever. The
+will is very clear upon that point. You don't comply with the
+conditions if you budge from the office during that time.'
+
+"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' said
+I.
+
+"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross, 'neither sickness nor
+business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your
+billet.'
+
+"'And the work?'
+
+"'Is to copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There is the first
+volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and
+blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready
+to-morrow?'
+
+"'Certainly,' I answered.
+
+"'Then good-by, Mr. Jabez Wilson; and let me congratulate you once
+more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to
+gain.' He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant,
+hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good
+fortune.
+
+"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low
+spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair
+must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I
+could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that any one could
+make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything
+so simple as copying out the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' Vincent
+Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had
+reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I
+determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of
+ink, and with a quill pen and seven sheets of foolscap paper I started
+off for Pope's Court.
+
+"Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as
+possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was
+there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off upon the
+letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time
+to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he bade me good-by,
+complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and locked the
+door of the office after me.
+
+"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager
+came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. It
+was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I
+was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr.
+Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then after a
+time he did not come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to
+leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come,
+and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I
+would not risk the loss of it.
+
+"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and
+Archery and Armor and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with
+diligence that I might get on to the B's before very long. It cost me
+something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my
+writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end."
+
+"To an end?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual
+at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked with a little square
+of card-board hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here
+it is, and you can read for yourself."
+
+He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of
+note-paper. It read in this fashion:--
+
+                        THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
+                                  IS
+                              DISSOLVED.
+
+                                   _October 9th, 1890._
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful
+face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely
+overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a
+roar of laughter.
+
+"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our client,
+flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. "If you can do nothing
+better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere."
+
+"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he
+had half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for the world. It is
+most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying
+so, something just a little funny about it. Pray, what steps did you
+take when you found the card upon the door?"
+
+"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the
+offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it.
+Finally I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the
+ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of
+the Red-Headed League. He said that he had never heard of any such
+body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the
+name was new to him.
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.'
+
+"'What, the red-headed man?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor, and
+was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises
+were ready. He moved out yesterday.'
+
+"'Where could I find him?'
+
+"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King
+Edward Street, near St. Paul's.'
+
+"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a
+manufactory of artificial knee caps, and no one in it had ever heard
+of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross."
+
+"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes.
+
+"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my
+assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that
+if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough,
+Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle; so
+as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk
+who were in need of it, I came right away to you."
+
+"And you did very wisely." said Holmes. "Your case is an exceedingly
+remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you
+have told me, I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from
+it than might at first sight appear."
+
+"Grave enough!" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. "Why, I have lost four pound a
+week."
+
+"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes, "I do not
+see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On
+the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some L30, to say
+nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject
+which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them."
+
+"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and
+what their object was in playing this prank--if it was a prank--upon
+me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them
+two-and-thirty pounds."
+
+"We shall endeavor to clear up these points for you. And first one or
+two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called
+your attention to the advertisement--how long had he been with you?"
+
+"About a month then."
+
+"How did he come?"
+
+"In answer to an advertisement."
+
+"Was he the only applicant?"
+
+"No; I had a dozen."
+
+"Why did you pick him?"
+
+"Because he was handy, and would come cheap."
+
+"At half wages, in fact."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?"
+
+"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,
+though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his
+forehead."
+
+Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I thought as
+much," said he. "Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for
+earrings?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a
+lad."
+
+"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is still with
+you?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir; I have only just left him."
+
+"And has your business been attended to in your absence?"
+
+"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a
+morning."
+
+"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion
+upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday,
+and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion."
+
+"Well, Watson," said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, "what do
+you make of it all?"
+
+"I make nothing of it," I answered, frankly. "It is a most mysterious
+business."
+
+"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is, the less
+mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes
+which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most
+difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter."
+
+"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.
+
+"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg
+that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled himself up in
+his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and
+there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting
+out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion
+that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he
+suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has
+made up his mind, and put his pipe down upon the mantel-piece.
+
+"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he remarked.
+"What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few
+hours?"
+
+"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing."
+
+"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the city first, and
+we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal
+of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste
+than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect.
+Come along!"
+
+We traveled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk
+took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which
+we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky little shabby-genteel
+place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out
+into a small railed-in inclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a
+few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a
+smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls, and a brown
+board with "JABEZ WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house,
+announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his
+business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it, with his head on
+one side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly
+between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then
+down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally
+he returned to the pawnbroker's, and having thumped vigorously upon
+the pavement with his stick two or three times he went up to the door
+and knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven
+young fellow, who asked him to step in.
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wish to ask you how you would go
+from here to the Strand."
+
+"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant, promptly, closing
+the door.
+
+"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes, as we walked away. "He is, in
+my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am
+not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something
+of him before."
+
+"Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal in
+this mystery of the Red-Headed League. I am sure that you inquired
+your way merely in order that you might see him."
+
+"Not him."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"The knees of his trousers."
+
+"And what did you see?"
+
+"What I expected to see."
+
+"Why did you beat the pavement?"
+
+"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are
+spies in an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg Square.
+Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it."
+
+The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner
+from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to
+it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main
+arteries which convey the traffic of the city to the north and west.
+The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce, flowing
+in a double tide inward and outward, while the foot-paths were black
+with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realize,
+as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises,
+that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant
+square which we had just quitted.
+
+"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along
+the line, "I should like just to remember the order of the houses
+here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London.
+There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the
+Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian
+Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot. That carries us
+right on to the other block. And now, doctor, we've done our work, so
+it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then
+off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony,
+and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums."
+
+My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very
+capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the
+afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness,
+gently waving his long thin fingers in time to the music, while his
+gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those
+of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted,
+ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his
+singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and
+his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often
+thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which
+occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him
+from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was
+never so truly formidable as when for days on end he had been lounging
+in his arm-chair, amid his improvisations and his black-letter
+editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come
+upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the
+level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods
+would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of
+other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music
+at St. James's Hall, I felt that an evil time might be coming upon
+those whom he had set himself to hunt down.
+
+"You want to go home, no doubt, doctor," he remarked as we emerged.
+
+"Yes, it would be as well."
+
+"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This
+business at Coburg Square is serious."
+
+"Why serious?"
+
+"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to
+believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being Saturday
+rather complicates matters. I shall want your help to-night."
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"Ten will be early enough."
+
+"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."
+
+"Very well. And I say, doctor, there may be some little danger, so
+kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." He waved his hand,
+turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
+
+I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I was always
+oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with
+Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what
+he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly
+not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me
+the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home
+to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the
+extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the 'Encyclopaedia'
+down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with
+which he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and
+why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I
+had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant
+was a formidable man--a man who might play a deep game. I tried to
+puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside
+until night should bring an explanation.
+
+It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way
+across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two
+hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered the passage I
+heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room I found
+Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognized
+as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the other was a long
+thin sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable
+frock-coat.
+
+"Ha! our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket,
+and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. "Watson, I think you
+know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr.
+Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night's adventure."
+
+"We're hunting in couples again, doctor, you see," said Jones, in his
+consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a
+chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running
+down."
+
+"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,"
+observed Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.
+
+"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said the
+police agent, loftily. "He has his own little methods, which are, if
+he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and
+fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too
+much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto
+murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the
+official force."
+
+"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right," said the stranger,
+with deference, "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the
+first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my
+rubber."
+
+"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will play for
+a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play
+will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be
+some L30,000; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you
+wish to lay your hands."
+
+"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young
+man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I
+would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.
+He's a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a royal
+duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as
+cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn,
+we never know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in
+Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in
+Cornwall the next. I've been on his track for years, and have never
+set eyes on him yet."
+
+"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've
+had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with
+you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however,
+and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom,
+Watson and I will follow in the second."
+
+Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and
+lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the
+afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets
+until we emerged into Farringdon Street.
+
+"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow
+Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the
+matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a
+bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one
+positive virtue. He is as brave as a bull-dog, and as tenacious as a
+lobster if he gets his claws upon any one. Here we are, and they are
+waiting for us."
+
+We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
+ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and following the
+guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and
+through a side door, which he opened for us. Within, there was a small
+corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was
+opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated
+at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a
+lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage,
+and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which
+was piled all around with crates and massive boxes.
+
+"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked, as he held
+up the lantern and gazed about him.
+
+"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the
+flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!"
+he remarked, looking up in surprise.
+
+"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet," said Holmes,
+severely. "You have already imperiled the whole success of our
+expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down
+upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?"
+
+The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very
+injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees
+upon the floor, and with the lantern and a magnifying lens began to
+examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed
+to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in
+his pocket.
+
+"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked; "for they can
+hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then
+they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the
+longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present,
+doctor--as no doubt you have divined--in the cellar at the City branch
+of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman
+of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why
+the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable
+interest in this cellar at present."
+
+"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several
+warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."
+
+"Your French gold?"
+
+"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources, and
+borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France. It
+has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money,
+and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit
+contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our
+reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a
+single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the
+subject."
+
+"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And now it is time
+that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour
+matters will come to a head. In the mean time, Mr. Merryweather, we
+must put the screen over that dark lantern."
+
+"And sit in the dark?"
+
+"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I
+thought that, as we were a _partie carree_, you might have your rubber
+after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far
+that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And first of all, we must
+choose our positions. These are daring men, and though we shall take
+them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are
+careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal
+yourselves behind those. Then when I flash a light upon them, close in
+swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them
+down."
+
+I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
+which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his
+lantern, and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute darkness as I
+had never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to
+assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a
+moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of
+expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden
+gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.
+
+"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back through
+the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I
+asked you, Jones?"
+
+"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."
+
+"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and
+wait."
+
+What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an
+hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have
+almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary
+and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were
+worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute
+that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but
+I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones
+from the thin, sighing note of the bank director. From my position I
+could look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my
+eyes caught the glint of a light.
+
+At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it
+lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any
+warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared; a white,
+almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little area
+of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers,
+protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it
+appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark which
+marked a chink between the stones.
+
+Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing
+sound, one of the broad white stones turned over upon its side, and
+left a square gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a
+lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which
+looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the
+aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one knee
+rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the
+hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like
+himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.
+
+"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the
+bags?--Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!"
+
+Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar.
+The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth
+as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of
+a revolver, but Holmes's hunting crop came down on the man's wrist and
+the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
+
+"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes, blandly, "You have no chance at
+all."
+
+"So I see," the other answered, with the utmost coolness. "I fancy
+that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails."
+
+"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes.
+
+"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must
+compliment you."
+
+"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was very new and
+effective."
+
+"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's quicker at
+climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out, while I fix the
+derbies."
+
+"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands," remarked
+our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. "You may not
+be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness, also,
+when you address me always to say 'sir' and 'please.'"
+
+"All right," said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. "Well, would you
+please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your
+Highness to the police station?"
+
+"That is better," said John Clay, serenely. He made a sweeping bow to
+the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the
+detective.
+
+"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
+the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.
+There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most
+complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery
+that have ever come within my experience."
+
+"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John
+Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over this
+matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund; but beyond that I am
+amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique,
+and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-Headed
+League."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see, Watson," he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as
+we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it was
+perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of
+this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and
+the copying of the 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get this not over bright
+pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a
+curious way of managing it, but really, it would be difficult to
+suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay's
+ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice's hair. The L4 a week
+was a lure which must draw him,--and what was it to them, who were
+playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has
+the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it,
+and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the
+week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half
+wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for
+securing the situation."
+
+"But how could you guess what the motive was?"
+
+"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere
+vulgar intrigue. That however was out of the question. The man's
+business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which
+could account for such elaborate preparations and such an expenditure
+as they were at. It must then be something out of the house. What
+could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography,
+and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the
+end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious
+assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and
+most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the
+cellar--something which took many hours a day for months on end. What
+could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was
+running a tunnel to some other building.
+
+"So, far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I
+surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was
+ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It
+was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and as I hoped, the assistant
+answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never set eyes
+upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His knees were
+what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how worn,
+wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of
+burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing for.
+I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank
+abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my
+problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland
+Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result
+that you have seen."
+
+"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?"
+I asked.
+
+"Well, when they closed their League offices, that was a sign that
+they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence--in other
+words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that
+they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion
+might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day,
+as it would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons
+I expected them to come to-night."
+
+"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed, in unfeigned
+admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true."
+
+"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already feel
+it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape
+from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to
+do so."
+
+"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps after all it is of some
+little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien--l'oeuvre c'est tout,'
+as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand."
+
+
+
+THE BOWMEN'S SONG
+
+From 'The White Company'
+
+
+        What of the bow?
+      The bow was made in England:
+  Of true wood, of yew wood,
+      The wood of English bows;
+        So men who are free
+        Love the old yew-tree
+  And the land where the yew-tree grows.
+
+        What of the cord?
+      The cord was made in England:
+  A rough cord, a tough cord,
+      A cord that bowmen love;
+        So we'll drain our jacks
+        To the English flax
+  And the land where the hemp was wove.
+
+        What of the shaft?
+      The shaft was cut in England:
+  A long shaft, a strong shaft,
+      Barbed and trim and true;
+        So we'll drink all together
+        To the gray goose feather,
+  And the land where the gray goose flew.
+
+        What of the men?
+      The men were bred in England:
+  The bowman--the yeoman--
+      The lads of dale and fell.
+        Here's to you--and to you!
+        To the hearts that are true
+  And the land where the true hearts dwell.
+
+    Reprinted by permission of the American Publishers'
+    Corporation, Publishers.
+
+
+
+
+HOLGER DRACHMANN
+
+(1846-)
+
+[Illustration: HOLGER DRACHMANN]
+
+
+Holger Drachmann, born in Copenhagen October 9th, 1846, belongs to the
+writers characterized by Georg Brandes as "the men of the new era."
+
+Danish literature had stood high during the first half of the
+nineteenth century. In 1850 Oehlenschlaeger died. In 1870 there was
+practically no Danish literature. The reason for this may have been
+that after the new political life of 1848-9 and the granting of the
+Danish Constitution, politics absorbed all young talent, and men of
+literary tastes put themselves at the service of the daily press.
+
+In 1872 Georg Brandes gave his lectures on 'Main Currents in the
+Literature of the Nineteenth Century' at the University of Copenhagen.
+That same year Drachmann published his first collection of 'Poems,'
+and so began his extraordinary productivity of poems, dramas, and
+novels. Of these, his lyric poems are undoubtedly of the greatest
+value. His is a distinctly lyric temperament. The new school had
+chosen for its guide Brandes's teaching that "Literature, to be of
+significance, should discuss problems." In view of this fact it is
+somewhat hard to understand why Drachmann should be called a man of
+the new era. He never discusses problems. He always gives himself up
+unreservedly to the subject which at that special moment claims his
+sympathy. Taken as a whole, therefore, his writings present a certain
+inconsistency. He has shown himself alternately as socialist and
+royalist, realist and romanticist, freethinker and believer,
+cosmopolitan and national, according to the lyric enthusiasm of the
+moment. Independent of these changes, the one thing to be admired and
+enjoyed is his lyric feeling and the often exquisite form in which he
+presents it. His larger compositions, novels, and dramas do not show
+the same power over his subject.
+
+If Drachmann discusses any problem, it is the problem Drachmann. He
+does this sometimes with what Brandes calls "a light and joking
+self-irony," in a most sympathetic way. Brandes quotes one of
+Drachmann's early stories, where it is said of the hero:--"His name
+was really Palnatoke Olsen; a continually repeated discord of two
+tones, as he used to say." Olsen is one of the most commonplace Danish
+names. Palnatoke is the name of one of the fiercest warriors of
+heathen antiquity, who, like a veritable Valhalla god, dared to oppose
+the terrible Danish king Harald Blaatand. When Olsen's parents gave
+him this name they unwittingly described their son, "forever drawn by
+two poles: one the plain Olsen, the other the hot-headed fiery
+Viking." With this in mind, and considering Drachmann's literary works
+as a whole, one is irresistibly reminded of his friend and
+contemporary in Norway, Bjoernsterne Bjoernson. There is this difference
+between them, however, that if the irony of Palnatoke Olsen may be
+applied to both, one might for Drachmann use the abbreviation P. Olsen
+and for Bjoernson undoubtedly Palnatoke O.
+
+It might be said of Drachmann, as Sauer said of the Italian poet
+Monti:--"Like a master in the art of appreciation, he knew how to give
+himself up to great time-stirring ideas; somewhat as a gifted actor
+throws himself into his part, with the full strength of his art, with
+an enthusiasm carrying all before it, and in the most expressive way;
+then when the part is played, lays it quietly aside and takes hold of
+something else."
+
+When a young man, Drachmann studied at the Academy of Arts in
+Copenhagen, and met with considerable success as a marine painter. His
+love for the Northern seas shows itself in his poetry and prose, and
+his descriptions of the sea and the life of the sailor and fisherman
+are of the truest and best yielded by his pen. He is the author of no
+less than forty-six volumes of poems, dramas, novels, short stories,
+and sketches, and of two unpublished dramas. His most important work
+is 'Forskrevet' (Condemned), which is largely autobiographical; his
+most attractive though not his strongest production is the opera 'Der
+Var Engang' (Once Upon a Time), founded on Andersen's 'The Swineherd,'
+with music by Sange Mueller; his best poems and tales are those dealing
+with the sea.
+
+At present he lives in Hamburg, where on October 10th, 1896,
+he celebrated his fiftieth birthday and his twenty-fifth
+"Author-Jubilee," as the Danes call it. Among the features of the
+celebration were the sending of an enormous number of telegrams from
+Drachmann's admirers in Europe and America, and the performance of two
+of his plays,--one at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, the other at
+the Stadt Theatre in Altona.
+
+
+
+THE SKIPPER AND HIS SHIP
+
+From 'Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone': copyright 1895, by Way
+and Williams, Chicago
+
+
+The Anna Dorothea, in the North Sea, was pounding along under
+shortened sail. The weather was thick, the air dense; there was a
+falling barometer.
+
+It had been a short trip this time. Leroy and Sons, wine merchants of
+Havre, had made better offers than the old houses in Bordeaux. At each
+one of his later trips, Captain Spang had said it should be his last.
+He would "lay up" at home; he was growing too stout and clumsy for the
+sea, and now he must trust fully to Toennes, his first mate. The
+captain's big broad face was flushed as usual; he always looked as if
+he were illuminated by a setting October sun; there was no change
+here--rather, the sunset tint was stronger. But Toennes noted how the
+features, which he knew best in moments of simple good-nature and of
+sullen tumult, had gradually relaxed. He thought that it would indeed
+soon be time for his old skipper to "lay up"; yet perhaps a few trips
+might still be made.
+
+"Holloa, Toennes! let her go about before the next squall strikes her.
+She lies too dead on this bow."
+
+The skipper had raised his head above the cabin stairs. As usual, he
+was in his shirt-sleeves, and his scanty hair fluttered in the wind.
+When he had warned his mate, he again disappeared in the cabin.
+
+Toennes gave the order to the man at the helm, and hurried to help at
+the main-braces. The double-reefed main-topsail swung about, the Anna
+Dorothea caught the wind somewhat sluggishly, and not without getting
+considerable water over her; then followed the fore-topsail, the
+reefed foresail, and the trysail. When the tacking was finished and
+the sails had again caught the wind, the trysail was torn from the
+boltropes with a loud crack.
+
+The captain's head appeared again,
+
+"We must close-reef!" said he.
+
+The last reef was taken in; the storm came down and lashed the sea;
+the sky grew more and more threatening; the waves dashed over the deck
+at each plunge of the old bark in the sea. The old vessel, which had
+carried her captain for a generation, lay heavily on the water--Toennes
+thought too heavily.
+
+The second mate--the same who had played the accordion at the
+inn--came over to Toennes.
+
+"It was wrong to stow the china-clay at the bottom and the casks on
+top; she lies horribly dead, and I'm afraid we shall have to use the
+pumps."
+
+"Yes, I said so to the old man, but he would have it that way,"
+answered Toennes. "We shall have a wet night."
+
+"We shall, surely," said the second mate.
+
+Toennes crawled up to the helm and looked at the compass. Two men were
+at the helm--lashed fast. Toennes looked up into the rigging and out to
+windward; then suddenly he cried, with the full force of his lungs:--
+
+"Look out for breakers!"
+
+Toennes himself helped at the wheel; but the vessel only half answered
+the helm. The greater portion of the sea struck the bow, the quarter,
+and the bulwarks and stanchions amidship, so that they creaked and
+groaned. One of the men at the helm had grasped Toennes, who would
+otherwise have been swept into the lee scupper. When the ship had
+righted from the terrible blow, the captain stood on the deck in his
+oilcloth suit.
+
+"Are any men missing?" cried he, through the howling of the wind and
+the roaring of the water streaming fore and aft, unable to escape
+quickly enough through the scuppers.
+
+The storm raged with undiminished fury. The crew--and amongst them
+Prussian, who had been promoted to be ship's-dog--by-and-by dived
+forward through the seething salt water and the fragments of wreck
+that covered the deck.
+
+Now it was that the second mate was missing.
+
+The captain looked at Toennes, and then out on the wild sea. He
+scarcely glanced at the crushed long-boat; even if a boat could have
+been launched, it would have been too late. Toennes and his skipper
+were fearless men, who took things as they were. If any help could
+have been given, they would have given it. But their eyes sought
+vainly for any dark speck amidst the foaming waves--and it was
+necessary to care for themselves, the vessel and the crew.
+
+"God save his soul!" murmured Captain Spang.
+
+Toennes passed his hand across his brow, and went to his duty. Evening
+set in; the wind increased rather than decreased.
+
+"She is taking in water," said the captain, who had sounded the
+pumps.
+
+Toennes assented.
+
+"We must change her course," said the captain. "She pitches too
+heavily in this sea."
+
+The bark was held up to the wind as closely as possible. The pumps
+were worked steadily, but often got out of order on account of the
+china-clay, which mixed with the water down in the hold.
+
+It was plain that the vessel grew heavier and heavier; her movements
+in climbing a wave were more and more dead.
+
+During the night a cry arose: again one of the crew was washed
+overboard.
+
+It was a long night and a wet one, as Toennes had predicted. Several
+times the skipper dived clown into the cabin--Tonnes knew perfectly
+well what for, but he said nothing. Few words were spoken on board the
+Anna Dorothea that night.
+
+In the morning the captain, returning from one of his excursions down
+below, declared that the cabin was half full of water.
+
+"We must watch for a sail," he said, abruptly and somewhat huskily.
+
+Toennes passed the word round amongst the crew. One might read on their
+faces that they were prepared for this, and that they had ceased to
+hope, although they had not stopped work at the pumps.
+
+The whole of the weather bulwark, the cook's cabin and the long-boat,
+were crushed or washed away; the water could be heard below the
+hatches. While keeping a sharp lookout for sails, many an eye glanced
+at the yawl as the last resort. But on board Captain Spang's vessel
+the words were not yet spoken which carried with them the doom of the
+ship: "We are sinking!"
+
+In the gray-white of the dawn a signal was to be hoisted; the bunting
+was tied together at the middle and raised half-mast high.
+
+Both the captain and Toennes had lashed themselves aft; for now the
+bark was but little better than a wreck, over which the billows broke
+incessantly, as the vessel, reeling like a drunken man, exposed
+herself to the violent attacks of the sea instead of parrying them.
+
+"A sail to windward, captain!" cried Toennes.
+
+Captain Spang only nodded.
+
+"She holds her course!" cried one of the crew excitedly. "No," said
+Toennes, quietly. "She has seen us, and is bearing down upon us!"
+
+The captain again nodded.
+
+"Tis a brig!" cried one of the crew.
+
+"A schooner-brig!" Toennes corrected. "She carries her sails finely. I
+am sure she is a fruit-trader."
+
+At last the strange vessel was so near that they could see her deck
+each time she was thrown upon her side in the violent seething sea.
+
+"Yes, 'tis the schooner-brig!" exclaimed Toennes. "Do you remember,
+captain, the time when--"
+
+Again Captain Spang nodded. He acted strangely. Toennes looked sharply
+at him, and shook his head.
+
+Now Toennes hailed the vessel:--
+
+"Help us!--We are sinking!"
+
+At this moment two or three of the bark's crew rushed toward the yawl,
+although Toennes warned them back.
+
+Captain Spang seemed changed. Evidently some opposing feelings
+contended within him. Seeing the insubordination of the men, he only
+shrugged his shoulders, and let Toennes take full charge.
+
+The men were in the yawl, still hanging under the iron davits. Now
+they cut the ropes; the yawl touched the water. The crew of the other
+vessel gestured warningly; but it was too late. A sea seized the yawl
+with its small crew, and the next moment crushed it against the main
+chains of the bark. Their shipmates raised a cry, and rushed to help
+them; but help was impossible. Boat and crew had disappeared.
+
+"Didn't I say so?" cried Toennes, with flaming eyes.
+
+Over there in the schooner-brig all was activity. From the Anna
+Dorothea they could plainly see how the captain gave his orders. He
+manoeuvred his vessel like a true sailor. To board the wreck in such a
+sea would be madness. Therefore they unreeved two long lines and
+attached them to the long-boat, one on each side. Then they laid
+breeching under the boat, and hauled it up amidships by means of
+tackle. Taking advantage of a moment when their vessel was athwart the
+seas, they unloosed the tackle, and the boat swung out over the side;
+then they cut the breeching, the boat fell on the water aft, and now
+both lines were eased off quickly; while the brig caught the wind, the
+boat drifted toward the stern-sheets of the bark.
+
+Toennes was ready with a boat-hook, and connections were quickly made
+between the boat and the wreck.
+
+"Quick now!" cried Toennes. "Every man in the boat. No one takes his
+clothes with him! We may be thankful if we save our lives."
+
+The men were quickly over the stern-sheets and down in the boat.
+Prussian whined, and kept close to Captain Spang, who had not moved
+one step on the deck.
+
+"Come, captain!" cried Toennes, taking the skipper by the arm.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the old man angrily.
+
+Toennes looked at him. Prussian barked.
+
+"We must get into the boat, captain. The vessel may sink at any
+moment. Come!"
+
+The captain pressed his sou'wester down over his forehead, and glanced
+around his deck.
+
+The men in the boat cried out to them to come.
+
+"Well!" said Captain Spang, but with an air so absent-minded and a
+bearing so irresolute that Toennes at last took a firm hold on him.
+
+Prussian showed his teeth at his former master.
+
+"You go first!" exclaimed Toennes, snatching the dog and throwing him
+down to the men, who were having hard work to keep the boat from
+wrecking.
+
+When the dog was no longer on the deck, it seemed as if Captain
+Spang's resistance was broken. Toennes did not let go his hold on him;
+but the young mate had to use almost superhuman strength to get the
+heavy old man down over the vessel's side and placed on a seat in the
+boat.
+
+As soon as they had observed from the brig that this had been done,
+they hauled in both lines. The boat moved back again; but it was a
+dangerous voyage, and all were obliged to lash themselves fast to the
+thwarts with ropes placed there for that purpose.
+
+Captain Spang was like a child. Toennes had to lash him to the seat.
+The old man sat with his face hidden in his hands, his back turned
+toward his ship, inactive, and seemingly unconscious of what took
+place around him.
+
+At last, when after a hard struggle all were on the deck of the
+schooner-brig, her captain came forward, placed his hand on his old
+friend's shoulder, and said:--
+
+"It is the second time, you see! Well, we all cling to life, and the
+vessel over there is pretty old."
+
+Captain Spang started. He scarcely returned his friend's hand-shaking.
+
+"My vessel, I say! My papers! All that I have is in the vessel. I must
+go aboard, do you hear? I must go aboard. How could I forget?"
+
+The other skipper and Toennes looked at each other.
+
+Captain Spang wrung his hands and stamped on the deck, his eyes fixed
+on his sinking vessel. She was still afloat; what did he care for the
+gale and the heavy sea? He belonged to the old school of skippers; he
+was bound to his vessel by ties longer than any life-line, heavier
+than any hawser: he had left his ship in a bewildered state, and had
+taken nothing with him that might serve to prove what he possessed and
+how long he had possessed it. His good old vessel was still floating
+on the water. He must, he would go there; if nobody would go with him,
+he would go alone.
+
+All remonstrances were in vain.
+
+Toennes pressed the other skipper's hand.
+
+"There is nothing else to be done. I know him," said he.
+
+"So do I," was the answer.
+
+Captain Spang and his mate were again in the boat. As they were on the
+point of starting, a loud whine and violent barking sounded from the
+deck, and Prussian showed his one eye over the railing.
+
+"Stay where you are!" cried Toennes. "We shall be back soon."
+
+But the dog did not understand him. Perhaps he had his doubts; no one
+can say. He sprang overboard; Toennes seized him by the ear, and hauled
+him into the boat.
+
+And then the two men and the dog ventured back to the abandoned
+vessel.
+
+This time the old man climbed on board without assistance.
+
+Prussian whined in the boat.
+
+"Throw that dog up to me!" cried the master.
+
+Toennes did so.
+
+"Shall I come up and help you?" he called out.
+
+"No, I can find my own way."
+
+"But hurry, captain! do you understand?" said Toennes, who anxiously
+noticed that the motions of the vessel were becoming more and more
+dangerous, while he needed all his strength to keep the boat clear of
+the wreck.
+
+An answer came from the bark, but he could not catch it. In this
+moment Toennes recalled the day when he rowed the captain out on the
+bay to the brig. His next thought was of Nanna. Oh, if she knew where
+they were!
+
+And at this thought the mate's breast was filled with conflicting
+emotions. The dear blessed girl! Oh, if her father would only come!
+
+"Captain!" cried Toennes; "Captain Spang! for God's sake, come! Leave
+those papers alone. The vessel is sinking. We may at any moment--"
+
+He paused.
+
+The captain stood at the stern-sheets. At his side was Prussian,
+squinting down into the boat. There was an entirely strange expression
+in Andreas Spang's face; a double expression--one moment hard and
+defiant, the next almost solemn.
+
+The sou'wester had fallen from his old head. His scanty hairs
+fluttered in the wind. He held in his hand a parcel of papers and a
+coil of rope. He pointed toward the brig.
+
+"There!" he cried, throwing the package and the rope down to Tonnes.
+"Give the skipper this new line for his trouble. He has used plenty of
+rope for us. You go back. I stay here. Give--my--love--to the girl at
+home.--You and she--You two--God bless you!"
+
+"Captain!" cried Toennes in affright; "you are sick; come, let me--"
+
+He prepared to climb on board.
+
+Captain Spang lifted his hand threateningly, and Prussian barked
+furiously.
+
+"Stay down there, boy, I say! The vessel and I, we belong together.
+You shall take care of the girl. Good-by!"
+
+The Anna Dorothea rolled heavily over on one side, righted again, and
+then began to plunge her head downwards, like a whale that, tired of
+the surface, seeks rest at the bottom. The crew of the brig hauled in
+the lines of the boat. Tossed on the turbid sea, Toennes saw his old
+skipper leaning against the helm, the dog at his side. His gray hairs
+fluttered in the wind as if they wafted a last farewell; and down with
+vessel and dog went the old skipper--down into the wild sea that so
+long had borne him on its waves.
+
+
+
+THE PRINCE'S SONG
+
+From 'Once Upon a Time'
+
+
+  Princess, I come from out a land that lieth--
+    I know not in what arctic latitude:
+  Though high in the bleak north, it never sigheth
+    For sunny smiles; they wait not to be wooed.
+  Our privilege we know: the bright half-year
+    Illumines sea and shore with sunlit glory;
+  In twilight then our fertile fields we ear,
+    And round our brows we twine a wreath of story.
+
+  When winter decks with frost the bearded oak,
+    In songs and sagas we our youth recover;
+  Around the hearthstone crowd the listening folk,
+    While on the wall mysterious shadows hover.
+  The summer night, suffused with loving glow,
+    The future, dawning in a golden chalice,
+  Enkindles hope in hearts of high and low,
+    From peasant's cottage to the royal palace.
+
+  The snow of winter spreads o'er hill and valley
+    Its soft and silken blue-white veil of sleep;
+  The springtime bids the green-clad earth to rally,
+    When through the budding leaves the sunbeams peep,
+  The autumn brings fresh breezes from the ocean
+    And paints the lad's fair cheeks a rosy red;
+  The maiden's heart is stirred with new emotion,
+    When summer's fragrance o'er the world is spread.
+
+  To roam in our fair land is like a dream,
+    Through these still woods, renowned in ancient story,
+  Along the shores, deep-mirrored in the gleam
+    Of fjords that shine beneath the sky's blue glory.
+  Upon the meadows where the flowers bloom
+    The elfin maidens hide themselves in slumbers,
+  But soon along the lakes where shadows gloom
+    In every bosky nook they'll dance their numbers.
+
+  There are no frowning crags on our green mountains,
+    No dark, forbidding cliffs where gorges yawn;
+  The streams flow gently seaward from their fountains,
+    As through the silent valley steals the dawn.
+  Here nature smoothes the rugged, tames the savage.
+    And men born here in victory are kind,
+  Forbearing still the foeman's land to ravage,
+    And in defeat they bear a steadfast mind.
+
+  I'm proud of land, of kindred, and of nation,
+    I'm proud my home is where the waters flow;
+  Afar I see in golden radiation
+    My native land like sun through amber glow.
+  Its warmth revives my heart, however lonely:
+    Forgive me, Princess, if my soul's aflame,--
+  But rather be at home, a beggar only,
+    Than, exiled thence, have universal fame.
+
+                               Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
+
+
+
+
+JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE
+
+(1795-1820)
+
+[Illustration: JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE]
+
+
+Conspicuous among the young poets, essayists, and journalists, who
+made up literary New York in the early part of the century, was Joseph
+Rodman Drake, the friend of Halleck, and the best beloved perhaps of
+all that brilliant group. Hardly known to this generation save by
+'The Culprit Fay' and 'The American Flag,' Drake was essentially
+a true poet and a man of letters. His work was characteristic of
+his day. He had a certain amount of classical knowledge, a certain
+eighteenth-century grace and style, yet withal, an instinctive
+Americanism which flowered out into our first true national
+literature. The group of writers among whom were found Irving,
+Halleck, Willis, Dana, Hoffman, Verplanck, Brockden Brown, and a
+score of others, reflected that age in which they sought their
+literary models. With the exception of Poe, who belonged to a somewhat
+later time and whose genius was purely subjective, much of the
+production of these Americans followed the lines of their English
+predecessors,--Johnson, Goldsmith, Addison, and Steele. It is only in
+their deeper moments of thought and feeling that there sounds that
+note of love of country, of genuine Americanism, which gives their
+work individuality, and which will keep their memory green.
+
+Drake was born in New York, in August 1795. He was descended from the
+same family as the great admiral of Elizabethan days, the American
+branch of which had served their country honorably both in colonial
+and Revolutionary times. The scenes of his boyhood were the same as
+those that formed the environment of Irving, memories of which are
+scattered thick through the literature of the day. New York was still
+a picturesque, hospitable, rural capital, the centre of the present
+town being miles distant in the country. The best families were all
+intimately associated in a social life that was cultivated and refined
+at the same time that it was gay and unconventional; and in this
+society Drake occupied a place which his lovable qualities and fine
+talents must have won, even had it been denied him by birth. He was a
+precocious boy, for whom a career was anticipated by his friends while
+he was yet a mere child; and when he met Halleck, in his eighteenth
+year, he had already won some reputation.
+
+The friendship of Drake and Halleck was destined to prove infinitely
+valuable to both. A discussion between Cooper, Halleck, and Drake,
+upon the poetic inspiration of American scenery, prompted Drake to
+write 'The Culprit Fay'--a poem without any human character. This he
+completed in three days, and offered it as the argument on his side.
+The scene of the poem is laid in the Highlands of the Hudson, but
+Drake added many pictures suggested by memories of Long Island Sound,
+whose waters he haunted with boat and rod. He apologized for this by
+saying that the purposes of poetry alone could explain the presence so
+far up the Hudson of so many salt-water emigrants. 'The Culprit Fay'
+is a creation of pure fancy, full of delicate imagery, and handled
+with an ethereal lightness of touch. Its exquisite grace, its delicate
+coloring, its prodigality of charm, explain its immediate popularity
+and its lasting fame. But the Rip Van Winkle legend is a far more
+genuine product of fancy.
+
+Drake's few shorter lyrics throb with genuine poetic feeling, and show
+the loss sustained by literature in the author's early death. Best
+known of these is 'The American Flag,' which appeared in the Evening
+Post as one of a series of _jeux d'esprit_, the joint productions of
+Halleck and Drake, who either alternated in the composition of the
+numbers or wrote them together. The last four lines only of 'The
+American Flag' are Halleck's. The entire series appeared between March
+and July, 1819, under the signature of "The Croakers." Literary New
+York was mystified as to the authorship of these skits, which hit off
+the popular fads, follies, and enthusiasms of the day with so easy and
+graceful a touch. Politics, music, the drama, and domestic life alike
+furnished inspiration for the numbers; some of whose titles, as 'A
+Sketch of a Debate in Tammany' and 'The Battery War,' suggest the
+local political issues of the present day. There is now in existence a
+handsome edition of these verses, with the names of the authors of the
+several pieces appended, and in the case of the joint ownership with
+the initials D. and H. subscribed.
+
+Drake's complete poems were not published during his lifetime. Sixteen
+years after his death by consumption in his twenty-sixth year, his
+daughter issued a volume dedicated to Halleck, in which were included
+the best specimens of her father's work. Many of the lesser known
+verses indicate his true place as a poet. In the touching poem
+'Abelard to Eloise,' in the third stanza of 'The American Flag,' and
+in innumerable beautiful lines scattered throughout his work, appears
+a genuine inspiration.
+
+In his own day, Drake filled a place which his death left forever
+vacant. His rare and winning personality, his generous friendships,
+his joy in life, and his courage in the contemplation of his
+inevitable fate, still appeal to a generation to whom they are but
+traditions. The exquisite monody in which Halleck celebrated his loss,
+links their names and decorates their friendship with imperishable
+garlands.
+
+
+
+A WINTER'S TALE
+
+From 'The Croakers'
+
+    "_A merry heart goes all the way,
+        A sad one tires in a mile-a._"
+                              --WINTER'S TALE.
+
+
+  The man who frets at worldly strife
+      Grows sallow, sour, and thin;
+  Give us the lad whose happy life
+      Is one perpetual grin:
+  He, Midas-like, turns all to gold;
+      He smiles when others sigh;
+  Enjoys alike the hot and cold,
+      And laughs through wet and dry.
+
+  There's fun in everything we meet;
+      The greatest, worst, and best
+  Existence is a merry treat,
+      And every speech a jest:
+  Be 't ours to watch the crowds that pass
+      Where mirth's gay banner waves;
+  To show fools through a quizzing glass,
+      And bastinade the knaves.
+
+  The serious world will scold and ban,
+      In clamor loud and hard,
+  To hear Meigs[A] called a Congressman,
+      And Paulding called a bard:
+  But come what may, the man's in luck
+      Who turns it all to glee,
+  And laughing, cries with honest Puck,
+      "Good Lord! what fools ye be!"
+
+    [A] Henry Meigs of New York, a Congressman from 1819 to 1821
+    in the Sixteenth Congress.
+
+
+
+THE CULPRIT FAY
+
+    My visual orbs are purged from film, and lo!
+      Instead of Anster's turnip-bearing vales,
+    I see old Fairyland's miraculous show!
+      Her trees of tinsel kissed by freakish gales,
+    Her ouphs that, cloaked in leaf-gold, skim the breeze,
+      And fairies, swarming....
+                                         --TENNANT'S 'ANSTER FAIR'
+
+
+  'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night--
+  The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
+  Naught is seen in the vault on high
+  But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,
+  And the flood which rolls its milky hue,
+  A river of light on the welkin blue.
+  The moon looks down on old Cronest;
+  She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
+  And seems his huge gray form to throw
+  In a silver cone on the wave below;
+  His sides are broken by spots of shade,
+  By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
+  And through their clustering branches dark
+  Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark--
+  Like starry twinkles that momently break
+  Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.
+
+  The stars are on the moving stream,
+    And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
+  A burnished length of wavy beam
+    In an eel-like, spiral line below;
+  The winds are whist, and the owl is still;
+    The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;
+  And naught is heard on the lonely hill
+  But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
+        Of the gauze-winged katydid;
+  And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill,
+  Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings.
+    Ever a note of wail and woe,
+  Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
+    And earth and sky in her glances glow.
+
+  'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:
+  The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
+  He has counted them all with click and stroke
+  Deep in the heart of the mountain oak,
+  And he has awakened the sentry elve
+    Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
+  To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
+    And call the fays to their revelry;
+  Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell--
+  ('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell)
+  "Midnight comes, and all is well!
+  Hither, hither, wing your way!
+  'Tis the dawn of the fairy day."
+
+  They come from beds of lichen green,
+  They creep from the mullein's velvet screen;
+  Some on the backs of beetles fly
+    From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
+  Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,
+    And rocked about in the evening breeze;
+  Some from the hum-bird's downy nest--
+    They had driven him out by elfin power,
+  And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
+    Had slumbered there till the charmed hour;
+  Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,
+    With glittering ising-stars inlaid;
+  And some had opened the four-o'clock,
+    And stole within its purple shade.
+  And now they throng the moonlight glade,
+    Above, below, on every side,
+  Their little minim forms arrayed
+    In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!
+
+  They come not now to print the lea,
+  In freak and dance around the tree,
+  Or at the mushroom board to sup,
+  And drink the dew from the buttercup;--
+  A scene of sorrow waits them now,
+  For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow;
+  He has loved an earthly maid,
+  And left for her his woodland shade;
+  He has lain upon her lip of dew,
+  And sunned him in her eye of blue,
+  Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
+  Played in the ringlets of her hair,
+  And nestling on her snowy breast,
+  Forgot the lily-king's behest.
+  For this the shadowy tribes of air
+    To the elfin court must haste away:
+  And now they stand expectant there,
+    To hear the doom of the culprit fay.
+
+  The throne was reared upon the grass,
+  Of spice-wood and of sassafras;
+  On pillars of mottled tortoise-shell
+    Hung the burnished canopy--
+  And o'er it gorgeous curtains fell
+    Of the tulip's crimson drapery.
+  The monarch sat on his judgment seat;
+    On his brow the crown imperial shone;
+  The prisoner fay was at his feet,
+    And his peers were ranged around the throne.
+  He waved his sceptre in the air,
+    He looked around and calmly spoke;
+  His brow was grave and his eye severe,
+    But his voice in a softened accent broke:--
+
+  "Fairy! Fairy! list and mark:
+    Thou hast broke thine elfin chain;
+  Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
+    And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain--
+  Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity
+    In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye;
+  Thou hast scorned our dread decree,
+    And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high.
+  But well I know her sinless mind
+    Is pure as the angel forms above,
+  Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,
+    Such as a spirit well might love;
+  Fairy! had she spot or taint,
+  Bitter had been thy punishment:
+  Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
+  Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;
+  Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
+  With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
+  Or every night to writhe and bleed
+  Beneath the tread of the centipede;
+  Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
+  Your jailer a spider, huge and grim,
+  Amid the carrion bodies to lie
+  Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly:
+  These it had been your lot to bear,
+  Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.
+  Now list, and mark our mild decree--
+  Fairy, this your doom must be:--
+
+  "Thou shalt seek the beach of sand
+  Where the water bounds the elfin land;
+  Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
+  Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
+  Then dart the glistening arch below,
+  And catch a drop from his silver bow.
+  The water-sprites will wield their arms
+    And dash around, with roar and rave,
+  And vain are the woodland spirits' charms;
+    They are the imps that rule the wave.
+  Yet trust thee in thy single might:
+  If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
+  Thou shalt win the warlock fight.
+
+  "If the spray-bead gem be won,
+    The stain of thy wing is washed away;
+  But another errand must be done
+    Ere thy crime be lost for aye:
+  Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,--
+  Thou must re-illume its spark.
+  Mount thy steed and spur him high
+  To the heaven's blue canopy;
+  And when thou seest a shooting star,
+  Follow it fast, and follow it far--
+  The last faint spark of its burning train
+  Shall light the elfin lamp again.
+  Thou hast heard our sentence, fay;
+  Hence! to the water-side, away!"
+
+  The goblin marked his monarch well;
+    He spake not, but he bowed him low,
+  Then plucked a crimson colen-bell,
+    And turned him round in act to go.
+  The way is long; he cannot fly;
+    His soiled wing has lost its power,
+  And he winds adown the mountain high
+    For many a sore and weary hour.
+  Through dreary beds of tangled fern,
+  Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,
+  Over the grass and through the brake,
+  Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake;
+  Now o'er the violet's azure flush
+    He skips along in lightsome mood;
+  And now he thrids the bramble-bush,
+    Till its points are dyed in fairy blood.
+  He has leaped the bog, he has pierced the brier,
+  He has swum the brook and waded the mire,
+  Till his spirits sank and his limbs grew weak,
+  And the red waxed fainter in his cheek.
+  He had fallen to the ground outright,
+    For rugged and dim was his onward track,
+  But there came a spotted toad in sight,
+    And he laughed as he jumped upon her back;
+  He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist,
+    He lashed her sides with an osier thong.
+  And now, through evening's dewy mist,
+    With leap and spring they bound along,
+  Till the mountain's magic verge is past,
+  And the beach of sand is reached at last.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Up, fairy! quit thy chickweed bower,
+  The cricket has called the second hour,
+  Twice again, and the lark will rise
+  To kiss the streaking of the skies--
+  Up! thy charmed armor don;
+  Thou'lt need it ere the night be gone.
+
+  He put his acorn helmet on:
+  It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down;
+  The corselet plate that guarded his breast
+  Was once the wild bee's golden vest;
+  His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
+  Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
+  His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,
+  Studs of gold on a ground of green;
+  And the quivering lance which he brandished bright
+  Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.
+  Swift he bestrode his firefly steed;
+    He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue;
+  He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,
+    And away like a glance of thought he flew,
+  To skim the heavens, and follow far
+  The fiery trail of the rocket-star.
+
+  The moth-fly, as he shot in air,
+  Crept under the leaf and hid her there;
+  The katydid forgot its lay,
+  The prowling gnat fled fast away,
+  The fell mosquito checked his drone
+  And folded his wings till the fay was gone.
+  And the wily beetle dropped his head,
+  And fell on the ground as if he were dead;
+  They crouched them close in the darksome shade,
+    They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,
+  For they had felt the blue-bent blade,
+    And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;
+  Many a time, on a summer's night,
+  When the sky was clear, and the moon was bright,
+  They had been roused from the haunted ground
+  By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;
+  They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,
+    They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,
+  When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,
+  And the needle-shaft through air was borne,
+    Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing.
+  And now they deemed the courier ouphe
+    Some hunter-sprite of the elfin ground;
+  And they watched till they saw him mount the roof
+    That canopies the world around;
+  Then glad they left their covert lair,
+  And freaked about in the midnight air.
+
+  Up to the vaulted firmament
+  His path the firefly courser bent,
+  And at every gallop on the wind,
+  He flung a glittering spark behind;
+  He flies like a feather in the blast
+  Till the first light cloud in heaven is past.
+    But the shapes of air have begun their work,
+  And a drizzly mist is round him cast;
+    He cannot see through the mantle murk;
+  He shivers with cold, but he urges fast;
+    Through storm and darkness, sleet and shade,
+  He lashes his steed, and spurs amain--
+  For shadowy hands have twitched the rein,
+    And flame-shot tongues around him played,
+  And near him many a fiendish eye
+  Glared with a fell malignity,
+  And yells of rage, and shrieks of fear,
+  Came screaming on his startled ear.
+
+  His wings are wet around his breast,
+  The plume hangs dripping from his crest,
+  His eyes are blurred with the lightning's glare,
+  And his ears are stunned with the thunder's blare.
+  But he gave a shout, and his blade he drew;
+    He thrust before and he struck behind,
+  Till he pierced their cloudy bodies through,
+    And gashed their shadowy limbs of wind;
+  Howling the misty spectres flew;
+    They rend the air with frightful cries;
+  For he has gained the welkin blue,
+    And the land of clouds beneath him lies.
+
+  Up to the cope careering swift,
+    In breathless motion fast,
+  Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,
+    Or the sea-roc rides the blast,
+  The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
+    The sphered moon is past,
+  The earth but seems a tiny blot
+    On a sheet of azure cast.
+  Oh! it was sweet, in the clear moonlight,
+    To tread the starry plain of even!
+  To meet the thousand eyes of night,
+    And feel the cooling breath of heaven!
+  But the elfin made no stop or stay
+  Till he came to the bank of the Milky Way;
+  Then he checked his courser's foot,
+  And watched for the glimpse of the planet-shoot.
+
+  Sudden along the snowy tide
+    That swelled to meet their footsteps' fall,
+  The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide,
+    Attired in sunset's crimson pall;
+  Around the fay they weave the dance,
+    They skip before him on the plain.
+  And one has taken his wasp-sting lance,
+    And one upholds his bridle rein;
+  With warblings wild they lead him on
+    To where, through clouds of amber seen,
+  Studded with stars, resplendent shone
+    The palace of the sylphid queen.
+  Its spiral columns, gleaming bright,
+  Were streamers of the northern light;
+  Its curtain's light and lovely flush
+  Was of the morning's rosy blush;
+  And the ceiling fair that rose aboon,
+  The white and feathery fleece of noon.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Borne afar on the wings of the blast,
+  Northward away he speeds him fast,
+  And his courser follows the cloudy wain
+  Till the hoof-strokes fall like pattering rain.
+  The clouds roll backward as he flies.
+  Each flickering star behind him lies,
+  And he has reached the northern plain,
+  And backed his firefly steed again,
+  Ready to follow in its flight
+  The streaming of the rocket-light.
+
+  The star is yet in the vault of heaven,
+    But it rocks in the summer gale,
+  And now 'tis fitful and uneven,
+    And now 'tis deadly pale;
+  And now 'tis wrapped in sulphur-smoke,
+    And quenched is its rayless beam;
+  And now with a rattling thunder-stroke
+    It bursts in flash and flame.
+  As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance
+    That the storm spirit flings from high,
+  The star-shot flew o'er the welkin blue,
+    As it fell from the sheeted sky.
+  As swift as the wind in its train behind
+    The elfin gallops along:
+  The fiends of the clouds are bellowing loud.
+    But the sylphid charm is strong;
+  He gallops unhurt in the shower of fire,
+    While the cloud-fiends fly from the blaze;
+  He watches each flake till its sparks expire,
+    And rides in the light of its rays.
+
+  But he drove his steed to the lightning's speed,
+    And caught a glimmering spark;
+  Then wheeled around to the fairy ground,
+    And sped through the midnight dark.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!
+    Elf of eve! and starry fay!
+  Ye that love the moon's soft light,
+    Hither, hither, wend your way;
+  Twine ye in a jocund ring,
+    Sing and trip it merrily,
+  Hand to hand, and wing to wing,
+    Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
+
+  Hail the wanderer again
+    With dance and song, and lute and lyre;
+  Pure his wing and strong his chain,
+    And doubly bright his fairy fire.
+  Twine ye in an airy round,
+    Brush the dew and print the lea;
+  Skip and gambol, hop and bound,
+    Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
+
+  The beetle guards our holy ground,
+    He flies about the haunted place,
+  And if mortal there be found,
+    He hums in his ears and flaps his face;
+  The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay,
+    The owlet's eyes our lanterns be;
+  Thus we sing and dance and play,
+    Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
+
+  But hark! from tower on tree-top high,
+    The sentry elf his call has made;
+  A streak is in the eastern sky;
+    Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade!
+  The hill-tops gleam in Morning's spring,
+  The skylark shakes his dappled wing,
+  The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn,--
+  The cock has crowed, and the fays are gone.
+
+
+
+THE AMERICAN FLAG
+
+
+  When Freedom from her mountain height
+    Unfurled her standard to the air,
+  She tore the azure robe of night,
+    And set the stars of glory there;
+  She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
+  The milky baldric of the skies,
+  And striped its pure celestial white
+  With streakings of the morning light;
+  Then from his mansion in the sun
+  She called her eagle-bearer down,
+  And gave unto his mighty hand
+  The symbol of her chosen land.
+
+  Majestic monarch of the cloud!
+    Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
+  To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,
+  And see the lightning lances driven,
+    When strive the warriors of the storm,
+  And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven--
+  Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given
+    To guard the banner of the free,
+  To hover in the sulphur-smoke,
+  To ward away the battle-stroke,
+  And bid its blendings shine afar,
+  Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
+    The harbingers of victory!
+
+  Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
+  The sign of hope and triumph high,
+  When speaks the signal trumpet-tone,
+  And the long line comes gleaming on:
+  Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
+  Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
+  Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
+  To where the sky-born glories burn,
+  And as his springing steps advance,
+  Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
+  And when the cannon-mouthings loud
+  Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
+  And gory sabres rise and fall,
+  Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;--
+  Then shall thy meteor-glances glow,
+    And cowering foes shall sink beneath
+  Each gallant arm that strikes below
+    That lovely messenger of death.
+
+  Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
+  Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
+  When death, careering on the gale,
+  Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
+  And frighted waves rush wildly back
+  Before the broadside's reeling rack,
+  Each dying wanderer of the sea
+  Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
+  And smile to see thy splendors fly
+  In triumph o'er his closing eye.
+
+  Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
+    By angel hands to valor given;
+  Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
+    And all thy hues were born in heaven.
+  Forever float that standard sheet!
+    Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
+  With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
+    And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!
+
+
+
+
+JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
+
+(1811-1882)
+
+[Illustration: JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER]
+
+
+The subject of this sketch was born at St. Helen's, near Liverpool,
+England, on the 5th of May, 1811. His earliest education was obtained
+at a Wesleyan Methodist school, but after a time he came under private
+teachers, with whose help he made rapid progress in the physical
+sciences, thus showing in his boyhood the natural bent of his mind and
+the real strength of his intellect. He afterwards studied for a time
+at the University of London, but in 1833 came to the United States,
+and three years later graduated at the University of Pennsylvania with
+the degree of M. D. In 1839 he was elected to the chair of chemistry
+in the University of New York, a position which he held until his
+death in 1882.
+
+Draper's contributions to science were of a high order. He discovered
+some of the facts that lie at the basis of spectrum analysis; he was
+one of the first successful experimenters in the art of photography;
+and he made researches in radiant energy and other scientific
+phenomena. He published in 1858 a treatise on 'Human Physiology,'
+which is a highly esteemed and widely used text-book. He died on the
+4th of January, 1882.
+
+Draper's chief contributions to literature are three works: 'History
+of the Intellectual Development of Europe' (1863), a 'History of the
+American Civil War' (1867-1870), and 'The History of the Conflict
+between Religion and Science,' which appeared in the International
+Scientific Series in 1873. Of these works, the one on the intellectual
+development of Europe is the ablest, and takes a place beside the
+works of Lecky and Buckle as a contribution to the history of
+civilization. The history of the Civil War was written too soon after
+the events described to have permanent historical value. 'The History
+of the Conflict between Religion and Science' is a judicial
+presentation of the perennial controversy from the standpoint of the
+scientist.
+
+Draper's claims to attention as a philosophic historian rest mainly on
+his theory of the influence of climate on human character and
+development. He maintains that "For every climate, and indeed for
+every geographical locality, there is an answering type of humanity";
+and in his history of the American Civil War, as well as in his work
+on the intellectual development of Europe, he endeavored to prove that
+doctrine. Another theory which is prominent in his principal work is,
+that the intellectual development of every people passes through five
+stages; namely, 1, the Age of Credulity; 2, the Age of Inquiry; 3, the
+Age of Faith; 4, the Age of Reason; 5, the Age of Decrepitude. Ancient
+Greece, he thinks, passed through all those stages, the age of reason
+beginning with the advent of physical science. Europe as a whole has
+now also entered the age of reason, which as before he identifies with
+the age of physical science; so that everywhere in his historical
+works, physical influences and the scientific knowledge of physical
+phenomena are credited with most of the progress that mankind has
+made. Draper has left a distinct mark upon the scientific thought of
+his generation, and made a distinct and valuable contribution to the
+literature of his adopted country.
+
+
+
+THE VEDAS AND THEIR THEOLOGY
+
+From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+The Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, and of which there are
+four,--the Rig, Yagust, Saman, and Atharvan,--are asserted to have
+been revealed by Brahma. The fourth is however rejected by some
+authorities, and bears internal evidence of a later composition, at a
+time when hierarchical power had become greatly consolidated. These
+works are written in an obsolete Sanskrit, the parent of the more
+recent idiom. They constitute the basis of an extensive literature,
+Upavedas, Angas, etc., of connected works and commentaries. For the
+most part they consist of hymns suitable for public and private
+occasions, prayers, precepts, legends, and dogmas. The Rig, which is
+the oldest, is composed chiefly of hymns; the other three of
+liturgical formulas. They are of different periods and of various
+authorship, internal evidence seeming to indicate that if the later
+were composed by priests, the earlier were the production of military
+chieftains. They answer to a state of society advanced from the nomad
+to the municipal condition. They are based upon an acknowledgment of a
+universal Spirit, pervading all things. Of this God they therefore
+necessarily acknowledge the unity: "There is in truth but one Deity,
+the Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the universe, whose work is the
+universe." "The God above all gods, who created the earth, the
+heavens, and waters." The world, thus considered as an emanation of
+God, is therefore a part of him; it is kept in a visible state by his
+energy, and would instantly disappear if that energy were for a moment
+withdrawn. Even as it is, it is undergoing unceasing transformations,
+everything being in a transitory condition. The moment a given phase
+is reached, it is departed from, or ceases. In these perpetual
+movements the present can scarcely be said to have any existence, for
+as the Past is ending, the Future has begun.
+
+In such a never-ceasing career all material things are urged, their
+forms continually changing, and returning as it were through revolving
+cycles to similar states. For this reason it is that we may regard our
+earth and the various celestial bodies as having had a moment of
+birth, as having a time of continuance, in which they are passing
+onward to an inevitable destruction; and that after the lapse of
+countless ages similar progresses will be made, and similar series of
+events will occur again and again.
+
+But in this doctrine of universal transformation there is something
+more than appears at first. The theology of India is underlaid with
+Pantheism. "God is One because he is All." The Vedas, in speaking of
+the relation of nature to God, make use of the expression that he is
+the material as well as the cause of the universe, "the clay as well
+as the Potter." They convey the idea that while there is a pervading
+spirit existing everywhere, of the same nature as the soul of man,
+though differing from it infinitely in degree, visible nature is
+essentially and inseparably connected therewith; that as in man the
+body is perpetually undergoing changes, perpetually decaying and being
+renewed,--or as in the case of the whole human species, nations come
+into existence and pass away,--yet still there continues to exist what
+may be termed the universal human mind, so forever associated and
+forever connected are the material and the spiritual. And under this
+aspect we must contemplate the Supreme Being, not merely as a
+presiding intellect, but as illustrated by the parallel case of man,
+whose mental principle shows no tokens except through its connection
+with the body: so matter, or nature, or the visible universe, is to be
+looked upon as the corporeal manifestation of God.
+
+
+
+PRIMITIVE BELIEFS DISMISSED BY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
+
+From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+As man advances in knowledge, he discovers that of his primitive
+conclusions some are doubtless erroneous, and many require better
+evidence to establish their truth incontestably. A more prolonged and
+attentive examination gives him reason, in some of the most important
+particulars, to change his mind. He finds that the earth on which he
+lives is not a floor covered over with a starry dome, as he once
+supposed, but a globe self-balanced in space. The crystalline vault,
+or sky, is recognized to be an optical deception. It rests upon the
+earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all; there is no kingdom of
+happiness above it, but a limitless space adorned with planets and
+suns. Instead of a realm of darkness and woe in the depths on the
+other side of the earth, men like ourselves are found there, pursuing,
+in Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures and encountering
+the ordinary labors of life. By the aid of such lights as knowledge
+gradually supplies, he comes at last to discover that this our
+terrestrial habitation, instead of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is
+only one of similar myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea,
+and prodigally scattered through space.
+
+Never, perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. All the visible
+evidence was in direct opposition to it. The earth, which had hitherto
+seemed to be the very emblem of immobility, was demonstrated to be
+carried with a double motion, with prodigious velocity, through the
+heavens; the rising and setting of the stars were proved to be an
+illusion; and as respects the size of the globe, it was shown to be
+altogether insignificant when compared with multitudes of other
+neighboring ones--insignificant doubly by reason of its actual
+dimensions, and by the countless numbers of others like it in form,
+and doubtless like it the abodes of many orders of life.
+
+And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about twenty-five
+thousand miles in circumference. The voyager who circumnavigates it
+spends no inconsiderable portion of his life in accomplishing his
+task. It moves round the sun in a year, but at so great a distance
+from that luminary that if seen from him, it would look like a little
+spark traversing the sky. It is thus recognized as one of the members
+of the solar system. Other similar bodies, some of which are of
+larger, some of smaller dimensions, perform similar revolutions round
+the sun in appropriate periods of time.
+
+If the magnitude of the earth be too great for us to attach to it any
+definite conception, what shall we say of the compass of the solar
+system? There is a defect in the human intellect, which incapacitates
+us for comprehending distances and periods that are either too
+colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight into the matter,
+when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond the bounds of
+the system may perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a
+thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our
+grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination; the
+one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no
+conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.
+
+But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there are other
+worlds like our solar system. There are self-luminous suns, exceeding
+in number all computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into
+nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, and
+that system in its turn is only an invisible point if placed in
+relation with the countless hosts of other systems, which form with it
+clusters of stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the
+universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound by common
+laws and subject to like influences. Even on the very verge of
+creation, where imagination might lay the beginning of the realms of
+chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity in the
+arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are other
+intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the
+abysses of space.
+
+Though it may take a beam of light a million years to bring to our
+view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths
+of space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our
+own. The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast
+distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their
+movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which
+they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky
+glow.
+
+Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar system, from the
+solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to which we belong,
+we behold a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up one after
+another, and forming greater and greater colonies of worlds. No
+numbers can express them, for they make the firmament a haze of stars.
+Uniformity, even though it be the uniformity of magnificence, tires at
+last, and we abandon the survey; for our eyes can only behold a
+boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own unspeakable
+insignificance.
+
+But what has become of the time-honored doctrine of the human destiny
+of the universe?--that doctrine for the sake of which the controversy
+I have described in this chapter was raised? It has disappeared. In
+vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo imprisoned; the truth forced its way,
+in spite of all opposition, at last. The end of the conflict was a
+total rejection of authority and tradition, and the adoption of
+scientific truth.
+
+
+
+THE KORAN
+
+From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
+1876, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+Arabian influence, thus imposing itself on Africa and Asia by
+military successes, and threatening even Constantinople, rested
+essentially on an intellectual basis, the value of which it is needful
+for us to consider. The Koran, which is that basis, has exercised a
+great control over the destinies of mankind, and still serves as a
+rule of life to a very large portion of our race. Considering the
+asserted origin of this book,--indirectly from God himself,--we might
+justly expect that it would bear to be tried by any standard that man
+can apply, and vindicate its truth and excellence in the ordeal of
+human criticism. In our estimate of it, we must constantly bear in
+mind that it does not profess to be successive revelations made at
+intervals of ages and on various occasions, but a complete production
+delivered to one man. We ought therefore to look for universality,
+completeness, perfection. We might expect that it would present us
+with just views of the nature and position of this world in which we
+live, and that whether dealing with the spiritual or the material, it
+would put to shame the most celebrated productions of human genius, as
+the magnificent mechanism of the heavens and the beautiful living
+forms of the earth are superior to the vain contrivances of man. Far
+in advance of all that has been written by the sages of India, or the
+philosophers of Greece, on points connected with the origin, nature,
+and destiny of the universe, its dignity of conception and excellence
+of expression should be in harmony with the greatness of the subject
+with which it is concerned.
+
+    [Illustration: _AFRICAN ARABIC MANUSCRIPT._
+
+    Thirteenth Century.                  National Library, Paris.
+
+    Reduced fac-simile of part of a page of an Arabic Koran, in
+    the African character, captured at Tunis by Charles V.
+
+    The scribes of the East are distinguished by their efforts to
+    acquire a perfect style of execution; and their success
+    merits the greater praise, since they generally stand while
+    writing, resting only on the left arm; and notwithstanding
+    the inferiority of the reed to the modern pen, the Arabs have
+    succeeded in producing the most excellent specimens of
+    calligraphy.]
+
+We might expect that it should propound with authority, and
+definitively settle, those all-important problems which have exercised
+the mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for so many
+centuries, and which are at the foundation of all faith and all
+philosophy; that it should distinctly tell us in unmistakable language
+what is God, what is the world, what is the soul, and whether man has
+any criterion of truth; that it should explain to us how evil can
+exist in a world the Maker of which is omnipotent and altogether good;
+that it should reveal to us in what the affairs of men are fixed by
+Destiny, in what by free-will; that it should teach us whence we came,
+what is the object of our continuing here, what is to become of us
+hereafter. And since a written work claiming a divine origin must
+necessarily accredit itself even to those most reluctant to receive
+it, its internal evidences becoming stronger and not weaker with the
+strictness of the examination to which they are submitted, it ought to
+deal with those things that may be demonstrated by the increasing
+knowledge and genius of man; anticipating therein his conclusions.
+
+Such a work, noble as may be its origin, must not refuse but court the
+test of natural philosophy, regarding it not as an antagonist but as
+its best support. As years pass on, and human science becomes more
+exact and more comprehensive, its conclusions must be found in unison
+therewith. When occasion arises, it should furnish us at least the
+foreshadowings of the great truths discovered by astronomy and
+geology, not offering for them the wild fictions of earlier ages,
+inventions of the infancy of man. It should tell us how suns and
+worlds are distributed in infinite space, and how in their successions
+they come forth in limitless time. It should say how far the dominion
+of God is carried out by law, and what is the point at which it is his
+pleasure to resort to his own good providence or his arbitrary will.
+How grand the description of this magnificent universe, written by the
+Omnipotent hand! Of man it should set forth his relations to other
+living beings, his place among them, his privileges and
+responsibilities. It should not leave him to grope his way through the
+vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last; but it
+should teach him wherein true knowledge consists, anticipating the
+physical science, physical power, and physical well-being of our own
+times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that we are still
+ignorant of. The discussion of subjects so many and so high is not
+outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its manner of dealing
+with them is the only criterion it can offer of its authenticity to
+succeeding times.
+
+Tried by such a standard, the Koran altogether fails. In its
+philosophy it is incomparably inferior to the writings of Chakia
+Mouni, the founder of Buddhism; in its science it is absolutely
+worthless. On speculative or doubtful things it is copious enough; but
+in the exact, where a test can be applied to it, it totally fails. Its
+astronomy, cosmogony, physiology, are so puerile as to invite our
+mirth, if the occasion did not forbid. They belong to the old times of
+the world, the morning of human knowledge. The earth is firmly
+balanced in its seat by the weight of the mountains; the sky is
+supported over it like a dome, and we are instructed in the wisdom and
+power of God by being told to find a crack in it if we can. Ranged in
+stories, seven in number, are the heavens, the highest being the
+habitation of God, whose throne--for the Koran does not reject
+Assyrian ideas--is sustained by winged animal forms. The shooting
+stars are pieces of red-hot stone, thrown by angels at impure spirits
+when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of praise,
+setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it
+bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures them
+that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the Judgment Day they
+must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about whom
+ye disputed?"--though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
+mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
+merchandise of religion,--its ideas of the Deity are altogether
+anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man, living in a paradise. In
+this respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader
+rises from a perusal of the one hundred and fourteen chapters of the
+Koran with a final impression that they have given him low and
+unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising that one of the Mohammedan
+sects reads it in such a way as to find no difficulty in asserting
+that "from the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, and
+from the breast downward he is solid;" that he "has curled black hair,
+and roars like a lion at every watch of the night." The unity asserted
+by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction to the Trinity of
+the Christians, and the doctrine of a Divine generation. Our Savior is
+never called the Son of God, but always the Son of Mary. Throughout
+there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion of the human destiny
+of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse enough respecting a
+future state, speaking with clearness of a resurrection, the Judgment
+Day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm that never dies, the
+pains that never end; but with all this precise description of the
+future, there are many errors as to the past. If modesty did not
+render it unsuitable to speak of such topics here, it might be shown
+how feeble is his physiology when he has occasion to allude to the
+origin or generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond the ideas of
+Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things that are past
+cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.
+
+Of the literary execution of his work, it is perhaps scarcely possible
+to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the oldest prose
+composition among the Arabs, by whom Mohammed's boast of the
+unapproachable excellence of his work is almost universally sustained;
+but it must not be concealed that there have been among them very
+learned men who have held it in light esteem. Its most celebrated
+passages, as those on the nature of God, in Chapters ii., xxiv., will
+bear no comparison with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job.
+In the narrative style, the story of Joseph in Chapter xii., compared
+with the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
+Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends,
+derived probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he mixes
+with many of his own inventions the Scripture account of the
+temptation of Adam, the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, enriching the
+whole with stories like the later Night Entertainments of his country,
+the seven sleepers, Gog and Magog, and all the wonders of genii,
+sorcery, and charms.
+
+An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised that so
+feeble a production should serve its purpose so well. But the theory
+of religion is one thing, the practice another. The Koran abounds in
+excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so
+fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single page without finding
+maxims of which all men must approve. This fragmentary construction
+yields texts and mottoes and rules complete in themselves, suitable
+for common men in any of the incidents of life. There is a perpetual
+insisting on the necessity of prayer, an inculcation of mercy,
+almsgiving, justice, fasting, pilgrimage, and other good works;
+institutions respecting conduct, both social and domestic, debts,
+witnesses, marriage, children, wine, and the like; above all, a
+constant stimulation to do battle with the infidel and blasphemer. For
+life as it passes in Asia, there is hardly a condition in which
+passages from the Koran cannot be recalled suitable for instruction,
+admonition, consolation, encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the
+African, such devotional fragments are of far more use than any
+sustained theological doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed
+did not enable him to handle important philosophical questions with
+the well-balanced ability of the great Greek and Indian writers; but
+he has never been surpassed in adaptation to the spiritual wants of
+humble life, making even his fearful fatalism administer thereto. A
+pitiless destiny is awaiting us; yet the prophet is uncertain what it
+may be. "Unto every nation a fixed time is decreed. Death will
+overtake us even in lofty towers, but God only knoweth the place in
+which a man shall die." After many an admonition of the resurrection
+and the Judgment Day, many a promise of Paradise and threat of hell,
+he plaintively confesses, "I do not know what will be done with you or
+me hereafter."
+
+The Koran thus betrays a human and not a very noble intellectual
+origin. It does not however follow that its author was, as is so often
+asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and again, "I am
+nothing more than a public preacher." He defends, not always without
+acerbity, his work from those who even in his own life stigmatized it
+as a confused heap of dreams, or what is worse, a forgery. He is not
+the only man who has supposed himself to be the subject of
+supernatural and divine communications, for this is a condition of
+disease to which any one, by fasting and mental anxiety, may be
+reduced.
+
+In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many millions of
+men as a revelation from God, I have endeavored to speak with respect
+and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in mind how deeply to this
+book Asia and Africa are indebted for daily guidance, how deeply
+Europe and America for the light of science.
+
+As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have received many
+fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in the course of
+ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii largely figure. The
+latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink, propagate their kind,
+are of two sorts, good and bad, and existed long before men, having
+occupied the earth before Adam. Immediately after death, two greenish
+livid angels, Monkir and Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith
+in God and Mohammed; but the soul, having been separated from the body
+by the angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
+resurrection. There is however much diversity of opinion as to its
+precise disposal before the Judgment Day: some think that it hovers
+near the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem; some, that
+it retires into the trumpet of the angel of the resurrection; the
+difficulty apparently being that any final disposal before the Day of
+Judgment would be anticipatory of that great event, if indeed it would
+not render it needless. As to the resurrection, some believe it to be
+merely spiritual, others corporeal; the latter asserting that the _os
+coccygis_, or last bone of the spinal column, will serve as it were as
+a germ; and that, vivified by a rain of forty days, the body will
+sprout from it. Among the signs of the approaching resurrection will
+be the rising of the sun in the west. It will be ushered in by three
+blasts of a trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation,
+will shake the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars;
+the second, the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material
+things except Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years
+subsequently, the angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrection.
+From his trumpet there will be blown forth the countless myriads of
+souls who have taken refuge therein, or lain concealed. The Day of
+Judgment has now come. The Koran contradicts itself as to the length
+of this day; in one place making it a thousand, in another fifty
+thousand years. Most Mohammedans incline to adopt the longer period,
+since angels, genii, men, and animals have to be tried.
+
+As to men, they will rise in their natural state, but naked;
+white-winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting the saved. When
+the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with an
+intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called into
+existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a sweat to
+issue from them; and this, according to their demerits, will immerse
+them from the ankles to the mouth; but the righteous will be screened
+by the shadow of the throne of God. The Judge will be seated in the
+clouds, the books open before him, and everything in its turn called
+on to account for its deeds. For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel
+will hold forth his balance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise
+and one over hell. In these all works are weighed. As soon as the
+sentence is delivered, the assembly, in a long file, will pass over
+the bridge Al-Sirat. It is as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid
+over the mouth of hell. Mohammed and his followers will successfully
+pass the perilous ordeal; but the sinners, giddy with terror, will
+drop into the place of torment. The blessed will receive their first
+taste of happiness at a pond which is supplied by silver pipes from
+the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of Paradise is of musk. Its rivers
+tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies and emeralds. From tents of
+hollow pearls the Houris, or girls of Paradise, will come forth,
+attended by troops of beautiful boys. Each saint will have eighty
+thousand servants and seventy-two girls. To these, some of the more
+merciful Mussulmans add the wives they have had upon earth; but the
+grimly orthodox assert that hell is already nearly filled with women.
+How can it be otherwise, since they are not permitted to pray in a
+mosque upon earth?
+
+I have not space to describe the silk brocades, the green clothing,
+the soft carpets, the banquets, the perpetual music and songs. From
+the glorified body all impurities will escape, not as they did during
+life, but in a fragrant perspiration of camphor and musk. No one will
+complain, "I am weary;" no one will say, "I am sick.".
+
+From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indicated in
+the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the faith of
+Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such it is said that not
+less than seventy-three may be numbered. Some, as the Sonnites, are
+guided by traditions; some occupy themselves with philosophical
+difficulties,--the existence of evil in the world, the attributes of
+God, absolute predestination and eternal damnation, the invisibility
+and non-corporeality of God, his capability of local motion.... But
+the great Mohammedan philosophers, simply accepting the doctrine of
+the oneness of God as the only thing of which man can be certain, look
+upon all the rest as idle fables--having however this political use:
+that they furnish contention and therefore occupation to disputatious
+sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.
+
+
+
+
+MICHAEL DRAYTON
+
+(1563-1631)
+
+[Illustration: MICHAEL DRAYTON]
+
+
+While London still crowded to the new "Theatre" in Shoreditch, the
+first built in England; while Ben Jonson was still soldiering in the
+Low Countries; while Marlowe was working out the tragedy that was to
+revolutionize all stage traditions, and Shakespeare was yet but a
+"looker-on at greatness,"--there came up from Warwickshire a young man
+of good family who had served as page in a noble house, who had
+studied possibly at Oxford, and who in the first flush of manhood
+aspired to a place among those prodigies who made the later
+Elizabethan period immortal. This was Michael Drayton, whose gentle
+birth and breeding, education and talents, knowledge of the world and
+of men, together with a most sweet and lovable disposition, made him
+at once welcome in the literary Bohemia of the day. He became the
+"deare and bosom friend" of Beaumont and Fletcher, and his work
+received unquestioned honor from his illustrious contemporaries.
+
+As a child he had demanded of his elders to know what kind of beings
+poets were, had spent many hours in writing childishly fantastic
+verses, and had begged of his tutor to make a poet of him. And
+although he seems to have been poor and to have lived by the gifts of
+wealthy patrons, he cast in his lot with literature, and cherished no
+other ambition than that of writing well. His first book, a volume of
+spiritual poems, or metrical renderings of the Bible, was published in
+1590 under the title 'The Harmony of the Church.' It is difficult to
+see why this commonplace and orthodox performance should have given
+such umbrage that the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the entire
+edition to destruction. Yet this was its fate, with the exception of
+forty copies which Archbishop Whitgift ordered to be reserved for the
+ecclesiastical library at Lambeth Palace. Undiscouraged, the poet next
+produced a cycle of sixty-four sonnets and a collection of pastorals
+entitled 'Idea: the Shepherd's Garland,' in which under the name
+"Rowland" he celebrated an early love. It is strange that the
+intrinsic merit of these verses, and their undoubted popularity,
+should not have urged Drayton to continue in the same vein. Instead,
+however, he set about the composition of a series of historical poems
+which extended over the next twenty-four years, and to which he gave
+the best energies of his life. Beginning with the epic 'Matilda,'
+studied from English history, the series was continued by a poem on
+the 'Wars of the Roses,' afterward enlarged into 'The Barons' Wars.'
+This was followed by the epic 'Robert, Duke of Normandy.' Destitute of
+imagination, prolix and tedious, these verses were yet so popular in
+Drayton's day that in 1612 he began the publication of a poem in
+thirty books, meant to include the entire chronology and topography of
+Great Britain, from the earliest times. This was the famous
+'Poly-Olbion,' in which, in spite of the inspiring work of his
+contemporaries, Drayton harked back in spirit to the dreary monotony
+of the Saxon Chronicle; the detail is so minute, the matter so
+unimportant, and the absence of discrimination so apparent, that
+notwithstanding many noticeable beauties of thought and style, it is
+hard to realize that this poem was a favorite with that brilliant
+group which had known Shakespeare, and still delighted in Ben Jonson.
+After issuing eighteen books of 'Poly-Olbion,' his publishers--with
+whom he was always quarreling, and whom he declared that he "despised
+and kicked at"--refused to undertake the remaining twelve books of the
+second part. His friends, however, loyal in their love and praise of
+him, secured a more complaisant tradesman to bring out the rest of the
+already famous poem.
+
+Fortunately for his fame, Drayton had in the mean time produced two
+other volumes of verse, which displayed the real grace and
+fancifulness of his charming muse. The first of these, 'Poems Lyrical
+and Pastoral,' included the satire 'The Man in the Moon'; while in the
+second were printed the 'Ballad of Agincourt,' the most spirited of
+English martial lyrics, and that delightful fantasy 'Nymphidia, or the
+Court of Faery,' in which the touch is so light, the fancy so dainty,
+and the conceit so delicate, that the poem remains immortally fresh
+and young. Because everybody wrote plays, Drayton turned playwright,
+and is said to have collaborated with Massinger and Ford. Of his long
+works, the 'Heroicall Episodes' is perhaps the most readable. His last
+effort was 'The Muses' Elizium,' published in 1630. A year later he
+died, and was buried in Westminster, where a monument was erected to
+him by the Countess of Dorset.
+
+Drayton's place in English literature is with that considerable and
+not unimportant band who have done somewhat, but whose repute is much
+more for what they were in their friends' eyes than for what they did.
+In an age of great intellectual achievement, he yet managed, in spite
+of the stimulus of kindred minds and his own undoubted gift, to
+produce little that has sustained the reputation accorded him by his
+acquaintances. Most of his work lives chiefly to afford pleasing
+studies for the literary antiquary, to whom the tide of time brings
+nothing uninteresting. Yet in the art of living, in the unselfish
+devotion of his powers to his chosen calling, in the graces of
+affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so excellent and
+exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard of the most able men
+of the most brilliant period of English literature--men who felt a
+personal and unrequitable loss when he passed away, and who spoke of
+him always with admiring tenderness.
+
+In person he seems to have been small and dark. He describes himself
+as of "swart and melancholy face." Yet his talk was most delightful,
+and a strong proof of his wide popularity appears in the fact that he
+is quoted not less than one hundred and fifty times in 'England's
+Parnassus,' published as early as 1600. The tributes of his friends
+are innumerable, from the "good Rowland" of Barnfield to the
+"golden-mouthed Drayton, musicall," of Fitz-Geoffrey, the "man of
+vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-preserved
+carriage" of Meres, or the tender lines of his friend Ben Jonson:--
+
+  "Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
+  What they and what their children owe
+  To Drayton's name; whose sacred dust
+  We recommend unto thy trust.
+  Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
+  Remain a lasting monument of his glory.
+  And when thy ruins shall disclaim
+  To be the treasurer of his name,
+  His name, that cannot die, shall be
+  An everlasting monument to thee."
+
+
+
+SONNET
+
+
+  Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,--
+    Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
+  And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
+    That thus so clearly I myself can free:
+  Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
+    And when we meet at any time again,
+  Be it not seen in either of our brows
+    That we one jot of former love retain.
+  Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath.
+    When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
+  When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
+    And Innocence is closing up his eyes,--
+  Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
+  From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!
+
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT
+
+
+  Fair stood the wind for France,
+  When we our sails advance,
+  Nor now to prove our chance
+      Longer will tarry;
+  But putting to the main,
+  At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
+  With all his martial train,
+      Landed King Harry.
+
+  And taking many a fort,
+  Furnished in warlike sort,
+  Marched towards Agincourt
+      In happy hour--
+  Skirmishing day by day
+  With those that stopped his way,
+  Where the French gen'ral lay
+      With all his power.
+
+  Which in his height of pride,
+  King Henry to deride,
+  His ransom to provide
+      To the King sending;
+  Which he neglects the while,
+  As from a nation vile,
+  Yet, with an angry smile,
+      Their fall portending.
+
+  And turning to his men,
+  Quoth our brave Henry then:--
+  "Though they to one be ten,
+      Be not amazed;
+  Yet have we well begun--
+  Battles so bravely won
+  Have ever to the sun
+      By fame been raised.
+
+  "And for myself," quoth he,
+  "This my full rest shall be;
+  England ne'er mourn for me,
+      Nor more esteem me;
+  Victor I will remain,
+  Or on this earth lie slain;
+  Never shall she sustain
+      Loss to redeem me.
+
+  "Poitiers and Cressy tell,
+  When most their pride did swell,
+  Under our swords they fell;
+      No less our skill is
+  Than when our grandsire great,
+  Claiming the regal seat,
+  By many a warlike feat
+      Lopped the French lilies."
+
+  The Duke of York so dread
+  The eager vaward led;
+  With the main Henry sped,
+      Amongst his henchmen.
+  Excester had the rear--
+  A braver man not there:
+  O Lord! how hot they were
+      On the false Frenchmen!
+
+  They now to fight are gone;
+  Armor on armor shone;
+  Drum now to drum did groan--
+      To hear was wonder;
+  That with the cries they make
+  The very earth did shake;
+  Trumpet to trumpet spake,
+      Thunder to thunder.
+
+  Well it thine age became,
+  O noble Erpingham!
+  Which did the signal aim
+      To our hid forces;
+  When from a meadow by,
+  Like a storm suddenly,
+  The English archery
+      Struck the French horses,
+
+  With Spanish yew so strong,
+  Arrows a cloth-yard long,
+  That like to serpents stung,
+      Piercing the weather;
+  None from his fellow starts,
+  But playing manly parts,
+  And like true English hearts,
+      Stuck close together.
+
+  When down their bows they threw,
+  And forth their bilbows drew,
+  And on the French they flew,
+      Not one was tardy;
+  Arms were from shoulders sent;
+  Scalps to the teeth were rent;
+  Down the French peasants went;--
+      Our men were hardy.
+
+  This while our noble king,
+  His broadsword brandishing,
+  Down the French host did ding,
+      As to o'erwhelm it;
+  And many a deep wound lent,
+  His arm with blood besprent,
+  And many a cruel dent
+      Bruised his helmet.
+
+  Glo'ster, that duke so good,
+  Next of the royal blood,
+  For famous England stood,
+      With his brave brother--
+  Clarence, in steel so bright,
+  Though but a maiden knight,
+  Yet in that furious fight
+      Scarce such another.
+
+  Warwick in blood did wade;
+  Oxford the foe invade,
+  And cruel slaughter made,
+      Still as they ran up.
+  Suffolk his axe did ply;
+  Beaumont and Willoughby
+  Bare them right doughtily,
+      Ferrers and Fanhope.
+
+  Upon Saint Crispin's day
+  Fought was this noble fray,
+  Which fame did not delay
+      To England to carry;
+  Oh, when shall Englishmen
+  With such acts fill a pen,
+  Or England breed again
+      Such a King Harry?
+
+
+
+QUEEN MAB'S EXCURSION
+
+From 'Nymphidia, the Court of Faery'
+
+
+  Her chariot ready straight is made;
+  Each thing therein is fitting laid,
+  That she by nothing might be stay'd,
+      For naught must her be letting:
+  Four nimble gnats the horses were,
+  The harnesses of gossamer,
+  Fly Cranion, her charioteer,
+      Upon the coach-box getting.
+
+  Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
+  Which for the colors did excel,--
+  The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
+      So lively was the limning;
+  The seat the soft wool of the bee.
+  The cover (gallantly to see)
+  The wing of a py'd butterflee,--
+      I trow, 'twas simple trimming.
+
+  The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
+  And daintily made for the nonce;
+  For fear of rattling on the stones,
+      With thistle-down they shod it:
+  For all her maidens much did fear,
+  If Oberon had chanced to hear
+  That Mab his queen should have been there,
+      He would not have abode it.
+
+  She mounts her chariot with a trice,
+  Nor would she stay for no advice,
+  Until her maids, that were so nice,
+      To wait on her were fitted,
+  But ran away herself alone;
+  Which when they heard, there was not one
+  But hasted after to be gone,
+      As she had been diswitted.
+
+  Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear,
+  Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were
+  To Mab their sovereign dear,
+      Her special maids of honor;
+  Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,
+      Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin,
+  Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,
+      The train that wait upon her.
+
+  Upon a grasshopper they got,
+  And what with amble and with trot,
+  For hedge nor ditch they spared not,
+      But after her they hie them.
+  A cobweb over them they throw,
+  To shield the wind if it should blow;
+  Themselves they wisely could bestow,
+      Lest any should espy them.
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE DROZ
+
+(1832-1895)
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE DROZ]
+
+
+Gustave Droz enjoyed for a time the distinction of being the most
+popular writer of light literature in France, and his fame extended
+throughout Europe and to America, several of his books having been
+translated into English. Essentially a Parisian of the day,--gay,
+droll, adroit,--he not only caught and reflected the humor of his
+countrymen, but with a new, fresh touch, reached below the surface of
+their volatile emotions. Occasionally striking the note of deeper
+feeling, he avoided as a rule the more serious sides of life, as well
+as the sensational tendencies of most of his contemporaries. His
+friends claimed for him a distinctive _genre_, and on that account
+presented him as a candidate for the Academy; but he failed of
+election.
+
+The son of a well-known sculptor, he was born in Paris, and followed
+the traditions of his family in entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
+where he developed some aptitude with his brush; but a preference for
+writing beguiled him from the studio, and an acquaintance with
+Marcellin the illustrator, founder of La Vie Parisienne, led him to
+follow literature. At first he was timid, dreading the test of
+publication, but presently he gave himself up unreservedly to his pen.
+Within a year he was established as a favorite of the people, and his
+friend's journal was on the highway to success. For this he wrote a
+series of sketches of every-day life that were subsequently collected
+and published in book form, under the titles 'Monsieur, Madame, et
+Bebe,' 'Entre Nous,' and 'La Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot.' Within two
+years these books had reached their twentieth edition, and of the
+first, nearly one hundred and fifty editions have been demanded since
+it was issued. He has written several novels, the best known of which
+are 'Babolein,' 'Les Etangs' (The Ponds), and 'Autour d'une Source'
+(Around a Spring), but they did not fully sustain the reputation
+gained by his short sketches; a fact which induced him in 1884 to
+return to his earlier form in 'Tristesses et Sourires' (Sorrows and
+Smiles), a volume of light dissertations on things grave and gay that
+at once revived his popularity.
+
+The peculiarity of the work of Gustave Droz is its delicacy both in
+humor and pathos. He surprised the French by making them all laugh
+without making any of them wince; the sharp wits of his day were
+forgotten in the unalloyed enjoyment of his simple quaintness, in
+which there was neither affectation nor sarcasm. Yet as has been said,
+he was a Parisian of the Parisians, quick to perceive the ludicrous,
+ready to weep with the afflicted, and to laugh again with the happy.
+His studies of children are among his best, on account of their
+extreme naturalness, and are never uninteresting, despite the
+simplicity of the incidents and observations on which they are
+founded. In 'Le Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot' he has used striking
+colors to paint the petty afflictions that beset most lives; but lest
+these pictures should leave an unpleasant impression, they are set off
+by others of a happier sort, making a collection that constitutes a
+most effective lesson in practical philosophy.
+
+
+
+HOW THE BABY WAS SAVED
+
+From 'The Seamstress's Story'
+
+
+"Yes, Ma'm'selle Adele," said the seamstress, "the real happiness of
+this world is not so unevenly distributed after all." Louise, as she
+said this, took from the reserve in the bosom of her dress a lot of
+pins, and applied them deftly to the trimming of a skirt which I was
+holding for her.
+
+"A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I answered; "but it does seem
+to me as if some people were born to live and to die unhappy."
+
+"It is only folks who never find anybody to love enough; and I think
+it's nobody's fault but their own."
+
+"But my good Louise, wouldn't you have suffered much less last year,
+when you came so near losing your boy, if you hadn't cared so much for
+him?"
+
+I was only drawing her on, you see; Louise's chat was the greatest
+resource to me at that time.
+
+"Why, Ma'm'selle Adele, you are surely joking. You'd as well tell me
+to cut off my feet to save my shoes. You'll know one of these
+days--and not so far off neither, maybe--how mighty easy and sensible
+it would be not to love your children. They _are_ a worry, too; but oh
+the delight of 'em! I'd like to have had anybody tell me not to love
+my darling because it might grieve me, when he lay there in his
+mother's lap, with blue lips, gasping for his breath, and well-nigh
+dead, his face blackish, and his hands like this piece of wax. You
+could see that everything was going against him; and with his great
+big eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if the child was
+tugging at my very heart-strings. I kept smiling at him, though,
+through the tears that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them. Oh!
+such tears are bitter salt indeed, Ma'm'selle! And there was my poor
+husband on his knees, making paper figures to amuse him, and singing a
+funny song he used to laugh at. Now and then the corners of his mouth
+would pucker, and his cheeks would wrinkle a little bit under the
+eyes. You could tell he was still amused, but in such a dreamy way.
+Oh! our child seemed no longer with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait
+a minute. You must excuse me, for I can't help crying when I think of
+it."
+
+And the poor creature drew out her handkerchief and fairly sobbed
+aloud. In the midst of it however she smiled and said: "Well, that's
+over now; 'twas nothing, and I'm too silly. And Ma'm'selle, here I've
+gone and cried upon your mother's dress, and that's a pretty
+business."
+
+I took her hand in mine and pressed it.
+
+"Aren't you afraid you'll stick yourself, Ma'm'selle? I've got my
+needle in that hand," she said playfully. "But you did not mean what
+you said just now, did you?"
+
+"What did I say?"
+
+"That it would be better not to love your children with all your
+heart, on account of the great anxiety. Don't you know such thoughts
+are wicked? When they come into your head your mind wants purifying.
+But I'm sure I beg your pardon for saying so."
+
+"You are entirely right, Louise," I returned.
+
+"Ah! so I thought. And now let me see. Let's fix this ruche; pull it
+to the left a little, please."
+
+"But about the sick boy. Tell me about his recovery."
+
+"That was a miracle--I ought to say two miracles. It was a miracle
+that God restored him to us, and a miracle to find anybody with so
+much knowledge and feeling,--such talent, such a tender heart, and so
+much, so much--! I'm speaking of the doctor. A famous one he was, too,
+you must know; for it was no less than Doctor Faron. Heaven knows how
+he is run after, and how rich and celebrated he is! Aren't you
+surprised to hear that it was he who attended _our_ little boy?
+Indeed, the wonders begin with that. You may imagine my husband was at
+his wits' end when he saw how it was with the child; and all of a
+sudden I saw him jump up, get out his best coat and hat, and put them
+on.
+
+"'Where are you going' I asked.
+
+"'To bring Doctor Faron.'
+
+"Why, if he had said, 'To bring the Prime Minister,' it would have
+seemed as likely.
+
+"'Don't you believe Doctor Faron is going to trouble himself about
+such as we. They will turn you out of doors.'
+
+"But 'twas no use talking, my dear. He was already on the stairs, and
+I heard him running away as if the house was on fire. Fire, indeed;
+worse, far worse than any fire!
+
+"And there I was, left alone with the child upon my knees. He wouldn't
+stay in bed, and was quieter so, wrapped up in his little blanket.
+'Here will he die,' I thought. 'Soon will his eyes close, and then it
+will be all over;' and I held my own breath to listen to his feeble
+and oppressed pantings.
+
+"About an hour had passed, when I heard a rapid step upon the stairs
+(we are poor, and live in attic rooms). The door opened, and my
+husband came in, wet with perspiration and out of breath. If I live a
+century, I'll not forget his look when he said:--
+
+"'Well?'
+
+"I answered, 'No worse. But the doctor?'
+
+"'He's coming.'
+
+"Oh, those blessed words! It actually seemed as if my child were saved
+already. If you but knew how folks love their little ones! I kissed
+the darling, I kissed his father, I laughed, I cried, and I no longer
+felt the faintest doubt. It is by God's mercy that such gleams of hope
+are sent to strengthen us in our trials. It was very foolish, too; for
+something might easily have prevented the doctor's coming, after all.
+
+"'You found him at home, then?' I asked my husband.
+
+"Then he told me in an undertone what he had done, stopping every now
+and then to wipe his face and gather breath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My husband had scarcely uttered these words," continued Louise, "when
+I heard a step on the stairs. It was he! it was that blessed angel of
+a doctor, come to help us in our sore distress.
+
+"And what do you think he said in his deep voice when he got into the
+room?
+
+"God bless you, my friends, but I nearly broke my neck on those
+stairs. Where's that child?"
+
+"'Here he is, my dear, darling doctor.' I knew no better way to speak
+to him, with his dress cravat showing over his greatcoat, and his
+decorations dangling like a little bunch of keys at his buttonhole.
+
+"He took off his wrappings, stooped over the child, turned him over,
+more gently even than his mother could have done, and laid his own
+head first against his back, then against his breast. How I tried to
+read his eyes! but they know how to hide their thoughts.
+
+"'We must perform an operation here,' says he; 'and it is high time.'
+
+"Just at this moment the hospital doctor came in, and whispered to
+him, 'I'm afraid you didn't want to be disturbed, sir.'
+
+"'Oh, never mind. I am sorry it wasn't sooner, though. Get everything
+ready now.'
+
+"But Ma'm'selle Adele, why should I tell you all this? I'd better mind
+my work."
+
+"Oh, go on, Louise, go on!"
+
+"Well then, Ma'm'selle, if you believe me, those two doctors--neither
+of 'em kin, or even friends till then--went to work and made all the
+preparations, while my husband went off to borrow lights. The biggest
+one tied a mattress on the table, and the assistant spread out the
+bright little knives.
+
+"You who have not been through it all, Ma'm'selle, can't know what it
+is to have your own little one in your lap, to know that those things
+are to be used upon him to pierce his tender flesh, and if the hand
+that guides them be not sure, that they may kill him.
+
+"When all was ready, Doctor Faron took off his cravat, then lifted my
+child from my arms and laid him on the mattress, in the midst of the
+lamps, and said to my poor man:--
+
+"'You will hold his head, and your wife his feet. Joseph will pass me
+the instruments. You've brought a breathing-tube with you, my son?'
+
+"'Yes, sir.'
+
+"My husband was as white as a sheet by this; and when I saw him about
+to take his place with his hands shaking so much, it scared me, so I
+said:--
+
+"'Doctor, please let me hold his head!"
+
+"'But my poor woman, if you should tremble?'
+
+"'Please let me do it, doctor!'
+
+"'Be it so, then;' and then added with a bright look at me, and a
+cheering smile, 'we shall save him for you, my dear; you are a brave
+little woman and you deserve it.'
+
+"Yes, and save him he did! God bless him! saved him as truly as if he
+had snatched him from the depths of the river."
+
+"And you didn't tremble, Louise?"
+
+"You may depend on that. If I had, it would have been the last of my
+child."
+
+"How in the world did you keep yourself steady?"
+
+"The Lord knows; but I was like a rock. When you must, you must, I
+suppose."
+
+"And you had to behold every detail of that operation?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it over since. His poor little
+neck laid open, and the veins, which the doctor pushed aside with his
+fingers, and the little silver tube which he inserted, and all that;
+and then the face of the child, changing as the air passed into his
+lungs. You've seen a lamp almost out, when you pour in oil? It was
+like that. They had laid him there but half alive, with his eyes all
+but set; and they gave him back to me, pale and with bloodless lips,
+it is true, but with life in his looks, and breathing--breathing the
+free, fresh air.
+
+"'Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, 'and put him to bed. Cover the
+place with some light thing or other, and Joseph must stay with you
+to-night; won't you, Joseph? Ah, well, that's all arranged.'
+
+"He put on his things and wrapped himself up to go. He was shaking
+hands with my husband, when I seized one hand, and kissed it--like a
+fool, as I was; but I didn't stop to think. He laughed heartily, and
+said to my husband, 'Are you not jealous, friend? Your wife is making
+great advances to me. But I must be off now. Good night, good people.'
+
+"And from that night he always talks so friendly and familiarly to us,
+not a bit contemptuously either, but as if he liked us, and was glad
+to be of service to us."
+
+
+
+A FAMILY NEW-YEAR'S
+
+From 'Monsieur, Madame, and Baby'
+
+
+It is barely seven o'clock. A pale ray of wan light filters through
+the double curtains, and some one is already at the door. In the next
+room I hear the stifled laughs and silvery voice of my little child,
+who trembles with impatience and begs to come.
+
+"But father dear," he cries, "it's Baby. It's your own little boy--to
+wish you 'Happy New Year.'"
+
+"Come in, darling; come quick and give me a kiss," I cry.
+
+The door opens, and my boy, with shining eyes and his arms in the air,
+rushes toward the bed. Long curls, escaping from the nightcap which
+imprisons his blond head, fall over his forehead. His loose
+night-shirt, embarrassing his little feet, adds to his impatience and
+makes him trip at every step. He has crossed the room at last, and
+stretching his hands toward mine, "Baby wishes you a happy New Year,"
+he says earnestly.
+
+"Poor darling, with his bare feet! Come, dear! Come and get warm under
+the covers; come and hide in the quilt."
+
+I draw him to me; but at this movement my wife wakes up suddenly....
+"How you frightened me! I was dreaming that there was a fire, and
+these voices in the midst of it! You are indiscreet with your cries!"
+
+"_Our_ cries! So you forget, dear mamma, that this is New-Year's day.
+Baby is waiting for you to wake up, and so am I."
+
+I wrap up my little man in the soft quilt, I bury him in the
+eiderdown, and warm his frozen feet with my hands.
+
+"Mother dear, this is New Year," he cries. He draws our two heads
+together with his arms, and kisses us anywhere at random, with his
+fresh lips. I feel his dimpled hand wandering about my neck; his
+little fingers are entangled in my beard. My mustache pricks the end
+of his nose. He bursts out laughing, and throws his head back.
+
+His mother, who has recovered from her fright, draws him into her
+arms. She pulls the bell.
+
+"The year begins well, my dears," she says, "but we need a little
+light."
+
+"Tell me, mamma, do naughty children have presents at New-Year's?"
+says the young dissembler, with an eye on the mountain of boxes and
+packages visible in the corner, in spite of the gloom.
+
+The curtains are drawn apart, the blinds are opened, there is a flood
+of daylight, the fire crackles gayly on the hearth, and two large
+packages, carefully wrapped up, are placed on the bed. One is for my
+wife; the other for the boy.
+
+What is it? What will it be? I have heaped up knots, and tripled the
+wrappings; and I watch with delight their nervous fingers, lost in the
+strings.
+
+My wife gets impatient, smiles, is vexed, kisses me, and asks for
+scissors. Baby on his side bites his lips, pulls with all his might,
+and at last asks me to help him. He longs to see through the paper.
+Desire and expectation are painted on his face. The convulsive
+movement of his hand in the folds of the quilt rustles the silk, and
+he makes a sound with his lips as though a savory fruit were
+approaching them.
+
+The last paper is off, finally the cover is lifted, there is an outcry
+of joy.
+
+"My tippet!"
+
+"My menagerie!"
+
+"Like my muff,--my dear husband!"
+
+"With a real shepherd, on wheels, dear papa, _how_ I love you!"
+
+They hug me, four arms at once wind round and press me close. I am
+stirred--a tear comes to my eyes; two come to those of my wife; and
+Baby, who loses his head, utters a sob as he kisses my hand.
+
+How absurd! you will say. I don't know whether it is absurd or not,
+but it is charming, I promise you. After all, does not sorrow wring
+tears enough from us to make up for the solitary one which joy may
+call forth? Life is less happy when one chances it alone; and when the
+heart is empty, the way seems long. It is so good to feel one's self
+loved; to hear the regular steps of one's fellow travelers beside one;
+and to think, "They are there, our three hearts beat together;" and
+once a year, when the great clock strikes the first of January, to sit
+down beside the way with hands clasped together and eyes fixed upon
+the dusty unknown road stretching on to the horizon, and to embrace
+and say:--"We will always love each other, my dear ones; you depend
+upon me and I on you. Let us trust and keep straight on."
+
+And that is how I explain that we weep a little in looking at a tippet
+and opening a menagerie.
+
+    Translated by Jane G. Cooke, for 'A Library of The World's
+    Best Literature.'
+
+
+
+THEIR LAST EXCURSION
+
+From 'Making an Omelette': from Lippincott's Magazine, 1871,
+copyrighted
+
+
+In this strange, rude interior, how refined and delicate Louise
+looked, with all her dainty appointments of long undressed kid gloves,
+jaunty boots, and looped-up petticoat! While I talked to the
+wood-cutters she shielded her face from the fire with her hands, and
+kept her eye on the butter beginning to sing in the pan.
+
+Suddenly she rose, and taking the pan-handle from the old woman, said,
+"Let me help you make the omelette, will you?" The good woman let go
+with a smile, and Louise found herself alone, in the attitude of a
+fisherman who has just had a nibble. She stood in the full light of
+the fire, her eyes fixed on the melted butter, her arms tense with
+effort; she was biting her lips, probably in order to increase her
+strength.
+
+"It's rather hard on madame's little hands," said the old man. "I bet
+it's the first time you ever made an omelette in a wood-cutter's
+hut--isn't it, my young lady?"
+
+Louise nodded yes, without turning her eyes from the omelette.
+
+"The eggs! the eggs!" she suddenly exclaimed, with such a look of
+uneasiness that we all burst out laughing--"hurry with the eggs! The
+butter is all puffing up! Be quick--or I can't answer for the
+consequences."
+
+The old woman beat the eggs energetically.
+
+"The herbs!" cried the old man. "The lard and salt!" cried the young
+ones. And they all set to work chopping, cutting, piling up, while
+Louise, stamping with excitement, called out, "Make haste! make
+haste!" Then there was a tremendous bubbling in the pan, and the great
+work began. We were all round the fire, gazing with an anxious
+interest inspired by our all having had a finger in the pie.
+
+The old woman, on her knees beside a large dish, slipped a knife under
+the edge of the omelette, which was turning a fine brown. "Now,
+madame, you've only got to turn it over," she said.
+
+"Just one little quick blow," suggested the old man.
+
+"Mustn't be violent," counseled the young one.
+
+"All at once; tip with it, dear!" I said.
+
+"If you all talk at once--"
+
+"Make haste, madame!"
+
+"If you all talk at once I never shall manage it. It is too awfully
+heavy."
+
+"One quick little blow."
+
+"But I can't; it's going over. Oh gracious!"
+
+In the heat of action, her hood had fallen off. Her cheeks were like a
+peach, her eyes shone, and though she lamented her fate, she burst
+into peals of laughter. At last by a supreme effort the pan moved, and
+the omelette rolled over, somewhat heavily, I confess, into the large
+dish which the old woman was holding. Never did an omelette look
+better!
+
+"I am sure the young lady's arms must be tired," said the old man, as
+he began cutting a round loaf into enormous slices.
+
+"Oh no, not so very," my wife answered with a merry laugh; "only I am
+crazy to taste my--our omelette."
+
+We had seated ourselves round the table. When we had eaten and drunk
+with the good souls, we rose and made ready to go home. The sun had
+set, and the whole family came out of the cabin to see us off and say
+good-night.
+
+"Don't you want my son to go with you?" the old woman called after us.
+
+It was growing dark and chilly under the trees, and we gradually
+quickened our pace. "Those are happy people," said Louise. "We will
+come some morning and breakfast with them,--shan't we? We can put the
+baby in one of the donkey panniers, and in the other a large pasty and
+a bottle of wine.--You are not afraid of losing your way, George?"
+
+"No, dear; no fear of that."
+
+"A pasty and a bottle of wine--What is that?"
+
+"Nothing; the stump of a tree."
+
+"The stump of a tree--the stump of a tree," she muttered. "Don't you
+hear something behind us?"
+
+"It is only the wind in the leaves, or the breaking of a dead branch."
+
+He is fortunate who at night, in the heart of a forest, feels as calm
+as at his own fireside. You do not tremble, but you feel the silence.
+Involuntarily you look for eyes peering out of the darkness, and you
+try to define the confused forms appearing and changing every minute.
+Something breaks and sounds beneath your tread, and if you stop you
+hear the distant melancholy howl of your watch-dog, the scream of an
+owl, and other noises, far and near, not so easily explained. A sense
+of strangeness surrounds you and weighs you down. If you are alone,
+you walk faster; if there are two of you, you draw close to your
+companion. My wife clung to my arm.
+
+"Let us turn wood-cutters. We could build a pretty little hut, simple,
+but nice enough. I would have curtains to the windows, and a carpet,
+and put my piano in one corner." She spoke very low, and occasionally
+I felt my hand tremble on her arm.
+
+"You would soon get enough of that, dearest."
+
+"It isn't fair to say so." And in another minute she went on:--"You
+think I don't love you, you and our boy? Oh yes, dear, I love you.
+Yes, yes, yes! The happiness that comes every day can't be expressed:
+we live on it, so we don't think of it. Like our daily bread--who
+thinks of that? But when you are thinking of yourself, when you put
+your head down, and really think, then you say, 'I am ungrateful, for
+I am happy, and I give no thanks for it.' Or when we are alone
+together, and walking arm-in-arm, now, at this very moment,--not that
+I mean only this moment,--I love you, I love you." She put her head
+down on my arm and pressed it earnestly. "Oh," she said, "if I were to
+lose you!" She spoke very low, as if afraid. What had frightened her?
+The darkness and the forest, or her own words?
+
+She went on:--"I have often and often dreamed that I was saying
+good-by to you. You both cried, and I pressed you so close to my heart
+that there was only one of us. It was a nightmare, you know, but I
+don't mind it, for it showed me that my life was in your lives, dear.
+What is that cracking noise? Didn't you see something just in front of
+us?"
+
+I answered her by taking her in my arms and folding her to my heart.
+We walked on, but it was impossible to go on talking. Every now and
+then she would stop and say, "Hush! hark! No, it is nothing."
+
+At last we saw ahead of us a little light, now visible, now hidden by
+a tree. It was the lamp set for us in our parlor window. We crossed
+the stile and were at home. It was high time, for we were wet through.
+
+I brought a huge log, and when the fire had blazed up we sat down in
+the great chimney-place. The poor girl was shivering. I took off her
+boots and held her feet to the fire, screening them with my hands.
+
+"Thanks, dear George, thanks!" she said, leaning on my shoulder and
+looking at me so tenderly that I felt almost ready to cry.
+
+"What were you saying to me in that horrid wood, my darling?" I asked
+her, when she was better.
+
+"You are thinking about that? I was frightened, that is all, and when
+you are frightened you see ghosts."
+
+"We shall be wood-cutters, shan't we?"
+
+And kissing me, with a laugh, she replied: "It is bedtime, Jean of the
+Woods."
+
+I well remember that walk, for it was our last. Often and often since,
+at sunset on a dark day, I have been over the same ground; often and
+often I have stopped where she stood, and stooped and pulled aside the
+fern, seeking to find, poor fool that I am! the traces of her vanished
+footsteps. And I have often halted in the clearing under the birches
+which rained down on us, and there in the shadow I have fancied I
+caught the flutter of her dress; I have thought I heard her startled
+note of fright. And on my way home at night, at every step I have
+found a recollection of her in the distant barking and the breaking
+branches, as in the trembling of her hand on my arm and the kiss which
+I gave her.
+
+Once I went into the wood-hut. I saw it all as before,--the family,
+the smoky interior, the little bench on which we sat,--and I asked for
+something to drink, that I might see the glass her lips had touched.
+
+"The little lady who makes such good omelettes, she isn't sick, for
+sure?" asked the old woman.
+
+Probably she saw the tears in my eyes, for she said no more, and I
+came away.
+
+And so it is that except in my heart, where she lives and is, all that
+was my darling grows faint and dark and dim.
+
+It is the law of life, but it is a cruel law. Even my poor child is
+learning to forget, and when I say to him most unwillingly, "Baby
+dear, do you remember how your mother did this or that?" he answers
+"Yes"; but I see, alas! that he too is ceasing to remember.
+
+                                       Translation of Agnes Irwin.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY DRUMMOND
+
+(1851-)
+
+[Illustration: HENRY DRUMMOND]
+
+
+One of the most widely read of modern essayists, Henry Drummond, was
+born at Stirling, Scotland, in 1851. Educated for the ministry, he
+passed through the Universities of Edinburgh and Tuebingen, and the
+Free Church Divinity Hall, and after ordination was appointed to a
+mission chapel at Malta. The beauty and the historic interest of the
+famous island roused in him a desire for travel, and in the intervals
+of his professional work he has made semi-scientific pilgrimages to
+the Rocky Mountains and to South Africa, as well as lecturing tours to
+Canada, Australia, and the United States, where his addresses on
+scientific, religious, and sociological subjects have attracted large
+audiences.
+
+A man of indefatigable industry, he has published many books, the most
+widely read of these being 'Natural Law in the Spiritual World' a
+study of psychological conditions from the point of view of the
+Evolutionist. This work has passed through a large number of editions,
+and been translated into French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian.
+Scarcely less popular were 'The Greatest Thing in the World' (love),
+and 'Pax Vobiscum.' In 1894 he published a volume called 'The Ascent
+of Man,' in which he insists that certain altruistic factors modify
+the process of Natural Selection. This doctrine elicited much critical
+commentary from the stricter sects of the scientists, but the new view
+commended itself at once to the general reader.
+
+The citations here given are selected from Mr. Drummond's book of
+travels, 'Tropical Africa,' a book whose simplicity and vividness
+enable the reader to see the Dark Continent exactly as it is.
+
+
+
+THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE
+
+From 'Tropical Africa'
+
+
+Nothing could more wildly misrepresent the reality than the idea of
+one's school days that the heart of Africa is a desert. Africa rises
+from its three environing oceans in three great tiers, and the general
+physical geography of these has been already sketched:--first, a coast
+line, low and deadly; farther in, a plateau the height of the Scottish
+Grampians; farther in still, a higher plateau, covering the country
+for thousands of miles with mountain and valley. Now fill in this
+sketch, and you have Africa before you. Cover the coast belt with rank
+yellow grass; dot here and there a palm; scatter through it a few
+demoralized villages; and stock it with the leopard, the hyena, the
+crocodile, and the hippopotamus. Clothe the mountainous plateaux next,
+both of them, with endless forests; not grand umbrageous forest like
+the forests of South America, nor matted jungle like the forests of
+India, but with thin, rather weak forest,--with forest of low trees,
+whose half-grown trunks and scanty leaves offer no shade from the
+tropical sun. Nor is there anything in these trees to the casual eye
+to remind you that you are in the tropics. Here and there one comes
+upon a borassus or fan-palm, a candelabra-like euphorbia, a mimosa
+aflame with color, or a sepulchral baobab. A close inspection also
+will discover curious creepers and climbers; and among the branches
+strange orchids hide their eccentric flowers. But the outward type of
+tree is the same as we have at home--trees resembling the ash, the
+beech, and the elm, only seldom so large except by the streams, and
+never so beautiful. Day after day you may wander through these
+forests, with nothing except the climate to remind you where you are.
+The beasts to be sure are different, but unless you watch for them you
+will seldom see any; the birds are different, but you rarely hear
+them; and as for the rocks, they are our own familiar gneisses and
+granites, with honest basalt dikes boring through them, and
+leopard-skin lichens staining their weathered sides. Thousands and
+thousands of miles, then, of vast thin forest, shadeless, trackless,
+voiceless,--forest in mountain and forest in plain,--this is East
+Central Africa.
+
+The indiscriminate praise, formerly lavished on tropical vegetation,
+has received many shocks from recent travelers. In Kaffir-land, South
+Africa, I have seen one or two forests fine enough to justify the
+enthusiasm of arm-chair word-painters of the tropics; but so far as
+the central plateau is concerned, the careful judgment of Mr. Alfred
+Russell Wallace respecting the equatorial belt in general (a judgment
+which has at once sobered all modern descriptions of tropical lands
+and made imaginative people more content to stay at home) applies
+almost to this whole area. The fairy labyrinth of ferns and palms,
+the festoons of climbing plants blocking the paths and scenting the
+forests with their resplendent flowers, the gorgeous clouds of
+insects, the gayly plumaged birds, the paroquets, the monkey swinging
+from his trapeze in the shaded bowers--these are unknown to Africa.
+Once a week you will see a palm; once in three months the monkey will
+cross your path; the flowers on the whole are few; the trees are poor;
+and to be honest, though the endless forest-clad mountains have a
+sublimity of their own, and though there are tropical bits along some
+of the mountain streams of exquisite beauty, nowhere is there anything
+in grace and sweetness and strength to compare with a Highland glen.
+For the most part of the year these forests are jaded and
+sun-stricken, carpeted with no moss or alchemylla or scented woodruff,
+the bare trunks frescoed with few lichens, their motionless and
+unrefreshed leaves drooping sullenly from their sapless boughs.
+Flowers there are, small and great, in endless variety; but there is
+no display of flowers, no gorgeous show of blossom in the mass, as
+when the blazing gorse and heather bloom at home. The dazzling glare
+of the sun in the torrid zone has perhaps something to do with this
+want of color effect in tropical nature; for there is always about ten
+minutes just after sunset when the whole tone of the landscape changes
+like magic, and a singular beauty steals over the scene. This is the
+sweetest moment of the African day, and night hides only too swiftly
+the homelike softness and repose so strangely grateful to the
+over-stimulated eye.
+
+Hidden away in these endless forests, like birds' nests in a wood, in
+terror of one another and of their common foe the slaver, are small
+native villages; and here in his virgin simplicity dwells primeval
+man, without clothes, without civilization, without learning, without
+religion--the genuine child of nature, thoughtless, careless, and
+contented. This man is apparently quite happy; he has practically no
+wants. One stick, pointed, makes him a spear; two sticks rubbed
+together make him a fire; fifty sticks tied together make him a
+house. The bark he peels from them makes his clothes; the fruits which
+hang on them form his food. It is perfectly astonishing, when one
+thinks of it, what nature can do for the animal man, to see with what
+small capital after all a human being can get through the world. I
+once saw an African buried. According to the custom of his tribe, his
+entire earthly possessions--and he was an average commoner--were
+buried with him. Into the grave, after the body, was lowered the dead
+man's pipe, then a rough knife, then a mud bowl, and last his bow and
+arrows--the bowstring cut through the middle, a touching symbol that
+its work was done. This was all. Four items, as an auctioneer would
+say, were the whole belongings for half a century of this human being.
+No man knows what a man is till he has seen what a man can be without,
+and be withal a man. That is to say, no man knows how great man is
+till he has seen how small he has been once.
+
+The African is often blamed for being lazy, but it is a misuse of
+words. He does not need to work; with so bountiful a Nature round him
+it would be gratuitous to work. And his indolence, therefore, as it
+is called, is just as much a part of himself as his flat nose, and as
+little blameworthy as slowness in a tortoise. The fact is, Africa is
+a nation of the unemployed.
+
+
+
+THE EAST-AFRICAN LAKE COUNTRY
+
+From 'Tropical Africa'
+
+
+Somewhere in the Shire Highlands, in 1859, Livingstone saw a large
+lake--Lake Shirwa--which is still almost unknown. It lies away to the
+east, and is bounded by a range of mountains whose lofty summits are
+visible from the hills round Blantyre. Thinking it might be a useful
+initiation to African travel if I devoted a short time to its
+exploration, I set off one morning, accompanied by two members of the
+Blantyre staff and a small retinue of natives. Steering across country
+in the direction in which it lay, we found, two days before seeing the
+actual water, that we were already on the ancient bed of the lake.
+Though now clothed with forest, the whole district has obviously been
+under water at a comparatively recent period, and the shores of Lake
+Shirwa probably reached at one time to within a few miles of Blantyre
+itself. On reaching the lake a very aged female chief came to see us,
+and told us how, long, long ago, a white man came to her village and
+gave her a present of cloth. Of the white man, who must have been
+Livingstone, she spoke very kindly; and indeed, wherever David
+Livingstone's footsteps are crossed in Africa, the fragrance of his
+memory seems to remain.
+
+The waters of Shirwa are brackish to the taste, and undrinkable; but
+the saltness must have a peculiar charm for game, for nowhere else in
+Africa did I see such splendid herds of the larger animals as here.
+The zebra was especially abundant; and so unaccustomed to be disturbed
+are these creatures, that with a little care one could watch their
+movements safely within a very few yards. It may seem unorthodox to
+say so, but I do not know if among the larger animals there is
+anything handsomer in creation than the zebra. At close quarters his
+striped coat is all but as fine as the tiger's, while the form and
+movement of his body are in every way nobler. The gait, certainly, is
+not to be compared for gracefulness with that of the many species of
+antelope and deer who nibble the grass beside him, and one can never
+quite forget that scientifically he is an ass; but taking him all in
+all, this fleet and beautiful animal ought to have a higher place in
+the regard of man than he has yet received.
+
+We were much surprised, considering that this region is almost
+uninhabited, to discover near the lake shore a native path so beaten,
+and so recently beaten, by multitudes of human feet, that it could
+only represent some trunk route through the continent. Following it
+for a few miles, we soon discovered its function. It was one of the
+great slave routes through Africa. Signs of the horrid traffic became
+visible on every side; and from symmetrical arrangements of small
+piles of stones and freshly cut twigs, planted semaphore-wise upon the
+path, our native guides made out that a slave caravan was actually
+passing at the time. We were in fact between two portions of it, the
+stones and twigs being telegraphic signals between front and rear. Our
+natives seemed much alarmed at this discovery, and refused to proceed
+unless we promised not to interfere--a proceeding which, had we
+attempted it, would simply have meant murder for ourselves and slavery
+for them. Next day from a hill-top we saw the slave encampment far
+below, and the ghastly procession marshaling for its march to the
+distant coast, which many of the hundreds who composed it would never
+reach alive.
+
+Talking of native foot-paths leads me to turn aside for a moment, to
+explain to the uninitiated the true mode of African travel. In spite
+of all the books that have been lavished upon us by our great
+explorers, few people seem to have any accurate understanding of this
+most simple process. Some have the impression that everything is done
+in bullock wagons; an idea borrowed from the Cape, but hopelessly
+inapplicable to Central Africa, where a wheel at present would be as
+great a novelty as a polar bear. Others, at the opposite extreme,
+suppose that the explorer works along solely by compass, making a
+bee-line for his destination, and steering his caravan through the
+trackless wilderness like a ship at sea. Now, it may be a surprise to
+the unenlightened to learn that probably no explorer in forcing his
+passage through Africa has ever, for more than a few days at a time,
+been off some beaten track. Probably no country in the world,
+civilized or uncivilized, is better supplied with paths than this
+unmapped continent. Every village is connected with some other
+village, every tribe with the next tribe, every State with its
+neighbor, and therefore with all the rest. The explorer's business is
+simply to select from this network of tracks, keep a general
+direction, and hold on his way. Let him begin at Zanzibar, plant his
+foot on a native foot-path, and set his face towards Tanganyika. In
+eight months he will be there. He has simply to persevere. From
+village to village he will be handed on, zig-zagging it may be,
+sometimes, to avoid the impassable barriers of nature or the rarer
+perils of hostile tribes; but never taking to the woods, never guided
+solely by the stars, never in fact leaving a beaten track, till
+hundreds and hundreds of miles are between him and the sea, and his
+interminable foot-path ends with a canoe on the shores of Tanganyika.
+Crossing the lake, landing near some native village, he picks up the
+thread once more. Again he plods on and on, now on foot, now by canoe,
+but always keeping his line of villages, until one day suddenly he
+sniffs the sea-breeze again, and his faithful foot-wide guide lands
+him on the Atlantic seaboard.
+
+Nor is there any art in finding out these successive villages with
+their intercommunicating links. He _must_ find them out. A whole army
+of guides, servants, carriers, soldiers, and camp-followers accompany
+him in his march, and this nondescript regiment must be fed. Indian
+corn, cassava, mawere, beans, and bananas--these do not grow wild even
+in Africa. Every meal has to be bought and paid for in cloth and
+beads; and scarcely three days can pass without a call having to be
+made at some village where the necessary supplies can be obtained. A
+caravan, as a rule, must live from hand to mouth, and its march
+becomes simply a regulated procession through a chain of markets. Not
+however that there are any real markets--there are neither bazaars nor
+stores in native Africa. Thousands of the villages through which the
+traveler eats his way may never have victualed a caravan before. But
+with the chief's consent, which is usually easily purchased for a
+showy present, the villagers unlock their larders, the women flock to
+the grinding-stones, and basketfuls of food are swiftly exchanged for
+unknown equivalents in beads and calico.
+
+The native tracks which I have just described are the same in
+character all over Africa. They are veritable foot-paths, never over a
+foot in breadth, beaten as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath the
+level of the forest bed by centuries of native traffic. As a rule
+these foot-paths are marvelously direct. Like the roads of the old
+Romans, they run straight on through everything, ridge and mountain
+and valley, never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to
+breathe. Yet within this general straightforwardness there is a
+singular eccentricity and indirectness in detail. Although the African
+foot-path is on the whole a bee-line, no fifty yards of it are ever
+straight. And the reason is not far to seek. If a stone is
+encountered, no native will ever think of removing it. Why should he?
+It is easier to walk round it. The next man who comes that way will do
+the same. He knows that a hundred men are following him; he looks at
+the stone; a moment, and it might be unearthed and tossed aside, but
+no--he also holds on his way. It is not that he resents the trouble,
+it is the idea that is wanting. It would no more occur to him that
+that stone was a displaceable object, and that for the general weal he
+might displace it, than that its feldspar was of the orthoclase
+variety. Generations and generations of men have passed that stone,
+and it still waits for a man with an altruistic idea. But it would be
+a very stony country indeed--and Africa is far from stony--that would
+wholly account for the aggravating obliqueness and indecision of the
+African foot-path. Probably each four miles, on an average path, is
+spun out, by an infinite series of minor sinuosities, to five or six.
+Now, these deflections are not meaningless. Each has some history--a
+history dating back perhaps a thousand years, but to which all clue
+has centuries ago been lost. The leading cause probably is fallen
+trees. When a tree falls across a path no man ever removes it. As in
+the case of the stone, the native goes round it. It is too green to
+burn in his hut; before it is dry and the white ants have eaten it,
+the new detour has become part and parcel of the path. The smaller
+irregularities, on the other hand, represent the trees and stumps of
+the primeval forest where the track was made at first. But whatever
+the cause, it is certain that for persistent straightforwardness in
+the general, and utter vacillation and irresolution in the particular,
+the African roads are unique in engineering.
+
+Though one of the smaller African lakes, Shirwa is probably larger
+than all the lakes of Great Britain put together. With the splendid
+environment of mountains on three of its sides, softened and distanced
+by perpetual summer haze, it reminds one somewhat of the Great Salt
+Lake simmering in the July sun. We pitched our tent for a day or two
+on its western shore, among a harmless and surprised people who had
+never gazed on the pallid countenances of Englishmen before. Owing to
+the ravages of the slaver, the people of Shirwa are few, scattered,
+and poor, and live in abiding terror. The densest population is to be
+found on the small island, heavily timbered with baobabs, which forms
+a picturesque feature of the northern end. These Wa-Nyassa, or people
+of the lake, as they call themselves, have been driven away by fear,
+and they rarely leave their lake dwelling unless under cover of night.
+Even then they are liable to capture by any man of a stronger tribe
+who happens to meet them, and numbers who have been kidnapped in this
+way are to be found in the villages of neighboring chiefs. This is an
+amenity of existence in Africa that strikes one as very terrible. It
+is impossible for those at home to understand how literally savage man
+is a chattel, and how much his life is spent in the mere safeguarding
+of his main asset, _i. e._, himself. There are actually districts in
+Africa where _three_ natives cannot be sent on a message, in case two
+should combine and sell the third before they return.
+
+
+
+WHITE ANTS
+
+From 'Tropical Africa'
+
+
+The termite or white ant is a small insect, with a bloated,
+yellowish-white body, and a somewhat large thorax, oblong-shaped, and
+colored a disagreeable oily brown. The flabby, tallow-like body makes
+this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is for quite another reason
+that the white ant is the worst abused of all living vermin in warm
+countries. The termite lives almost exclusively upon wood; and the
+moment a tree is cut or a log sawn for any economical purpose, this
+insect is upon its track. One may never see the insect, possibly, in
+the flesh, for it lives underground; but its ravages confront one at
+every turn. You build your house perhaps, and for a few months fancy
+you have pitched upon the one solitary site in the country where there
+are no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and
+lintel and rafters come down together with a crash. You look at a
+section of the wrecked timbers, and discover that the whole inside is
+eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which the rest of the
+house is built are now mere cylinders of bark, and through the
+thickest of them you could push your little finger. Furniture, tables,
+chairs, chests of drawers, everything made of wood, is inevitably
+attacked, and in a single night a strong trunk is often riddled
+through and through, and turned into matchwood. There is no limit, in
+fact, to the depredation by these insects, and they will eat books, or
+leather, or cloth, or anything; and in many parts of Africa I believe
+if a man lay down to sleep with a wooden leg, it would be a heap of
+sawdust in the morning. So much feared is this insect now, that no one
+in certain parts of India and Africa ever attempts to travel with such
+a thing as a wooden trunk. On the Tanganyika plateau I have camped on
+ground which was as hard as adamant, and as innocent of white ants
+apparently as the pavement of St. Paul's; and wakened next morning to
+find a stout wooden box almost gnawed to pieces. Leather portmanteaus
+share the same fate, and the only substances which seem to defy the
+marauders are iron and tin.
+
+But what has this to do with earth or with agriculture? The most
+important point in the work of the white ant remains to be noted. I
+have already said that the white ant is never seen. Why he should have
+such a repugnance to being looked at is at first sight a mystery,
+seeing that he himself is stone blind. But his coyness is really due
+to the desire for self-protection; for the moment his juicy body shows
+itself above ground there are a dozen enemies waiting to devour it.
+And yet the white ant can never procure any food until it comes above
+ground. Nor will it meet the case for the insect to come to the
+surface under the shadow of night. Night in the tropics, so far as
+animal life is concerned, is as the day. It is the great feeding-time,
+the great fighting-time, the carnival of the carnivores, and of all
+beasts, birds, and insects of prey, from the least to the greatest. It
+is clear then that darkness is no protection to the white ant; and yet
+without coming out of the ground it cannot live. How does it solve the
+difficulty? It takes the ground out along with it. I have seen white
+ants working on the top of a high tree, and yet they were underground.
+They took up some of the ground with them to the tree-top; just as the
+Esquimaux heap up snow, building it into the low tunnel-huts in which
+they live, so the white ants collect earth, only in this case not from
+the surface, but from some depth underneath the ground, and plaster it
+into tunneled ways. Occasionally these run along the ground, but more
+often mount in endless ramifications to the top of trees, meandering
+along every branch and twig, and here and there debouching into large
+covered chambers which occupy half the girth of the trunk. Millions of
+trees in some districts are thus fantastically plastered over with
+tubes, galleries, and chambers of earth, and many pounds' weight of
+subsoil must be brought up for the mining of even a single tree. The
+building material is conveyed by the insects up a central pipe with
+which all the galleries communicate, and which at the downward end
+connects with a series of subterranean passages leading deep into the
+earth. The method of building the tunnels and covered ways is as
+follows: At the foot of a tree the tiniest hole cautiously opens in
+the ground close to the bark. A small head appears, with a grain of
+earth clasped in its jaws. Against the tree trunk this earth-grain is
+deposited, and the head is withdrawn. Presently it reappears with
+another grain of earth; this is laid beside the first, rammed tight
+against it, and again the builder descends underground for more. The
+third grain is not placed against the tree, but against the former
+grain; a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth follow, and the plan of the
+foundation begins to suggest itself as soon as these are in position.
+The stones or grains or pellets of earth are arranged in a
+semicircular wall; the termite, now assisted by three or four others,
+standing in the middle between the sheltering wall and the tree, and
+working briskly with head and mandible to strengthen the position. The
+wall in fact forms a small moon-rampart, and as it grows higher and
+higher it soon becomes evident that it is going to grow from a low
+battlement into a long perpendicular tunnel running up the side of the
+tree. The workers, safely ensconced inside, are now carrying up the
+structure with great rapidity, disappearing in turn as soon as they
+have laid their stone, and rushing off to bring up another. The way in
+which the building is done is extremely curious, and one could watch
+the movement of these wonderful little masons by the hour. Each stone
+as it is brought to the top is first of all covered with mortar. Of
+course, without this the whole tunnel would crumble into dust before
+reaching the height of half an inch; but the termite pours over the
+stone a moist sticky secretion, turning the grain round and round with
+its mandibles until the whole is covered with slime. Then it places
+the stone with great care upon the top of the wall, works it about
+vigorously for a moment or two till it is well jammed into its place,
+and then starts off instantly for another load.
+
+Peering over the growing wall, one soon discovers one, two, or more
+termites of a somewhat larger build, considerably longer, and with a
+very different arrangement of the parts of the head, and especially of
+the mandibles. These important-looking individuals saunter about the
+rampart in the most leisurely way, but yet with a certain air of
+business, as if perhaps the one was the master of works and the other
+the architect. But closer observation suggests that they are in no
+wise superintending operations, nor in any immediate way contributing
+to the structure, for they take not the slightest notice either of the
+workers or the works. They are posted there in fact as sentries; and
+there they stand, or promenade about, at the mouth of every tunnel,
+like Sister Anne, to see if anybody is coming. Sometimes somebody does
+come, in the shape of another ant; the real ant this time, not the
+defenseless _Neuropteron_, but some valiant and belted knight from the
+warlike _Formicidae_. Singly or in troops, this rapacious little
+insect, fearless in its chitinous coat of mail, charges down the tree
+trunk, its antennae waving defiance to the enemy and its cruel
+mandibles thirsting for termite blood. The worker white ant is a poor
+defenseless creature, and blind and unarmed, would fall an immediate
+prey to these well-drilled banditti, who forage about in every
+tropical forest in unnumbered legion. But at the critical moment, like
+Goliath from the Philistines, the soldier termite advances to the
+fight. With a few sweeps of its scythe-like jaws it clears the ground,
+and while the attacking party is carrying off its dead, the builders,
+unconscious of the fray, quietly continue their work. To every hundred
+workers in a white-ant colony, which numbers many thousands of
+individuals, there are perhaps two of these fighting men. The division
+of labor here is very wonderful; and the fact that besides these two
+specialized forms there are in every nest two other kinds of the same
+insect, the kings and queens, shows the remarkable height to which
+civilization in these communities has attained.
+
+But where is this tunnel going to, and what object have the insects in
+view in ascending this lofty tree? Thirty feet from the ground, across
+innumerable forks, at the end of a long branch, are a few feet of dead
+wood. How the ants know it is there, how they know its sap has dried
+up, and that it is now fit for the termites' food, is a mystery.
+Possibly they do not know, and are only prospecting on the chance. The
+fact that they sometimes make straight for the decaying limb argues in
+these instances a kind of definite instinct; but on the other hand,
+the fact that in most cases the whole tree, in every branch and limb,
+is covered with termite tunnels, would show perhaps that they work
+most commonly on speculation, while the number of abandoned tunnels,
+ending on a sound branch in a _cul de sac_, proves how often they must
+suffer the usual disappointments of all such adventurers. The extent
+to which these insects carry on their tunneling is quite incredible,
+until one has seen it in nature with his own eyes. The tunnels are
+perhaps about the thickness of a small-sized gas-pipe, but there are
+junctions here and there of large dimensions, and occasionally patches
+of earthwork are found, embracing nearly the whole trunk for some
+feet. The outside of these tunnels, which are never quite straight,
+but wander irregularly along stem and branch, resembles in texture a
+coarse sandpaper; and the color, although this naturally varies with
+the soil, is usually a reddish brown. The quantity of earth and mud
+plastered over a single tree is often enormous; and when one thinks
+that it is not only an isolated specimen here and there that is
+frescoed in this way, but often all the trees of a forest, some idea
+will be formed of the magnitude of the operations of these insects,
+and the extent of their influence upon the soil which they are thus
+ceaselessly transporting from underneath the ground.
+
+In traveling through the great forests of the Rocky Mountains or of
+the Western States, the broken branches and fallen trunks, strewing
+the ground breast-high with all sorts of decaying litter, frequently
+make locomotion impossible. To attempt to ride through these Western
+forests, with their meshwork of interlocked branches and decaying
+trunks, is often out of the question, and one has to dismount and drag
+his horse after him as if he were clambering through a wood-yard. But
+in an African forest not a fallen branch is seen. One is struck at
+first at a certain clean look about the great forests of the interior,
+a novel and unaccountable cleanness, as if the forest bed was
+carefully swept and dusted daily by unseen elves. And so indeed it is.
+Scavengers of a hundred kinds remove decaying animal matter, from the
+carcass of a fallen elephant to the broken wing of a gnat; eating it,
+or carrying it out of sight and burying it in the deodorizing earth.
+And these countless millions of termites perform a similar function
+for the vegetable world, making away with all plants and trees, all
+stems, twigs, and tissues, the moment the finger of decay strikes the
+signal. Constantly in these woods one comes across what appear to be
+sticks and branches and bundles of fagots, but when closely examined
+they are seen to be mere casts in mud. From these hollow tubes, which
+preserve the original form of the branch down to the minutest knot or
+fork, the ligneous tissue is often entirely removed, while others are
+met with in all stages of demolition. There is the section of an
+actual specimen, which is not yet completely destroyed, and from which
+the mode of attack may be easily seen. The insects start apparently
+from two centres. One company attacks the inner bark, which is the
+favorite morsel, leaving the coarse outer bark untouched, or more
+usually replacing it with grains of earth, atom by atom, as they eat
+it away. The inner bark is gnawed off likewise as they go along, but
+the woody tissue beneath is allowed to remain, to form a protective
+sheath for the second company, who begin work at the centre. This
+second contingent eats its way outward and onward, leaving a thin
+tube of the outer wood to the last, as props to the mine, till they
+have finished the main excavation. When a fallen trunk lying upon the
+ground is the object of attack, the outer cylinder is frequently left
+quite intact, and it is only when one tries to drag it off to his
+camp-fire that he finds to his disgust that he is dealing with a mere
+hollow tube, a few lines in thickness, filled up with mud.
+
+But the works above ground represent only a part of the labors of
+these slow-moving but most industrious of creatures. The arboreal
+tubes are only the prolongation of a much more elaborate system of
+subterranean tunnels, which extend over large areas and mine the earth
+sometimes to a depth of many feet or even yards.
+
+The material excavated from these underground galleries and from the
+succession of domed chambers--used as nurseries or granaries--to which
+they lead, has to be thrown out upon the surface. And it is from these
+materials that the huge ant-hills are reared, which form so
+distinctive a feature of the African landscape. These heaps and mounds
+are so conspicuous that they may be seen for miles, and so numerous
+are they and so useful as cover to the sportsman, that without them in
+certain districts hunting would be impossible. The first things,
+indeed, to strike the traveler in entering the interior are the mounds
+of the white ant, now dotting the plain in groups like a small
+cemetery, now rising into mounds, singly or in clusters, each thirty
+or forty feet in diameter and ten or fifteen in height; or again,
+standing out against the sky like obelisks, their bare sides carved
+and fluted into all sorts of fantastic shapes. In India these
+ant-heaps seldom attain a height of more than a couple of feet, but in
+Central Africa they form veritable hills, and contain many tons of
+earth. The brick houses of the Scotch mission-station on Lake Nyassa
+have all been built out of a single ants' nest, and the quarry from
+which the material has been derived forms a pit beside the settlement
+some dozen feet in depth. A supply of bricks as large again could
+probably still be taken from this convenient depot; and the
+missionaries on Lake Tanganyika and onwards to Victoria Nyanza have
+been similarly indebted to the labors of the termites. In South Africa
+the Zulus and Kaffirs pave all their huts with white-ant earth; and
+during the Boer war our troops in Pretoria, by scooping out the
+interior from the smaller beehive-shaped ant-heaps and covering the
+top with clay, constantly used them as ovens. These ant-heaps may be
+said to abound over the whole interior of Africa, and there are
+several distinct species. The most peculiar, as well as the most
+ornate, is a small variety from one to two feet in height, which
+occurs in myriads along the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It is built in
+symmetrical tiers, and resembles a pile of small rounded hats, one
+above another, the rims depending like eaves, and sheltering the body
+of the hill from rain. To estimate the amount of earth per acre raised
+from the waterline of the subsoil by white ants, would not in some
+districts be an impossible task; and it would be found probably that
+the quantity at least equaled that manipulated annually in temperate
+regions by the earthworm.
+
+These mounds, however, are more than mere waste-heaps. Like the
+corresponding region underground, they are built into a meshwork of
+tunnels, galleries, and chambers, where the social interests of the
+community are attended to. The most spacious of these chambers,
+usually far underground, is very properly allocated to the head of the
+society, the queen. The queen termite is a very rare insect, and as
+there are seldom more than one or at most two to a colony, and as the
+royal apartments are hidden far in the earth, few persons have ever
+seen a queen; and indeed most, if they did happen to come across it,
+from its very singular appearance would refuse to believe that it had
+any connection with white ants. It possesses indeed the true termite
+head, but there the resemblance to the other members of the family
+stops; for the size of the head bears about the same proportion to the
+rest of the body as does the tuft on his Glengarry bonnet to a
+six-foot Highlander. The phenomenal corpulence of the royal body in
+the case of the queen termite is possibly due in part to want of
+exercise; for once seated upon her throne, she never stirs to the end
+of her days. She lies there, a large, loathsome, cylindrical package,
+two or three inches long, in shape like a sausage, and as white as a
+bolster. Her one duty in life is to lay eggs; and it must be confessed
+she discharges her function with complete success, for in a single day
+her progeny often amounts to many thousands, and for months this
+enormous fecundity never slackens. The body increases slowly in size,
+and through the transparent skin the long folded ovary may be seen,
+with the eggs, impelled by a peristaltic motion, passing onward for
+delivery to the workers, who are waiting to carry them to the
+nurseries, where they are hatched. Assiduous attention meantime is
+paid to the queen by other workers, who feed her diligently, with much
+self-denial stuffing her with morsel after morsel from their own jaws.
+A guard of honor in the shape of a few of the larger soldier ants is
+also in attendance, as a last and almost unnecessary precaution. In
+addition finally to the soldiers, workers, and queen, the royal
+chamber has also one other inmate--the king. He is a very
+ordinary-looking insect, about the same size as the soldiers, but the
+arrangement of the parts of the head and body is widely different, and
+like the queen he is furnished with eyes.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN
+
+(1585-1649)
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM DRUMMOND]
+
+
+It seems to be the mission of many writers to illuminate contemporary
+literature and so to light the way for future students, rather than to
+make any vital contribution to the achievement of their time. Such
+writers reflect the culture of their own day and represent its ideals;
+and although their creative work may be slight, their loss to
+literature would be serious. Among these lesser men stands that
+sincere poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. In Scotland under the Stuarts,
+when the vital energy of the land was concentrated upon politics and
+theology, native literature was reduced to a mere reflection of the
+pre-Spenserian classicism of England. Into this waste of correct
+mediocrity entered the poetry of William Drummond, an avowed and
+enthusiastic follower of the Elizabethan school, a finished scholar,
+one of the typical Scottish gentlemen who were then making Scottish
+history. Courtier and trifler though he was, however, he showed
+himself so true a poet of nature that his felicities of phrase seem to
+anticipate the sensuous realism of Keats and his successors.
+
+William Drummond, born in 1585, was a cadet of the historic house
+which in 1357 gave in marriage to King Robert III. the beautiful
+Annabella Drummond, who was destined to become the ancestress of the
+royal Stuarts of Scotland and England. In his own day the family,
+whose head was the Earl of Perth, was powerful in Scottish affairs,
+and the history of the clan Drummond would be largely a history of the
+events which led to the Protectorate. Throughout the storm and stress
+that preceded the civil war Drummond was a loyalist, though at one
+time he appeared to be identified with the Covenanters. His literary
+influence, which was considerable, was always thrown on the side of
+the King, while the term "Drummondism" was a popular synonym for the
+conservative policy. Throughout the struggle, however, Drummond seems
+to have been forced into activity by circumstances rather than by
+choice. He had the instincts of a recluse and a scholar. He delighted
+in the society of literary men, and he was much engrossed in
+philosophical speculations.
+
+In spite of the difficulties of distance, he managed to keep abreast
+of the thought of literary London, the London of Drayton and Webster,
+of Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, and Ford. His chief satisfaction was
+to know that his own work was not unacceptable to this brilliant
+group, and one of the great pleasures of his life was a visit from Ben
+Jonson, who, making a walking tour to Scotland, found at Hawthornden
+that congenial hospitality in which his soul delighted. Of this famous
+visit, as of other important events, Drummond kept a record, in which
+he set down his guest's behavior, opinions, and confidential sayings.
+Warmly as he admired Jonson's genius, he found his personality
+oppressive, and intrusted his criticisms to his diary. When this was
+published, more than a century later, the gentle Scot was accused of
+bad taste, breach of confidence, and disloyalty to friendship. But his
+defense lies in the fact that the book was meant for no eyes but his
+own, and that the intimacy and candor of its revelations were intended
+to preserve his recollections of a memorable experience.
+
+If his environment was not entirely favorable to literary excellences,
+it is yet very likely that Drummond developed the full measure of his
+gift. He expressed the spirit of the more imaginative generation which
+succeeded a hard and fettered predecessor, and it is for this that
+literature owes him its peculiar debt.
+
+His career began in his twenty-ninth year with the publication of an
+elegy on the death of Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I.
+This poem, under the title 'Tears on the Death of Moeliades,' appeared
+in 1613, and reached a third edition within a twelvemonth. Its two
+hundred lines show the finished versification of the scholar, with
+much poetic grace. It was a product of the Spenserian school, and
+emphasized the fact that the representative literature of the land had
+abandoned the Scottish dialect for English forms. Drummond's second
+volume of poems commemorated the death of his wife and his love of
+her. It is in this work that the ultimate mood of the poet appears.
+Much beauty of form, a delightful sensitiveness to nature, a
+luxuriance of color, and a finely tempered thoughtfulness pervade the
+poems. His next production, celebrating the visit of James I. to his
+native land, was entitled 'Forth Feasting,' and represented the Forth
+and all its borders as rejoicing in the presence of their King. To the
+reader of to-day the panegyric sounds fulsome and the poetry stilted,
+and the once famous book has now merely an archaic interest.
+
+Drummond's reputation is based upon the 'Poems,' and upon the
+Jeremy-Taylor-like 'Cypress Grove,' published in 1623 in connection
+with the religious verses called 'Flowers of Sion.' 'Cypress Grove'
+is an essay on death, akin in spirit to the religious temper of the
+Middle Ages, and in philosophic breadth to the diviner mood of Plato.
+Only a mind of a high order would have conceived so beautiful and
+lofty a meditation on the Final Mystery. This brief essay marks the
+utmost reach of Drummond's mind, and shows the strength of that serene
+spirituality, which could thus hold its way undisturbed by the
+sectarian bitterness that fixed a great gulf between England and
+Scotland. 'The History of the Five Jameses,' which Drummond was ten
+years in compiling and which was not published until six years after
+his death, added nothing to his reputation. It lacked alike the
+diligent minuteness of the chronicler and the broader view of the
+historian. Many minor papers on the state of religion and politics,
+chief of which is the political tract 'Irene,' show Drummond's
+aggressive interest in contemporary affairs. It is not generally known
+that this gentle scholar was also an inventor of military engines. In
+1626 Charles I. engaged him to produce sixteen machines and "not a few
+inventions besides." The biographers have remained curiously ignorant
+of this phase of his activity, but the State papers show that the King
+named him "our faithful subject, William Drummond of Hawthornden." He
+died in 1649, his death being hastened, it was said, by his passion of
+grief over the martyrdom of King Charles.
+
+
+
+SEXTAIN
+
+
+  The heaven doth not contain so many stars,
+    So many leaves not prostrate lie in woods
+  When autumn's old and Boreas sounds his wars,
+    So many waves have not the ocean floods,
+  As my rent mind hath torments all the night,
+  And heart spends sighs when Phoebus brings the light.
+
+  Why should I have been partner of the light,
+    Who, crost in birth by bad aspect of stars,
+  Have never since had happy day or night?
+  Why was not I a liver in the woods,
+  Or citizen of Thetis's crystal floods,
+    Than made a man, for love and fortune's wars?
+
+  I look each day when death should end the wars,
+    Uncivil wars, 'twixt sense and reason's light;
+      My pains I count to mountains, meads, and floods,
+  And of my sorrow partners make the stars;
+      All desolate I haunt the fearful woods,
+    When I should give myself to rest at night.
+
+  With watchful eyes I ne'er behold the night,
+    Mother of peace, but ah! to me of wars,
+      And Cynthia, queen-like, shining through the woods,
+  When straight those lamps come in my thought, whose light
+    My judgment dazzled, passing brightest stars,
+      And then mine eyes en-isle themselves with floods.
+
+  Turn to their springs again first shall the floods,
+    Clear shall the sun the sad and gloomy night,
+      To dance about the pole cease shall the stars,
+      The elements renew their ancient wars
+    Shall first, and be deprived of place and light,
+  E'er I find rest in city, fields, or woods.
+
+  End these my days, indwellers of the woods,
+  Take this my life, ye deep and raging floods;
+  Sun, never rise to clear me with thy light,
+  Horror and darkness, keep a lasting night;
+  Consume me, care, with thy intestine wars,
+  And stay your influence o'er me, bright stars!
+
+  In vain the stars, indwellers of the woods,
+  Care, horror, wars, I call, and raging floods,
+    For all have sworn no night shall dim my sight.
+
+
+
+MADRIGAL
+
+
+              This world a-hunting is,
+  The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is Death;
+              His speedy greyhounds are
+              Lust, sickness, envy, care,
+              Strife that ne'er falls amiss,
+  With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe.
+              Now if by chance we fly
+              Of these the eager chase,
+              Old age with stealing pace
+  Casts up his nets, and there we panting die.
+
+
+
+REASON AND FEELING
+
+
+  I know that all beneath the moon decays,
+    And what by mortals in this world is brought,
+    In Time's great periods shall return to naught;
+  That fairest States have fatal nights and days.
+  I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays,
+    With toil of spirit, which are so dearly bought,
+    As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,--
+  That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
+    I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
+  To which one morn oft birth and death affords;
+  That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
+    Where sense and will envassal Reason's power:
+  Know what I list, all this cannot me move,
+  But that, alas! I both must write and love.
+
+
+
+DEGENERACY OF THE WORLD
+
+
+  What hapless hap had I for to be born
+    In these unhappy times, and dying days
+    Of this now doting World, when Good decays,
+  Love's quite extinct, and Virtue's held a-scorn!
+    When such are only prized, by wretched ways,
+  Who with a golden fleece them can adorn;
+    When avarice and lust are counted praise,
+  And bravest minds live orphan-like forlorn!
+  Why was not I born in that golden age
+    When gold was not yet known? and those black arts.
+    By which base worldlings vilely play their parts,
+  With horrid acts staining Earth's stately stage?
+  To have been then, O Heaven! 't had been my bliss;
+  But bless me now, and take me soon from this.
+
+
+
+THE BRIEFNESS OF LIFE
+
+
+  Look, how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade,
+  The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,
+    Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,
+  As high as it did raise, bows low the head:
+  Right so my life, contentment being dead,
+    Or in their contraries but only seen,
+  With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,
+    And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.
+  As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night
+    By darkness would imprison on his way,--
+  Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright,
+    Of what's yet left thee of life's wasting day;
+  Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn,
+  And twice it is not given thee to be born.
+
+
+
+THE UNIVERSE
+
+
+  Of this fair volume which we World do name,
+    If we the leaves and sheets could turn with care--
+  Of Him who it corrects and did it frame
+    We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
+  Find out his power, which wildest powers doth tame,
+    His providence, extending everywhere,
+    His justice, which proud rebels doth not spare,
+  In every page and period of the same.
+  But silly we, like foolish children, rest
+    Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold,
+  Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best;
+    On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
+  Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught,
+  It is some picture on the margin wrought.
+
+
+
+ON DEATH
+
+From 'Cypress Grove'
+
+
+Death is a piece of the order of this all, a part of the life of this
+world; for while the world is the world, some creatures must die and
+others take life. Eternal things are raised far above this orb of
+generation and corruption where the First Matter, like a still flowing
+and ebbing sea, with diverse waves but the same water, keepeth a
+restless and never tiring current; what is below in the universality
+of its kind doth not in itself abide.... If thou dost complain there
+shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too
+grieve that there was a time in which thou wast not, and so that thou
+art not as old as the enlivening planet of Time?... The excellent
+fabric of the universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or change
+like ruin, and poor earthlings, thus to be handled, complain!
+
+
+
+
+JOHN DRYDEN
+
+(1631-1700)
+
+BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
+
+
+John Dryden, the foremost man of letters of the period following the
+Restoration, was born at Aldwinkle, a village of Northamptonshire, on
+August 9th, 1631. He died May 1st, 1700. His life was therefore coeval
+with the closing period of the fierce controversies which culminated
+in the civil war and the triumph of the Parliamentary party; that, in
+turn, to be followed successively by the iron rule of Cromwell, by the
+restoration of the exiled Stuarts, and the reactionary tendencies in
+politics that accompanied that event; and finally with the effectual
+exclusion from the throne of this same family by the revolution of
+1688, leaving behind, however, to their successors a smoldering
+Jacobite hostility that perpetually plotted the overthrow of the new
+government and later broke out twice into open revolt. All these
+changes of fortune, with their changes of opinion, are faithfully
+reflected in the productions of Dryden. To understand him thoroughly
+requires therefore an intimate familiarity with the civil and
+religious movements which characterize the whole period. Equally also
+do his writings, both creative and critical, represent the revolution
+of literary taste that took place in the latter half of the
+seventeenth century. It was while he was in the midst of his
+intellectual activity that French canons of criticism became largely
+the accepted rules, by which the value of English productions was
+tested. This was especially true of the drama. The study of Dryden is
+accordingly a study of the political and literary history of his times
+to an extent that is correspondingly true of no other English author
+before or since.
+
+His family, both on the father's and the mother's side, was in full
+sympathy with the party opposed to the court. The son was educated at
+Westminster, then under the mastership of Richard Busby, whose
+relentless use of the rod has made his name famous in that long line
+of flagellants who have been at the head of the great English public
+schools. From Westminster he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. There
+he received the degree of A. B. in January 1654. Later in that same
+decade--the precise date is not known--he took up his residence in
+London; and in London the rest of his life was almost entirely spent.
+
+Dryden's first published literary effort appeared in a little volume
+made up of thirty-three elegies, by various authors, on the death of a
+youth of great promise who had been educated at Westminster. This was
+Lord Hastings, the eldest son of the Earl of Huntingdon. He had died
+of the small-pox. Dryden's contribution was written in 1649, and
+consisted of but little over a hundred lines. No one expects great
+verse from a boy of eighteen; but the most extravagant anticipations
+of sorry performance will fail to come up to the reality of the
+wretchedness which was here attained. It was in words like these that
+the future laureate bewailed the death of the young nobleman and
+depicted the disease of which he died:--
+
+          "Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
+          The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
+          So many spots, like naeves, our Venus soil?
+          One jewel set off with so many a foil?
+  Blisters with pride swelled, which through his flesh did sprout
+          Like rosebuds, stuck in the lily-skin about.
+          Each little pimple had a tear in it,
+          To wail the fault its rising did commit;
+          Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
+          Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
+          Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
+          The cabinet of a richer soul within?
+          No comet need foretell his change drew on,
+          Whose corps might seem a constellation."
+
+Criticism cannot be rendered sufficiently vituperative to characterize
+properly such a passage. It is fuller of conceits than ever Cowley
+crowded into the same space; and lines more crabbed and inharmonious
+Donne never succeeded in perpetrating. Its production upsets all
+principles of prophecy. The wretchedest of poetasters can take
+courage, when he contemplates the profundity of the depth out of which
+uprose the greatest poet of his time.
+
+[Illustration: John Dryden.]
+
+Dryden is, in fact, an example of that somewhat rare class of writers
+who steadily improve with advancing years. Most poets write their best
+verse before middle life. Many of them after that time go through a
+period of decline, and sometimes of rapid decline; and if they live to
+reach old age, they add to the quantity of their production without
+sensibly increasing its value. This general truth is conspicuously
+untrue of Dryden. His first work gave no promise of his future
+excellence, and it was by very slow degrees that he attained to the
+mastery of his art. But the older he grew, the better he wrote; and
+the volume published a few months before his death, and largely
+composed almost under its shadow, so far from showing the slightest
+sign of failing power, contains a great deal of the best poetry he
+ever produced.
+
+As Dryden's relatives were Puritans, and some of them held place under
+the government, it was natural that upon coming to London he should
+attach himself to that party. Accordingly it is no surprise to find
+him duly mourning the death of the great Protector in certain 'Heroic
+Stanzas Consecrated to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell.' The first
+edition bears the date of 1659, and so far as we know, the production
+was Dryden's second venture in poetry. It was written in the measure
+of Davenant's 'Gondibert,' and is by no means a poor piece of work,
+though it has been sometimes so styled. It certainly pays not simply a
+high but a discerning tribute to the genius of Cromwell. Before two
+years had gone by, we find its author greeting the return of Charles
+with effusive loyalty, and with predictions of prosperity and honor to
+attend his reign, which events were soon woefully to belie. The poet
+has been severely censured for this change of attitude. It is a
+censure which might be bestowed with as much propriety upon the whole
+population of England. The joyful expectations to which he gave
+utterance were almost universal; and no other charge can well be
+brought against him than that he had the ability and took the occasion
+to express sentiments which were felt by nearly the entire nation.
+
+From this time on, Dryden appears more and more in the public eye, and
+slowly but steadily forged his way to the front as the representative
+man of letters of his time. In 1670 he was appointed to the two
+distinct offices of poet laureate and historiographer royal.
+Thenceforward his relations with the court became close, and so they
+did not cease to be until the expulsion of James II. In 1683 he
+received a further mark of royal favor, in being made collector of
+customs of the port of London. In the political controversies which
+subsequently arose, Dryden's writings faithfully represented the
+sentiments of the side he had chosen, and expressed their prejudices
+and aversions not merely with force but also with virulence. His first
+literary activity, however, was on neutral ground. After eighteen
+years of compulsory closing, the Restoration opened wide once more the
+doors of the theatre. Dryden, like every one else possessed of
+literary ability, began to write for the stage. His first play, a
+comedy entitled 'The Wild Gallant,' was brought out in February 1663;
+and for the eighteen years following, it was compositions of such
+nature that occupied the main portion of his literary life. During
+that time he produced wholly or in part twenty-two comedies and
+tragedies. His pieces must from the outset have met with a fair degree
+of success, otherwise the King's Company would not have entered into a
+contract with him, as it did in 1667, to furnish for them each year a
+fixed number of plays, in consideration of his receiving a certain
+share of the profits of the theatre.
+
+Yet it cannot be said that Dryden was in any respect a dramatist of
+a high order. As a writer of comedy he was not only inferior to
+contemporaries and immediate successors like Wycherley, Congreve,
+Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, but in certain ways he was surpassed by
+Shadwell, the very man whom he himself has consigned to a disagreeable
+immortality as the hero of the 'MacFlecknoe.' His comedies are not
+merely full of obscenity,--which seems to have been a necessary
+ingredient to suit them to the taste of the age,--but they are full of
+a peculiarly disagreeable obscenity. One of his worst offenses in this
+direction, and altogether his most impudent one, was his adaptation
+for the stage of Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' The two plays are worth
+reading together for the sake of seeing how easily a pure and perfect
+creation of genius can be vulgarized in language and spirit almost
+beyond the possibility of recognition. In his tragedies, however,
+Dryden was much more successful. Yet even these, in spite of the
+excellence of occasional passages, do not attain to a high rank.
+Indeed, thought and expression are at times extravagant, not to say
+stilted, to an extent which afterward led him himself to make them the
+subject of ridicule. It was in them, however, during these years that
+he perfected by degrees his mastery of heroic verse, of which later he
+was to display the capabilities in a way that had never previously
+been seen and has never since been surpassed.
+
+A controversy in regard to the proper method of composing plays
+brought forward Dryden, at an early period in his literary career, as
+a writer of prose. In this he at once attained unusual eminence. In
+him appear for the first time united the two characters of poet and of
+critic. Ben Jonson had in a measure preceded him in this respect; but
+Jonson's criticism was not so much devoted to the examination of
+general principles as to the exposure of the hopeless, helpless
+obtuseness of the men who had a different opinion of his works from
+what he himself entertained. The questions discussed by Dryden were of
+a more general nature. With the Stuarts had come in French literary
+tastes and French literary methods. The age was supposed to be too
+refined to be pleased with what had satisfied the coarse palates of
+preceding generations. In stage-writing in particular, the doctrine of
+the unities, almost uniformly violated by Shakespeare and most of the
+Elizabethans, was now held up as the only correct method of
+composition that could be employed by any writer who sought to conform
+to the true principles of art. Along with this came the substitution
+in the drama of rhyme for blank verse. Upon the comparative merits of
+these two as employed in tragedy, arose the first controversy in which
+Dryden was engaged. This one was with his brother-in-law, Sir Robert
+Howard; for in 1663 Dryden had become the husband of the daughter of
+the Earl of Berkshire, thus marrying, as Pope expressed it, "misery in
+a noble wife." Dryden was an advocate of rhyme; and the controversy on
+this point began with the publication in 1668 of his 'Essay of
+Dramatic Poesy.' It was afterward carried on by both parties, in
+prefaces to the plays they successively published. The prefaces to
+these productions regularly became later the place where Dryden laid
+down his critical doctrines on all points that engaged his attention;
+and whether we agree with his views or not, we are always sure to be
+charmed with the manner in which they are expressed.
+
+In 1667 Dryden published a long poem entitled 'Annus Mirabilis.' It
+was in the same measure as the stanzas on Oliver Cromwell. It gave him
+a good deal of reputation at the time; but though it is far from being
+a despicable performance, few there are now who read it and still
+fewer who re-read it. Far different has been the fate of his next
+work. It was not until 1681, when England was beginning to emerge
+slowly from the excitement and agitation growing out of the alleged
+Popish plot, that he brought out his 'Absalom and Achitophel,' without
+question the greatest combined poetical and political satire to be
+found in our tongue. Here it was that for the first time he fully
+displayed his mastery over heroic verse. The notion once so widely
+prevalent--for the vogue of which, indeed, Dryden himself is mainly
+responsible--that Waller and Denham brought this verse to perfection,
+it now requires both extensive and special ignorance of our earlier
+authors to entertain; but on the other hand, there is no question that
+he himself imparted to the line a variety, vigor, and sustained
+majesty of movement such as the verse in its modern form had never
+previously received. There is therefore a fairly full measure of truth
+in the lines in which he was characterized by Pope:--
+
+  "Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
+  The varying verse, the full resounding line,
+  The long majestic march and energy divine."
+
+These lines of Pope, it may be added, exemplify purposely two
+peculiarities of Dryden's versification,--the occasional use of the
+triplet instead of the regular couplet, and of the Alexandrine, or
+line of six feet, in place of the usual line of five.
+
+The poem is largely an attack upon the Earl of Shaftesbury, who in it
+bears the title of Achitophel. The portrayal of this statesman, which
+is given in this volume, is ample evidence of that skill of the poet
+in characterization which has made the pictures he drew immortal.
+Perhaps even more effective was the description of the Duke of
+Buckingham, under the designation of Zimri. For attacking that
+nobleman Dryden had both political and personal reasons. Buckingham
+had now joined the opponents of the court. Ten years previously the
+poet himself had been brought by him on the stage, with the aid of
+others, in the play called "The Rehearsal." His usual actions had been
+mimicked, his usual expressions had been put into the mouth of the
+character created to represent him, who was styled Bayes. This title
+had been given him because Dryden figuratively wore the bays, or
+laurel, as poet laureate. The name henceforward stuck. Dryden's turn
+had now come; and it was in these following lines that he drew the
+unfaded and fadeless picture of this nobleman, whose reputation even
+then was notorious rather than famous, and whose intellect was
+motley-minded rather than versatile:--
+
+  "Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
+  In the front rank of these did Zimri stand,
+  A man so various that he seemed to be
+  Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
+  Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
+  Was everything by starts and nothing long,
+  But in the course of one revolving moon
+  Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
+  Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
+  Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
+  Blest madman, who could every hour employ
+  With something new to wish or to enjoy!
+  Railing and praising were his usual themes,
+  And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
+  So over-violent or over-civil
+  That every man with him was God or Devil.
+  In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:
+  Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
+  Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,
+  He had his jest, and they had his estate."
+
+As an example of the loftier and more majestic style occasionally
+found in this poem, is the powerful appeal of Achitophel to Absalom.
+The latter, it is to be said, stands for the Duke of Monmouth, the
+eldest of the illegitimate sons of Charles II. Him many of the
+so-called country party, now beginning to be styled Whigs, were
+endeavoring to have recognized as the next successor to the throne, in
+place of the Roman Catholic brother of the king, James, Duke of York.
+As a favorite son of the monarch, he, though then in opposition, is
+treated tenderly by Dryden throughout; and this feeling is plainly
+visible in the opening of the address to him put into the mouth of
+Achitophel, in these words:--
+
+  "Auspicious prince, at whose nativity
+  Some royal planet ruled the southern sky,
+  Thy longing country's darling and desire,
+  Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire,
+  Their second Moses, whose extended wand
+  Divides the seas and shows the promised land,
+  Whose dawning day in every distant age
+  Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage,
+  The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
+  The young men's vision and the old men's dream,--
+  Thee savior, thee the nation's vows confess,
+  And never satisfied with seeing, bless."
+
+Dryden followed up the attack upon Shaftesbury with a poem entitled
+'The Medal.' This satire, which appeared in March 1682, was called
+forth by the action of the partisans of the Whig leader in having a
+medal struck commemorating his release from the Tower, after the grand
+jury had thrown out the charge of treason which had been brought
+against him. Both of these pieces were followed by a host of replies.
+Some of them did not refrain from personal attack, which indeed had a
+certain justification in the poet's own violence of denunciation. The
+most abusive of these was a poem by Thomas Shadwell, entitled 'The
+Medal of John Bayes.' Such persons as fancy Dryden's subsequent
+punishment of that dramatist unwarranted in its severity should in
+justice read this ferociously scurrilous diatribe, in which every
+charge against the poet that malice or envy had concocted and rumor
+had set afloat, was here industriously raked together; and to the
+muck-heap thus collected, the intimacy of previous acquaintance was
+doubtless enabled to contribute its due quota of malignant assertion
+and more malignant insinuation. Shadwell was soon supplied, however,
+with ample reason to regret his action. Dryden's first and best known
+rejoinder is 'MacFlecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant
+Poet T. S.' This production has always had the reputation in
+literature of being the severest personal satire in the language; but
+it requires now for its appreciation an intimate acquaintance with
+Shadwell's plays, which very few possess. It is further disfigured in
+places by a coarseness from which, indeed, none of the poet's writings
+were certain to be free. Its general spirit can be indicated by a
+brief extract from its opening paragraph. Flecknoe, it is to be said,
+was a feeble poet who had died a few years before. He is here
+represented as having long reigned over the kingdom of dullness, but
+knowing that his end was close at hand, determines to settle the
+succession to the State. Accordingly he fixes upon his son Shadwell as
+the one best fitted to take his place in ruling over the realm of
+nonsense, and in continuing the war with wit and sense. The
+announcement of his intention he begins in the following words:--
+
+    "--Tis resolved, for Nature pleads that he
+  Should only rule who most resembles me.
+  Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
+  Mature in dullness from his tender years;
+  Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
+  Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
+  The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
+  But Shadwell never deviates into sense."
+
+Far more bitter, however, was the renewed attack which a month later
+Dryden inserted in the two hundred lines he contributed to the
+continuation of 'Absalom and Achitophel' that was written by Nahum
+Tate. In this second part, which came out in November 1682, he devoted
+himself in particular to two of his opponents, Settle and Shadwell,
+under the names respectively of Doeg and Og--"two fools," he says, in
+his energetic way,--
+
+      "That crutch their feeble sense on verse;
+  Who by my Muse to all succeeding times
+  Shall live in spite of their own doggerel rhymes."
+
+Of Settle, whose poetry was possessed of much smoothness but little
+sense, he spoke in a tone of contemptuous good-nature, though the
+object of the attack must certainly have deemed the tender mercies of
+Dryden to be cruel. It was in this way he was described, to quote a
+few lines:--
+
+  "Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
+  For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
+  And nothing suffer, since he nothing meant;
+  Hanging supposes human soul and reason,--
+  This animal's below committing treason:
+  Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?
+  That's a preferment for Achitophel.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  Let him rail on; let his invective Muse
+  Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
+  Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
+  Indict him of a capital offense."
+
+But it was not till he came to the portraiture of Shadwell that he
+gave full vent to the ferocity of his satire. He taunted him with the
+unwieldiness of his bulk, the grossness of his habits, with his want
+of wealth, and finally closed up with some lines into which he
+concentrated all the venom of his previous attacks:--
+
+  "But though Heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,
+  He never was a poet of God's making
+  The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
+  With this prophetic blessing--_Be thou dull_;
+  Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
+  Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.
+  Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men;
+  A strong nativity--but for the pen;
+  Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
+  Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.
+  I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
+  For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
+  Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck;
+  'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
+  For writing treason and for writing dull;
+  To die for faction is a common evil,
+  But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
+  Hadst thou the glories of thy King exprest,
+  Thy praises had been satires at the best;
+  But thou in clumsy verse, unlicked, unpointed,
+  Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.
+  I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
+  For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
+  But of King David's foes be this the doom,--
+  May all be like the young man Absalom;
+  And for my foes may this their blessing be,--
+  To talk like Doeg and to write like thee."
+
+Refinement of tone is not the distinguishing characteristic of satire
+of this sort. It does not attack its object by delicate insinuation or
+remote suggestion. It operates by heavy downright blows which crush by
+the mere weight and power of the stroke. There was in truth in those
+days a certain brutality not only permitted but expected in the way
+men spoke of each other, and Dryden conformed in this as in other
+respects to the manners and methods of his age. But of its kind the
+attack is perfect. The blows of a bludgeon which make of the victim a
+shapeless mass kill as effectively as the steel or poison which leaves
+every feature undisturbed, and to the common apprehension it serves to
+render the killing more manifest. At any rate, so long as a person has
+been done to death, it makes comparatively little difference how the
+death was brought about; and the object in this instance of Dryden's
+attack, though a man of no mean abilities, has never recovered from
+the demolition which his reputation then underwent.
+
+In 1685 Charles II. died, and his brother James ascended the throne. In
+the following year Dryden went over to the Roman Catholic Church. No
+act of his life has met with severer censure. Nor can there be any
+doubt that the time he took to change his religion afforded ground for
+distrusting the sincerity of his motives. A king was on the throne who
+was straining every nerve to bring the Church of England once more
+under the sway of the Church of Rome. Obviously the adoption of the
+latter faith would recommend the poet to the favor of the bigoted
+monarch, and tend to advance his personal interests. There is no
+wonder, therefore, that he should at the time have been accused of
+being actuated by the unworthiest of reasons, and that the charge
+should continue to be repeated to our day. Yet a close study of
+Dryden's life and writings indicates that the step he took was a
+natural if not an inevitable outcome of the processes through which
+his opinions had been passing. He had been early trained in the strict
+tenets of the Puritan party. From these he had been carried over to
+the loose beliefs and looser life that followed everywhere hard upon
+the Restoration. By the sentiments then prevailing he was profoundly
+affected. Nothing in the writings of the first half of his literary
+life is more marked--not even his flings at matrimony--than the
+scoffing way in which he usually spoke of the clergy. His tone towards
+them is almost always contemptuous, where it is not positively
+vituperative. His famous political satire began with this line--
+
+  "In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin;"--
+
+and a little later in the course of the same poem he observed that--
+
+  "Fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade,"
+
+the "sacrificer" here denoting the priest. This feeling toward the
+clergy never in truth deserted him entirely. But no one who reads
+carefully his 'Religio Laici,' a poem published in 1682, can fail to
+perceive that even then he had not only drifted far away from the
+faith of his childhood, but had begun to be tormented and perplexed by
+the insoluble problems connected with the life and destiny of man, and
+with his relations to his Creator. The subject was not likely to weigh
+less heavily upon him in the years that followed. To Dryden, as to
+many before and since, it may have seemed the easiest method of
+deliverance from the difficulties in which he found himself involved,
+to cast the burden of doubts which disquieted the mind and depressed
+the heart, upon a Church that undertakes to assume the whole
+responsibility for the man's future on condition of his yielding to it
+an unquestioning faith in the present.
+
+An immediate result of his conversion was the production in 1687 of
+one of his most deservedly famous poems, 'The Hind and the Panther.'
+He began it with the idea of assisting in bringing about the
+reconciliation between the Panther, typifying the Church of England,
+and the Hind, typifying the Church of Rome. It is apparent that
+before he finished it he saw that the project was hopeless. It is a
+poem of over twenty-five hundred lines, of which the opening up to
+line 150 is printed in this volume. Part of the passage here cited
+contains, without professing it as an object, and probably without
+intending it, the best defense that could be made for his change of
+religion. The production in its entirety is remarkable for the skill
+which its author displayed in carrying on an argument in verse. In
+this he certainly had no superior among poets, perhaps no equal. The
+work naturally created a great sensation in those days of fierce
+political and religious controversy. Both it and its writer were made
+the object of constant attack. A criticism, in particular, appeared
+upon it in the shape of a dialogue in prose with snatches of verse
+interspersed. It is usually known by the title of 'The Town Mouse and
+the Country Mouse,' and was exalted at the time by unreasoning
+partisanship into a wonderful performance. Even to the present day,
+this dreary specimen of polemics is described as a very witty work by
+those who have never struggled to read it. It was the production of
+Charles Montagu, the future Earl of Halifax, and of Matthew Prior. A
+story too is still constantly repeated that Dryden was much hurt by
+the attacks of these two young men, to whom he had been kind, and wept
+over their ingratitude. If he shed any tears at all upon the occasion,
+they must have been due to the mortification he felt that any two
+persons who had been admitted to his friendship should have been
+guilty of twaddle so desperately tedious.
+
+The flight of James and the accession of William and Mary threw Dryden
+at once out of the favor of the court, upon which to a large extent he
+had long depended for support. As a Jacobite he could not take the
+oath of allegiance; but there is hardly any doubt that under any
+circumstances he would have been deprived of the offices of place and
+profit he held. In the laureateship he was succeeded by his old
+antagonist Shadwell; and within a few years he saw the dignity of the
+position still further degraded by the appointment to it of Nahum
+Tate, one of the worst of the long procession of poetasters who have
+filled it. Dryden henceforth belonged to the party out of power. His
+feelings about his changed relations are shown plainly in the fine
+epistle with which he consoled Congreve for the failure of his comedy
+of the 'Double Dealer.' Yet displaced and unpensioned, and sometimes
+the object of hostile attack, his literary supremacy was more absolute
+than ever. All young authors, whether Whigs or Tories, sought his
+society and courted his favor; and his seat at Will's coffee-house was
+the throne from which he swayed the literary sceptre of England.
+
+After the revolution of 1688 Dryden gave himself entirely up to
+authorship. He first turned to the stage; and between 1690 and 1694
+he produced five plays. With the failure in the last-mentioned year of
+his tragi-comedy called 'Love Triumphant,' he abandoned writing for
+the theatre. The period immediately following he devoted mainly to his
+translation of Virgil, which was published in 1697. It was highly
+successful; but far more reputation came to him from a large folio
+volume that was brought out in November 1699, under the title of
+'Fables.' Its contents consisted mainly of poetical narratives founded
+upon certain stories of the 'Decameron,' and of the modernization of
+some of the 'Canterbury Tales.' In certain ways these have been his
+most successful pieces, and have made his name familiar to successive
+generations of readers. Of the tales from Boccaccio, that of 'Cymon
+and Iphigenia' is on the whole the most pleasing. The modernizations
+of Chaucer were long regarded as superior to the original; and though
+superior knowledge of the original has effectually banished that
+belief, there is on the other hand no justification for the derogatory
+terms which are now sometimes applied to Dryden's versions.
+
+The verse in this volume was preceded by a long critical essay in
+prose. Many of its views, especially those about the language of
+Chaucer, have been long discarded; but the criticism will always be
+read with pleasure for the genial spirit and sound sense which pervade
+it, and the unstudied ease with which it is written. Cowley and Dryden
+are in fact the founders of modern English prose; and the influence of
+the latter has been much greater than that of the former, inasmuch as
+he touched upon a far wider variety of topics, and for that reason
+obtained a far larger circle of readers in the century following his
+death. There was also the same steady improvement in Dryden's critical
+taste that there was in his poetical expression. His admiration for
+Shakespeare constantly improved during his whole life; and it is to be
+noticed that in what is generally regarded as the best of his
+plays--'All for Love,' brought out in the winter of 1677-78--he of his
+own accord abandoned rhyme for blank verse.
+
+The publication of the 'Fables' was Dryden's last appearance before
+the public. In the following year he died, and was buried in
+Westminster Abbey by the side of Chaucer and Cowley. After his death
+his fame steadily increased instead of diminishing. For a long period
+his superiority in his particular line was ungrudgingly conceded by
+all, or if contested, was contested by Pope alone. His poetry indeed
+is not of the highest kind, though usually infinitely superior to that
+of his detractors. Still his excellences were those of the intellect
+and not of the spirit. On the higher planes of thought and feeling he
+rarely moves; to the highest he never aspires. The nearest he ever
+approaches to the former is in his later work, where religious
+emotion or religious zeal has lent to expression the aid of its
+intensity. There is a striking example of this in the personal
+references to his own experiences in the lines cited below from 'The
+Hind and the Panther.' Something too of the same spirit can be found,
+expressed in lofty language, in the following passage from the same
+poem, descriptive of the unity of the Church of Rome as contrasted
+with the numerous warring sects into which the Protestant body is
+divided:--
+
+  "One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound,
+  Entire, one solid shining diamond,
+  Not sparkles shattered into sects like you:
+  One is the Church, and must be to be true,
+  One central principle of unity.
+  As undivided, so from errors free;
+  As one in faith, so one in sanctity.
+  Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage
+  Of heretics opposed from age to age;
+  Still when the giant brood invades her throne,
+  She stoops from heaven and meets them half-way down,
+  And with paternal thunders vindicates her crown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread,
+  Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed;
+  From east to west triumphantly she rides,
+  All shores are watered by her wealthy tides.
+  The gospel sound diffused from Pole to Pole,
+  Where winds can carry and where waves can roll,
+  The selfsame doctrine of the sacred page
+  Conveyed to every clime, in every age."
+
+But though Dryden's poetry is not of the highest class, it is of the
+very highest kind in its class. Wherever the pure intellect comes into
+play, there he is invariably excellent. There is never any weakness;
+there is never any vagueness; there is never any deviation from the
+true path into aimless digression. His words invariably go straight to
+the mark, and not unfrequently with a directness and force that fully
+merit the epithet of "burning" applied to them by the poet Gray. His
+thoughts always rise naturally out of the matter in hand; and in the
+treatment of the meanest subjects he is not only never mean, but often
+falls without apparent effort into a felicity of phrase which holds
+the attention and implants itself in the memory. The benefit of
+exercise, for instance, is not a topic that can be deemed highly
+poetical; but in his epistle on country life addressed to his cousin
+John Driden, the moment he comes to speak of hunting and its salutary
+results his expression at once leaves the commonplace, and embodies
+the thought in these pointed lines:--
+
+  "So lived our sires, ere doctors learned to kill,
+  And multiply with theirs the weekly bill.
+  The first physicians by debauch were made;
+  Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
+  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+  By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food;
+  Toil strung the nerves and purified the blood:
+  But we their sons, a pampered race of men,
+  Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
+  Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
+  Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
+  The wise for cure on exercise depend;
+  God never made his work for man to mend."
+
+In a similar way in 'Cymon and Iphigenia' the contempt which Dryden,
+in common with the Tories of his time, felt for the English militia
+force, found vent in the following vigorous passage, really
+descriptive of them and their conduct though the scene is laid in
+Rhodes:--
+
+  "The country rings around with loud alarms,
+  And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;
+  Mouths without hands; maintained at vast expense,
+  In peace a charge, in war a weak defense;
+  Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
+  And ever, but in times of need, at hand:
+  This was the morn when, issuing on the guard,
+  Drawn up in rank and file they stood prepared
+  Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
+  Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day."
+
+In a world where what is feeble in expression is so often supposed to
+indicate peculiar delicacy; where what is vague is so often deemed
+peculiarly poetical; and where what is involved and crabbed and hard
+to comprehend is thought to denote peculiar profundity,--it is a
+pleasure to turn to a writer with a rank settled by the consensus of
+successive generations, who thought clearly and wrote forcibly, who
+knew always what he had to say and then said it with directness and
+power. There are greater poets than he; but so long as men continue to
+delight in vividness of expression, in majesty of numbers, in
+masculine strength and all-abounding vigor, so long will Dryden
+continue to hold his present high place among English authors.
+
+The writings of Dryden constitute of themselves a literature. They
+treat of a vast variety of topics in many different departments of
+intellectual activity. The completest edition of his works was first
+published in 1808 under the editorship of Walter Scott. It fills
+twenty-one volumes, the first of which however is devoted to a
+biography. The notes to this edition are generally excellent; the text
+is very indifferent. A revised edition of it has been recently
+published under the editorship of George Saintsbury. But easily
+accessible is a single-volume edition of the poems alone, edited by W.
+D. Christie, which furnishes a superior text, and is amply supplied
+with all necessary annotations.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Thomas R. Lounsbury)]
+
+
+
+FROM 'THE HIND AND THE PANTHER'
+
+
+  A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
+  Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;
+  Without unspotted, innocent within,
+  She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+  Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,
+  And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds
+  Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,
+  And doomed to death, though fated not to die.
+
+  Not so her young; for their unequal line
+  Was hero's make, half human, half divine.
+  Their earthly mold obnoxious was to fate,
+  The immortal part assumed immortal state.
+  Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,
+  Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,
+  Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose
+  And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.
+  Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,
+  Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.
+  So captive Israel multiplied in chains,
+  A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains.
+  With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed
+  Her martyred offspring and their race renewed;
+  Their corps to perish, but their kind to last,
+  So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.
+
+  Panting and pensive now she ranged alone,
+  And wandered in the kingdoms once her own.
+  The common hunt, though from their rage restrained
+  By sovereign power, her company disdained,
+  Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye
+  Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.
+  'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light,
+  They had not time to take a steady sight;
+  For truth has such a face and such a mien
+  As to be loved needs only to be seen.
+
+  The bloody Bear, an independent beast,
+  Unlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed.
+  Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare
+  Professed neutrality, but would not swear.
+  Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,
+  Mimicked all sects and had his own to chuse;
+  Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent,
+  And paid at church a courtier's compliment.
+  The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he,
+  But whitened with the foam of sanctity,
+  With fat pollutions filled the sacred place,
+  And mountains leveled in his furious race;
+  So first rebellion founded was in grace.
+  But since the mighty ravage which he made
+  In German forests had his guilt betrayed,
+  With broken tusks and with a borrowed name,
+  He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame,
+  So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile
+  False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil;
+  The graceless beast by Athanasius first
+  Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed,
+  His impious race their blasphemy renewed,
+  And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed;
+  Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye,
+  Nor in an infant could a God descry.
+  New swarming sects to this obliquely tend,
+  Hence they began, and here they all will end.
+
+  What weight of ancient witness can prevail,
+  If private reason hold the public scale?
+  But gracious God, how well dost thou provide
+  For erring judgments an unerring guide!
+  Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,
+  A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
+  O teach me to believe thee thus concealed,
+  And search no farther than thy self revealed,
+  But her alone for my director take,
+  Whom thou hast promised never to forsake!
+  My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires;
+  My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,
+  Followed false lights; and when their glimpse was gone,
+  My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
+  Such was I, such by nature still I am;
+  Be thine the glory and be mine the shame!
+  Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;
+  What more could fright my faith than Three in One?
+  Can I believe eternal God could lie
+  Disguised in mortal mold and infancy,
+  That the great Maker of the world could die?
+  And after that, trust my imperfect sense
+  Which calls in question his omnipotence?
+  Can I my reason to my faith compel,
+  And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel?
+  Superior faculties are set aside;
+  Shall their subservient organs be my guide?
+  Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,
+  And winking tapers show the sun his way;
+  For what my senses can themselves perceive
+  I need no revelation to believe.
+  Can they, who say the Host should be descried
+  By sense, define a body glorified,
+  Impassible, and penetrating parts?
+  Let them declare by what mysterious arts
+  He shot that body through the opposing might
+  Of bolts and bars impervious to the light,
+  And stood before his train confessed in open sight.
+  For since thus wondrously he passed, 'tis plain
+  One single place two bodies did contain;
+  And sure the same omnipotence as well
+  Can make one body in more places dwell.
+  Let Reason then at her own quarry fly;
+  But how can finite grasp infinity?
+
+  'Tis urged again, that faith did first commence
+  By miracles, which are appeals to sense,
+  And thence concluded, that our sense must be
+  The motive still of credibility.
+  For latter ages must on former wait,
+  And what began belief must propagate.
+
+  But winnow well this thought, and you shall find
+  'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind.
+  Were all those wonders wrought by power Divine
+  As means or ends of some more deep design?
+  Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,
+  To prove the Godhead of the Eternal Son.
+  God thus asserted:  Man is to believe
+  Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive,
+  And for mysterious things of faith rely
+  On the proponent Heaven's authority.
+  If then our faith we for our guide admit,
+  Vain is the farther search of human wit;
+  As when the building gains a surer stay,
+  We take the unuseful scaffolding away.
+  Reason by sense no more can understand;
+  The game is played into another hand.
+  Why choose we then like bilanders to creep
+  Along the coast, and land in view to keep,
+  When safely we may launch into the deep?
+  In the same vessel which our Savior bore,
+  Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore,
+  And with a better guide a better world explore.
+  Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood
+  And not veil these again to be our food?
+  His grace in both is equal in extent;
+  The first affords us life, the second nourishment.
+
+  And if he can, why all this frantic pain
+  To construe what his clearest words contain,
+  And make a riddle what he made so plain?
+  To take up half on trust and half to try,
+  Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry.
+  Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,
+  To pay great sums and to compound the small,
+  For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?
+
+  Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed:
+  Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed.
+  Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss;
+  The bank above must fail before the venture miss.
+
+
+
+TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE
+
+ON HIS COMEDY CALLED 'THE DOUBLE DEALER'
+
+
+  Well then, the promised hour is come at last;
+  The present age of wit obscures the past:
+  Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ;
+  Conquering with force of arms and dint of wit:
+  Theirs was the giant race before the flood;
+  And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood.
+  Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured,
+  With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
+  Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude,
+  And boisterous English wit with art endued.
+  Our age was cultivated thus at length,
+  But what we gained in skill we lost in strength.
+  Our builders were with want of genius curst;
+  The second temple was not like the first;
+  Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,
+  Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
+  Firm Doric pillars found your solid base,
+  The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space;
+  Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
+  In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise;
+  He moved the mind, but had not power to raise.
+  Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please,
+  Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.
+  In differing talents both adorned their age,
+  One for the study, t'other for the stage.
+  But both to Congreve justly shall submit,
+  One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit.
+  In him all beauties of this age we see:
+  Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity,
+  The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherley.
+  All this in blooming youth you have achieved;
+  Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved.
+  So much the sweetness of your manners move,
+  We cannot envy you, because we love.
+  Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
+  A beardless Consul made against the law,
+  And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome,
+  Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
+  Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,
+  And scholar to the youth he taught became.
+
+  O that your brows my laurel had sustained!
+  Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:
+  The father had descended for the son,
+  For only you are lineal to the throne.
+  Thus, when the State one Edward did depose,
+  A greater Edward in his room arose:
+  But now, not I, but poetry, is curst;
+  For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.
+  But let them not mistake my patron's part,
+  Nor call his charity their own desert.
+  Yet this I prophesy:  Thou shalt be seen,
+  Though with some short parenthesis between,
+  High on the throne of wit, and seated there,
+  Not mine--that's little--but thy laurel wear.
+  Thy first attempt an early promise made;
+  That early promise this has more than paid.
+  So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
+  That your least praise is to be regular.
+  Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,
+  But genius must be born, and never can be taught.
+  This is your portion, this your native store:
+  Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,
+  To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more.
+
+  Maintain your post:  that's all the fame you need;
+  For 'tis impossible you should proceed.
+  Already I am worn with cares and age,
+  And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:
+  Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense,
+  I live a rent-charge on His providence:
+  But you, whom every Muse and grace adorn,
+  Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
+  Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend,
+  Against your judgment, your departed friend!
+  Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
+  But shade those laurels which descend to you:
+  And take for tribute what these lines express;
+  You merit more, nor could my love do less.
+
+
+
+ODE
+
+TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY
+
+MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW,
+
+EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING.
+
+
+        Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies,
+          Made in the last promotion of the blest;
+        Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,
+      In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
+        Rich with immortal green above the rest:
+      Whether, adopted to some neighboring star,
+        Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race,
+      Or in procession fixed and regular
+        Moved with the heaven's majestic pace,
+          Or called to more superior bliss,
+      Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
+      Whatever happy region be thy place,
+      Cease thy celestial song a little space;
+      Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
+          Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
+      Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse
+              In no ignoble verse,
+      But such as thy own voice did practice here,
+        When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
+      To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
+          While yet a young probationer,
+              And candidate of Heaven.
+
+          If by traduction came thy mind,
+          Our wonder is the less to find
+      A soul so charming from a stock so good;
+      Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
+      So wert thou born into the tuneful strain
+      (An early, rich, and inexhausted vein).
+        But if thy pre-existing soul
+      Was formed at first with myriads more,
+        It did through all the mighty poets roll
+      Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
+  And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
+    If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
+      Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
+    Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find
+    Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:
+  Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind.
+
+      May we presume to say that at thy birth
+  New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth?
+      For sure the milder planets did combine
+      On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
+      And even the most malicious were in trine.
+          Thy brother angels at thy birth
+          Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,
+          That all the people of the sky
+      Might know a poetess was born on earth;
+          And then, if ever, mortal ears
+          Had heard the music of the spheres.
+          And if no clustering swarm of bees
+      On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,
+          'Twas that such vulgar miracles
+          Heaven had not leisure to renew:
+      For all the blest fraternity of love
+  Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.
+
+        O gracious God! how far have we
+        Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy!
+      Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
+      Debased to each obscene and impious use,
+      Whose harmony was first ordained above,
+      For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!
+      Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down
+        This lubric and adulterate age,
+      (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own,)
+        To increase the steaming ordures of the stage?
+      What can we say to excuse our second fall?
+      Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all:
+      Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
+      Unmixed with foreign filth and undefiled;
+  Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
+
+        Art she had none, yet wanted none,
+          For Nature did that want supply:
+        So rich in treasures of her own,
+          She might our boasted stores defy:
+      Such noble vigor did her verse adorn
+      That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born.
+      Her morals too were in her bosom bred,
+          By great examples daily fed,
+  What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.
+      And to be read herself she need not fear;
+      Each test and every light her Muse will bear,
+      Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
+      Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest)
+  Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast;
+          Light as the vapors of a morning dream,
+        So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
+          'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
+
+        Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
+  One would have thought she should have been content
+          To manage well that mighty government;
+        But what can young ambitious souls confine?
+          To the next realm she stretched her sway,
+          For Painture near adjoining lay,
+        A plenteous province and alluring prey.
+        A Chamber of Dependences was framed,
+          As conquerors will never want pretense,
+            (When armed to justify the offense,)
+  And the whole fief in right of Poetry she claimed.
+      The country open lay without defense;
+        For poets frequent inroads there had made,
+          And perfectly could represent
+      The shape, the face, with every lineament,
+  And all the large demains which the dumb Sister swayed;
+          All bowed beneath her government.
+      Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
+      Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,
+  And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind;
+        The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks
+        And fruitful plains and barren rocks;
+        Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear,
+        The bottom did the top appear;
+        Of deeper too and ampler floods
+        Which, as in mirrors, showed the woods;
+        Of lofty trees, with sacred shades
+        And perspectives of pleasant glades,
+        Where nymphs of brightest form appear,
+        And shaggy satyrs standing near,
+        Which them at once admire and fear.
+        The ruins too of some majestic piece,
+      Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
+      Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie,
+      And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;
+      What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,
+      Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
+      So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
+    But when the peopled Ark the whole creation bore.
+
+      The scene then changed; with bold erected look
+      Our martial King the sight with reverence strook:
+      For, not content to express his outward part,
+      Her hand called out the image of his heart:
+      His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
+      His high-designing thoughts were figured there,
+      As when by magic ghosts are made appear.
+        Our phoenix Queen was portrayed too so bright
+      Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
+      Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
+      Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
+      With such a peerless majesty she stands,
+    As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands;
+      Before a train of heroines was seen,
+      In beauty foremost, as in rank the Queen.
+      Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
+        But like a ball of fire, the farther thrown,
+        Still with a greater blaze she shone,
+      And her bright soul broke out on every side.
+      What next she had designed, Heaven only knows:
+      To such immoderate growth her conquest rose
+      That Fate alone its progress could oppose.
+
+      Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
+      The well-proportioned shape and beauteous face,
+      Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
+      In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
+      Not wit nor piety could Fate prevent;
+      Nor was the cruel Destiny content
+      To finish all the murder at a blow,
+      To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
+        But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
+      To work more mischievously slow,
+        And plundered first, and then destroyed.
+      O double sacrilege on things divine,
+      To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
+                  But thus Orinda died:
+      Heaven by the same disease did both translate;
+    As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
+
+      Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
+      His waving streamers to the winds displays,
+    And vows for his return with vain devotion pays.
+        Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
+        The winds too soon will waft thee here!
+        Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;
+      Alas! thou knowest not, thou art wrecked at home,
+      No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face;
+      Thou hast already had her last embrace.
+      But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far,
+      Among the Pleiads, a new-kindled star,
+      If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
+      'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
+
+      When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound
+        To raise the nations under ground;
+      When in the Valley of Jehoshaphat
+      The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
+        And there the last assizes keep
+        For those who wake and those who sleep;
+        When rattling bones together fly
+        From the four corners of the sky;
+      When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
+      Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
+      The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
+      And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
+      For they are covered with the lightest ground;
+      And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing,
+      Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
+      There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shalt go,
+      As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show,
+      The way which thou so well hast learned below.
+
+
+
+A SONG
+
+
+    Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
+    Reserved for your victorious eyes:
+    From crowds whom at your feet you see,
+    Oh pity and distinguish me!
+    As I from thousand beauties more
+  Distinguish you, and only you adore.
+
+    Your face for conquest was designed,
+    Your every motion charms my mind;
+    Angels, when you your silence break,
+    Forget their hymns to hear you speak;
+    But when at once they hear and view,
+  Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.
+
+    No graces can your form improve,
+    But all are lost, unless you love;
+    While that sweet passion you disdain,
+    Your veil and beauty are in vain:
+    In pity then prevent my fate,
+  For after dying all reprieve's too late.
+
+
+
+LINES PRINTED UNDER MILTON'S PORTRAIT
+
+IN TONSON'S FOLIO EDITION OF THE 'PARADISE LOST,' 1688
+
+
+  Three poets, in three distant ages born,
+  Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
+  The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
+  The next in majesty, in both the last:
+  The force of Nature could no farther go;
+  To make a third she joined the former two.
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC
+
+A SONG IN HONOR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY: 1697
+
+
+I
+
+              'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
+                  By Philip's warlike son:
+                Aloft in awful state
+                The godlike hero sate
+                  On his imperial throne;
+              His valiant peers were placed around;
+        Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:
+              (So should desert in arms be crowned.)
+              The lovely Thais, by his side,
+              Sate like a blooming Eastern bride,
+              In flower of youth and beauty's pride,
+                Happy, happy, happy pair!
+                  None but the brave,
+                  None but the brave,
+              None but the brave deserves the fair.
+
+CHORUS
+
+                Happy, happy, happy pair!
+                  None but the brave,
+                  None but the brave,
+              None but the brave deserves the fair.
+
+II
+
+                    Timotheus, placed on high
+                      Amid the tuneful quire,
+              With flying fingers touched the lyre:
+                The trembling notes ascend the sky,
+                    And heavenly joys inspire.
+                    The song began from Jove,
+              Who left his blissful seats above,
+              (Such is the power of mighty love.)
+              A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
+              Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
+              When he to fair Olympia pressed:
+              And while he sought her snowy breast,
+              Then round her slender waist he curled,
+  And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
+      The listening crowd admire the lofty sound
+      A present deity, they shout around;
+      A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
+                      With ravished ears
+                      The monarch hears,
+                      Assumes the god,
+                      Affects to nod,
+              And seems to shake the spheres.
+
+CHORUS
+
+                      With ravished ears
+                      The monarch hears,
+                      Assumes the god,
+                      Affects to nod,
+              And seems to shake the spheres.
+
+III
+
+      The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
+        Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
+              The jolly god in triumph comes;
+              Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
+                    Flushed with a purple grace
+                    He shows his honest face:
+      Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
+                    Bacchus, ever fair and young,
+                      Drinking joys did first ordain;
+              Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,
+              Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
+                    Rich the treasure,
+                    Sweet the pleasure,
+                      Sweet is pleasure after pain.
+
+CHORUS
+
+              Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,
+              Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
+                    Rich the treasure,
+                    Sweet the pleasure,
+                      Sweet is pleasure after pain.
+
+IV
+
+          Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
+              Fought all his battles o'er again;
+  And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
+        The master saw the madness rise,
+        His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
+        And while he heaven and earth defied,
+        Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
+              He chose a mournful Muse,
+              Soft pity to infuse;
+        He sung Darius great and good,
+              By too severe a fate,
+        Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
+              Fallen from his high estate,
+        And weltering in his blood;
+        Deserted at his utmost need
+        By those his former bounty fed;
+        On the bare earth exposed he lies,
+        With not a friend to close his eyes.
+    With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
+        Revolving in his altered soul
+          The various turns of chance below;
+        And now and then a sigh he stole,
+          And tears began to flow.
+
+CHORUS
+
+        Revolving in his altered soul
+          The various turns of chance below;
+        And now and then a sigh he stole,
+          And tears began to flow.
+
+V
+
+        The mighty master smiled to see
+        That love was in the next degree;
+        'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
+        For pity melts the mind to love.
+          Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
+          Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
+        War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
+        Honor but an empty bubble,
+        Never ending, still beginning,
+          Fighting still, and still destroying:
+        If the world be worth thy winning,
+          Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
+        Lovely Thais sits beside thee;
+        Take the good the gods provide thee;
+  The many rend the skies with loud applause;
+  So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.
+  The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
+                Gazed on the fair
+                Who caused his care,
+        And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
+        Sighed and looked, and sighed again;
+  At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
+  The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.
+
+CHORUS
+
+  The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
+                Gazed on the fair
+                Who caused his care,
+        And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
+        Sighed and looked, and sighed again;
+  At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
+  The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.
+
+VI
+
+        Now strike the golden lyre again;
+        A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
+        Break his bands of sleep asunder,
+  And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
+            Hark, hark, the horrid sound
+              Has raised up his head;
+              As awaked from the dead,
+            And amazed, he stares around.
+        Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
+              See the Furies arise;
+              See the snakes that they rear,
+              How they hiss in their hair,
+  And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
+              Behold a ghastly band,
+              Each a torch in his hand!
+  Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
+              And unburied remain
+              Inglorious on the plain:
+              Give the vengeance due
+              To the valiant crew.
+  Behold how they toss their torches on high,
+        How they point to the Persian abodes,
+  And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
+  The princes applaud with a furious joy;
+  And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
+              Thais led the way,
+              To light him to his prey,
+  And like another Helen, fired another Troy.
+
+CHORUS
+
+  And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
+              Thais led the way,
+              To light him to his prey,
+  And like another Helen, fired another Troy.
+
+VII
+
+                    Thus long ago,
+          Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
+            While organs yet were mute,
+            Timotheus, to his breathing flute
+                  And sounding lyre,
+  Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
+          At last divine Cecilia came,
+          Inventress of the vocal frame;
+  The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
+          Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
+          And added length to solemn sounds,
+  With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
+          Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
+            Or both divide the crown:
+          He raised a mortal to the skies;
+            She drew an angel down.
+
+GRAND CHORUS
+
+          At last divine Cecilia came,
+          Inventress of the vocal frame;
+  The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
+          Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
+          And added length to solemn sounds,
+  With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
+          Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
+            Or both divide the crown:
+          He raised a mortal to the skies;
+            She drew an angel down.
+
+
+
+ACHITOPHEL[A]
+
+From 'Absalom and Achitophel'
+
+
+  This plot, which failed for want of common-sense,
+  Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence:
+  For as when raging fevers boil the blood,
+  The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
+  And every hostile humor, which before
+  Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
+  So several factions from this first ferment
+  Work up to foam, and threat the government.
+  Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise,
+  Opposed the power to which they could not rise.
+  Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence,
+  Like fiends were hardened in impenitence.
+  Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
+  From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,
+  Were raised in power and public office high;
+  Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
+
+  Of these the false Achitophel was first;
+  A name to all succeeding ages curst:
+  For close designs and crooked councils fit;
+  Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
+  Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
+  In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
+  A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
+  Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
+  And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
+  A daring pilot in extremity;
+  Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
+  He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
+  Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
+  Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
+  And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
+  Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
+  Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
+  Punish a body which he could not please;
+  Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
+  And all to leave what with his toil he won,
+  To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;
+  Got while his soul did huddled notions try,
+  And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
+  In friendship false, implacable in hate;
+  Resolved to ruin or to rule the State.
+  To compass this the triple bond he broke,
+  The pillars of the public safety shook,
+  And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke:
+  Then, seized with fear yet still affecting fame,
+  Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
+  So easy still it proves in factious times,
+  With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
+  How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
+  Where none can sin against the people's will!
+  Where crowds can wink, and no offense be known,
+  Since in another's guilt they find their own!
+  Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
+  The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
+  In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
+  With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
+  Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
+  Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.
+  Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown,
+  With virtues only proper to the gown;
+  Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
+  From cockle that oppressed the noble seed;
+  David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
+  And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
+  But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
+  And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
+  Achitophel, grown weary to possess
+  A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
+  Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
+  And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
+  Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,
+  He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
+  Held up the buckler of the people's cause
+  Against the Crown, and skulked behind the laws.
+  The wished occasion of the plot he takes;
+  Some circumstances finds, but more he makes.
+  By buzzing emissaries fills the ears
+  Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears
+  Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
+  And proves the king himself a Jebusite.
+
+    [A] Lord Shaftesbury.
+
+
+
+
+MAXIME DU CAMP
+
+(1822-1894)
+
+[Illustration: MAXIME DU CAMP]
+
+
+"Why have I always felt happy, filled with the spirit of content and
+of infinite independence, whenever I have slept in the tent or in the
+ruins of foreign lands?" The love of change and adventure has been the
+spring of Du Camp's life, a life whose events are blended so
+intimately with his literary achievement, that to know the one is to
+know the other. This practical man of the world has an imaginative,
+beauty-loving side to his nature, which craves stimulus from tropical
+unfamiliar nature and exotic ways.
+
+So, after the usual training of French boys in lycee and college,--"in
+those hideous houses where they wearied our childhood," as he
+says,--the just-emancipated youth of twenty-two left his home in Paris
+for an eighteen-months' trip in the far East. The color and variety of
+the experience whetted his love of travel, and very soon after his
+return he began a serious study of photography in view of future
+plans.
+
+Then came the revolution of 1848, the overthrow of Louis Philippe; and
+Du Camp had an opportunity to prove his courage and patriotism in the
+ranks of the National Guard. In his 'Souvenirs de l'Annee 1848,' he
+tells the story with color and interest, and with the forceful logic
+of an eye-witness.
+
+His bravery and a serious wound won him the red ribbon of the Legion
+of Honor, bestowed by General Cavaignac. This drew attention to him,
+and led the minister of public instruction to intrust him a few months
+later with a mission of exploration to Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, and
+Asia Minor; a result of which trip was his first literary success.
+Utilizing his photographic knowledge, he collected a great many
+negatives for future development. Upon his return he published a
+volume of descriptive sketches, 'Le Nil, Egypte, et Nubie,' generously
+illustrated with printed reproductions of these pictures. This first
+combination of photography and typography was popular, and was
+speedily imitated, initiative of many illustrated books.
+
+Later, Du Camp's warlike and exploring instincts led him at his own
+expense into Sicily with Garibaldi, where he collected matter and
+photographs for 'Les Deux Siciles', another successful volume. In 1851
+he associated with others to found the Revue de Paris, for which he
+wrote regularly until its suspension in 1858. He has also written a
+great deal for the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which for several years
+he continued a series of historical studies upon the government of
+Paris. The six volumes upon 'Paris: its Organs, its Functions, its
+Life, during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,' form one of
+his chief achievements. His personal knowledge on the subject, and his
+access to valuable unpublished documents, give it authoritative value.
+
+In 'Les Ancetres de la Commune,' and 'Les Convulsions de Paris,' he
+has accomplished much more in the same line. The latter, a brilliant
+circumstantial exposition of the Commune, a logical condemnation of
+its folly and ignorance, brought him gratitude from the French
+Academy, and aided his election to that body in 1880. For this
+extensive work on contemporary politics, for his illustrated travels,
+and his artistic and literary criticism, he is better known than for
+his two or three novels and volumes of poetry.
+
+Du Camp's may be characterized as a soldierly style, strong, direct,
+and personal. He loves to retrace old scenes with the later visible
+sequence of cause and effect. Always straightforward, sometimes
+bluntly self-assertive, he is sometimes eloquent. Perhaps his great
+charm is spontaneity.
+
+
+
+A STREET SCENE DURING THE COMMUNE
+
+From 'The Convulsions of Paris'
+
+
+There were strange episodes during this terrible evening. At half-past
+eight, M. Rouville, a Protestant minister, was at home in a house he
+owns on the Rue de Lille. He heard an alarm, the cry, "Everything is
+burning! Escape!" Then he went down, saw the street in flames, and the
+poor people weeping as they escaped. Just as he was returning to
+rescue a few valuables, some federates rushed into the court, crying,
+"Hurry! They are setting the place on fire!" He took some money and
+the manuscript of the sermons he had preached. Mechanically he seized
+his hat and cane. Then, throwing a last look around the apartment
+where he had long lived, invoking the memory of the great Biblical
+destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ, weak and trembling with
+emotion, he descended the staircase from his home.
+
+There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by the cry of
+women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror, vibrating above
+the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no supernatural power
+replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house next his own was in
+flames. They were setting fire to the one opposite. The houses between
+the Rue de Beaune and the Rue du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were
+vomiting flame from all the broken windows.
+
+The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a faithful
+maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubtless determined
+his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all to save his house.
+If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he would have thought only
+of their safety, and would have hastened to get them away from the
+place, where, he said, "One could die of horror."
+
+Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps him young
+and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong race of Southern
+Protestants, which has resisted everything to guard its faith. I
+should not be surprised if he has had some nimble Cevennole, companion
+of Jean Cavalier, among his ancestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the
+Seine, accustomed to sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts
+some intact fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in
+faith, eloquent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
+knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound that
+light cannot be made to penetrate it,--he had remained on duty at his
+post during the Commune; for the prisoners had more need of spiritual
+aid, now that the regular administration no longer watched over them.
+He had been indignant at the incarceration of Catholic priests, and
+had signed the fine protest demanding the liberty of the archbishop,
+which the ministers had carried to the Hotel de Ville.
+
+Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened him, he
+commended his spirit to God, remembering that the little stone of
+David had killed the giant Philistine, and he decided to fight for his
+home. He encamped energetically before the door, to forbid access; and
+using the weapons bestowed upon him by Providence and study, he spoke.
+The federates stopped before this man, whose simplicity rendered him
+heroic. One may guess what he said to them:--
+
+"Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execrable? Why be
+enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose religion, founded on the
+dogma of free examination, is naturally allied to republican ideas?
+The faith he teaches is that promulgated by Christ: Christ said to
+Peter, 'Sheathe thy sword;' he said to men,'Love one another!' No, the
+people of Paris, this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose
+unfortunates have been succored during the siege; this people, so good
+when not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the house
+of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in the exercise
+of charity."
+
+The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with profound
+conviction, for the federates who were listening to him began to weep,
+then seized and embraced him. Meantime the tenants of the shops in his
+house had lowered the iron curtains, which at least was an obstacle
+against the first throwing of petroleum. This lasted an hour. The
+federates, evidently softened and touched by the pastor's despair,
+remained near him and had pity upon him. An old sergeant of the
+National Guard stayed beside him, as if to bring him help in case of
+need, and to maintain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope
+revived in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that
+perhaps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing the
+braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires. Seeing
+one house intact, emerging like a little island from an ocean of
+flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and wanted to argue
+with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these young scamps said to
+him, "You are an old reactionist: you bore us with your talking. If
+you don't like it, we will pin you to the wall." Then, turning toward
+the federates and pointing to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he
+cried, "All that belongs to the people. The people have the right to
+burn every thing."
+
+This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when the
+sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer said to
+him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here." "Show me
+your order," answered the officer. The sergeant replied, "It is a
+verbal order." Then there was a lively quarrel between the two men.
+The sergeant was firm. The officer insisted, and according to the
+custom of the moment, threatened to have the rebel shot.
+
+The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved it. A
+mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates to retreat,
+because they were about to be surrounded by the troops from
+Versailles.
+
+Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant who had
+remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry, father! You will get
+yourself killed, and that will not save your camp."
+
+The other officers passed, commanded everything to be burned, and when
+the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave. For half an hour the
+unhappy pastor remained alone, holding back the incendiaries, passing
+from supplications to threats, and gaining time by every possible
+artifice. The sergeant returned with tearful eyes, and showed the
+dismayed pastor a written order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs.
+Not yet discouraged, the pastor roused the compassion of the old
+sergeant, and so moved him that the rebel cried, "Ah, well! so much
+the worse! I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
+shoot me. It's all the same. I deserve to be." Then raising his hand
+toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks through the veil of
+wind-driven smoke, he cried "O my father, I believe in God! Fear
+nothing; I will stay here. They shan't touch your house. I shall know
+how to keep off plunderers!"
+
+O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all good
+actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and the emotion
+which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed thy likeness, and
+one need not despair of thee, although thou dishearten those who love
+thee best!
+
+The brandy at the wine merchants'; the ether at the druggists'; the
+powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in cellars, burst
+with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals. The pastor
+looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He gave it a last
+look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock. For three hours in
+the midst of this furnace he had resisted the incendiaries. His
+strength was exhausted. The faithful servant, who went back again and
+again to rescue one thing more from the burning, dragged him away. In
+the Rue des Saints-Peres they plunged into darkness, all the deeper
+for the brazier of sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way
+over the barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
+fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved, they
+reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where they found
+refuge in a lodging-house.
+
+Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His house was
+standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word. What became of
+this brave man, who at the risk of his life saved the property of a
+man whose speech had touched him? Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he
+received his due reward. Perhaps he drags out a wretched life in some
+workshop of a penitentiary. I know not his fate, nor even his name.
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
+
+(1803?-1870)
+
+BY ANDREW LANG
+
+
+No author is less capable of being illustrated by extracts than
+Alexandre Dumas. Writers like Prosper Merimee or Mr. Robert Louis
+Stevenson can be not inadequately represented by a short story or a
+brief scene. Even from Scott's work we can detach 'Wandering Willie's
+Tale,' or 'The Tapestried Chamber,' or the study of Effie Deans in
+prison, or of Jeanie Deans before the Queen. But Dumas is invariably
+diffuse; though, unlike other diffuse talkers and writers, he is
+seldom tedious. He is long without _longueurs_. A single example will
+explain this better than a page of disquisition. The present selector
+had meant to extract Dumas's first meeting with Charles Nodier at the
+theatre. In memory, that amusing scene appeared to occupy some six
+pages. In fact, it covers nearly a hundred and thirty pages of the
+Brussels edition of the 'Memoirs' of Dumas. One reads it with such
+pleasure that looked back upon, it seems short, while it is infinitely
+too long to be extracted. In dialogue Dumas is both excellent and
+copious, so that he cannot well be abbreviated. He is the Porthos of
+novelists, gigantic, yet (at his best) muscular and not overgrown. For
+these reasons, extracts out of his romances do no justice to Dumas. To
+read one of his novels, say 'The Three Musketeers,' even in a slovenly
+translation, is to know more of him than a world of critics and
+essayists can teach. It is also to forget the world, and to dwell in a
+careless Paradise. Our object therefore is not to give an "essence of
+Dumas," but to make readers peruse him in his own books, and to save
+them trouble by indicating, among these books, the best.
+
+It is notorious that Dumas was at the head of a "Company" like that
+which Scott laughingly proposed to form "for writing and publishing
+the class of books called Waverley Novels." In legal phrase, Dumas
+"deviled" his work; he had assistants, "researchers," collaborators.
+He would briefly sketch a plot, indicate the authorities to be
+consulted, hand his notes to Maquet or Fiorentino, receive their
+draught, and expand that into a romance. Work thus executed cannot be
+equal to itself. Many books signed by Dumas may be neglected without
+loss. Even to his best works, one or other of his assistants was apt
+to assert a claim. The answer is convincing. Not one of these
+ingenious men ever produced, by himself, anything that could be
+mistaken for the work of the master. All his good things have the same
+stamp and the same spirit, which we find nowhere else. Again, nobody
+contests his authorship of his own 'Memoirs,' or of his book about his
+dogs, birds, and other beasts--'The Story of My Pets.' Now, the merit
+of these productions is, in kind, identical with many of the merits of
+his best novels. There is the same good-humor, gayety, and fullness of
+life. We may therefore read Dumas's central romances without much fear
+of being grateful to the wrong person. Against the modern theory that
+the Iliad and Odyssey are the work of many hands in many ages, we can
+urge that these supposed "hands" never did anything nearly so good for
+themselves; and the same argument applies in the case of Alexandre
+Dumas.
+
+A brief sketch of his life must now be given. "No man has had so many
+of his possessions disputed as myself," says Dumas. Not only his right
+to his novels, but his right to his name and to legitimate birth, was
+contested. Here we shall follow his own account of himself in his
+'Memoirs,' which do not cover nearly the whole of his life. Alexandre
+Dumas was born at Villers-Cotterets-sur-Aisne, on July 24th, 1803(?).
+He lived to almost exactly the threescore and ten years of the
+Psalmist. He saw the fall of Napoleon, the restoration of the rightful
+king, the expulsion of the Legitimate monarch in 1830, the Orleans
+rule, its overthrow in 1848, the Republic, the Empire, and the
+Terrible Year, 1870-1871. Then he died, in the hour of the sorrow
+of his
+
+  "Immortal and indomitable France."
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS.]
+
+Dumas's full name was noble: he was Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la
+Pailleterie. His family estate, La Pailleterie, was made a marquisate
+by Louis XIV. in 1707. About 1760 the grandfather of Dumas sold his
+lands in France, and went to Hayti. There in 1762 was born his father,
+son of Louise Cossette Dumas and of the Marquis de la Pailleterie. The
+mother must have been a woman of color; Dumas talks of his father's
+"mulatto hue," and he himself had undoubted traces of African blood.
+Yet it appears that the grandparents were duly married. In 1772, his
+wife having died, the old marquis returned to France. The Revolution
+broke out, and the father of Alexandre Dumas fought in the armies of
+the Republic. The cruel mob called him by way of mockery, "Monsieur
+Humanity," because he endeavored to rescue the victims of their
+ferocity. He was a man of great courage and enormous physical
+strength. Napoleon, in honor of one of his feats of arms, called him
+in a dispatch "The Horatius Cocles of the Republic." He was with
+Napoleon in Egypt, where a quarrel arose, as he suspected and opposed
+the ambition of the future emperor. Though Dumas found a treasure in a
+bey's house, he honorably presented it to his government. He died in
+France, a poor man, in 1806.
+
+Dumas was not at home when his father died. He was staying, a
+child of four, with his cousin Marianne.
+
+    "At midnight I was awakened, or rather my cousin and I were
+    awakened, by a great blow struck on the door of our room. By
+    the light of a night lamp I saw my cousin start up, much
+    alarmed. No mortal could have knocked at our chamber door,
+    for the outer doors were locked. [He gives a plan of the
+    house.] I got out of bed to open the door. 'Where are you
+    going, Alexandre?' cried my cousin.
+
+    "'To let in papa, who is coming to say adieu.'
+
+    "The girl dragged me back to bed; I cried, 'Adieu, papa,
+    adieu!' Something like a sighing breath passed over my
+    face.... My father had died at the hour when we heard the
+    knock!"
+
+This anecdote may remind the reader of what occurred at Abbotsford on
+the night when Mr. Bullock died in London. Dumas tells another tale of
+the same kind ('Memoirs,' Vol. xi., page 255: Brussels, 1852). On the
+night of his mother's death he in vain sought a similar experience.
+These things "come not by observation"; but Dumas, like Scott, had a
+mind not untuned to such themes, though not superstitious.
+
+Young Dumas, like most men of literary genius, taught himself to read.
+A Buffon with plates was the treasure of the child, already a lover of
+animals. To know more about the beasts he learned to read for his own
+pleasure. Of mythology he was as fond as Keats. His intellectual life
+began (like the imaginative life of our race) in legends of beasts and
+gods. For Dumas was born _un primitif_, as the French say; his taste
+was the old immortal human taste for romance, for tales of adventure,
+love, and war. This predilection is now of course often scouted by
+critics who are over-civilized and under-educated. Superior persons
+will never share the love of Dumas which was common to Thackeray and
+Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. From Buffon he went on to the 'Letters to
+Emil' (letters on mythology), and to the 'Arabian Nights.' An
+imaginative child, he knew the "pains of sleep" as Coleridge did, and
+the terrors of vain imagination. Many children whose manhood is not
+marked by genius are visionaries. A visionary too was little Dumas,
+like Scott, Coleridge, and George Sand in childhood. To the material
+world he ever showed a bold face. "I have never known doubt or
+despair," he says; his faith in God was always unshaken; the doctrine
+of immortality he regarded rather with hope than absolute belief. Yet
+surely it is a corollary to the main article of his creed.
+
+At ten, Dumas went to a private school kept by an Abbe Gregoire. At
+the Restoration, a boy of twelve, he made and he adhered to an
+important resolution. He chose to keep his grandmaternal name of
+Dumas, like his father, and to drop the name and arms of De la
+Pailleterie, with all the hopes of boons from the restored Royalists.
+Dumas remained a man of the popular party, though he had certain
+relations of friendship with the house of Orleans. But he entertained
+no posthumous hatred of the old monarchy and the old times. His kings
+are nearly as good, in his romances, as Sir Walter's own, and his
+Henri III. and Henri IV. may be named with Scott's Gentle King Jamie
+and Louis XI.
+
+Madame Dumas, marquise as she was by marriage, kept a tobacconist's
+shop; and in education, Dumas was mainly noted for his calligraphy.
+Poaching was now the boy's favorite amusement; all through his life he
+was very fond of sport. Napoleon returned from Elba; Dumas saw him
+drive through Villers-Cotterets on his way to Waterloo. Soon
+afterwards came in stragglers; the English, they said, had been
+defeated at five o'clock on June 18th, but the Prussians arrived at
+six o'clock and won the battle. What the English were doing between
+five and six does not appear; it hardly seems that they quitted the
+field. The theory of that British defeat at Waterloo was never
+abandoned by Dumas. He saw Napoleon return through Villers-Cotterets.
+"Wellington, Buelow, Bluecher, were but masks of men; really they were
+spirits sent by the Most High to defeat Napoleon." It is a pious
+opinion!
+
+At the age of fifteen Dumas, like Scott, became a notary's clerk.
+About this time he saw 'Hamlet' played, in the version of Ducis.
+Corneille and Racine had always been disliked by this born
+romanticist. 'Hamlet' carried him off his feet. Soon afterwards he
+read Buerger's 'Lenore,' the ballad which Scott translated at the
+very beginning of his career as an author.
+
+  "Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
+      Splash! splash! along the sea;
+  The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
+      The flashing pebbles flee."
+
+This German ballad, says Scott, "struck him as the kind of thing he
+could do himself." And Dumas found that the refrain
+
+  "Hurrah, fantome, les morts vont vite,"
+
+was more to his taste than the French poetry of the eighteenth
+century. He tried to translate 'Lenore.' Scott finished it in a night;
+Dumas gave up in despair. But this, he says, was the beginning of his
+authorship. He had not yet opened a volume of Scott or Cooper, "ces
+deux grands romanciers." With a friend named Leuven he began to try
+to write plays (1820-1821). He now poached his way to Paris, defraying
+his expenses with the game he shot on the road. Shakespeare too was a
+poacher; let us excuse the eccentricities of genius. He made Talma's
+acquaintance; he went to the play; he resigned his clerkship: "Paris
+was my future." Thither he went; his father's name served him with
+General Foy, and he obtained a little post in the household of the Duc
+D'Orleans--a supernumerary secretaryship at L60 a year. At the play he
+met Charles Nodier, reading the rarest of Elzevirs, and at intervals
+(like Charles Lamb) hissing his own piece! This delightful scene, with
+its consequences, occupies one hundred and thirty pages!
+
+Dumas now made the acquaintance of Frederic Soulie, and became a
+pillar of theatres. He began to read with a purpose: first he read
+Scott; "The clouds lifted, and I beheld new horizons." Then he turned
+to Cooper; then to Byron. One day he entered his office, crying aloud,
+"Byron is dead!" "Who is Byron?" said one of his chiefs. Here Dumas
+breaks off in his 'Memoirs' to give a life of Byron! He fought his
+first duel in the snow, and won an easy, almost a bloodless victory.
+For years he and Leuven wrote plays together,--plays which were never
+accepted.
+
+At last he, Rousseau (not Jean Jacques!), and Leuven composed a piece
+together. Refused at one house, it was accepted at another: 'La Chasse
+et l'Amour' (The Chase and Love) was presented on September 22d, 1823.
+It succeeded. A volume of three short stories sold to the extent of
+four copies. Dumas saw that he must "make a name" before he could make
+a livelihood. "I do not believe in neglected talent and unappreciated
+genius," says he. Like Mr. Arthur Pendennis, he wrote verses "up to"
+pictures. Thackeray did the same. "Lady Blessington once sent him an
+album print of a boy and girl fishing, with a request that he would
+make some verses for it. 'And,' he said, 'I liked the idea, and set
+about it at once. I was two entire days at it,--was so occupied with
+it, so engrossed by it, that I did not shave during the whole time.'"
+So says Mr. Locker-Lampson.
+
+We cannot all be Dumas or Thackeray. But if any literary beginner
+reads these lines, let him take Dumas's advice; let him disbelieve in
+neglected genius, and do the work that comes in his way, as best he
+can. Dumas had a little anonymous success in 1826, a vaudeville at the
+Porte-Saint-Martin. At last he achieved a serious tragedy, or
+melodrama, in verse, 'Christine.' He wrote to Nodier, reminding him of
+their meeting at the play. The author of 'Trilby' introduced him to
+Taylor; Taylor took him to the Theatre Francais; 'Christine' was read
+and accepted unanimously.
+
+Dumas now struck the vein of his fortune. By chance he opened a volume
+of Anquetil, and read an anecdote of the court of Henri III. This led
+him to study the history of Saint Megrin, in the Memoirs of L'Estoile,
+where he met Quelus, and Maugiron, and Bussy d'Amboise, with the
+stirring tale of his last fight against twelve men. Out of these facts
+he made his play 'Henri III.,' and the same studies inspired that
+trilogy of romances 'La Reine Margot' (Queen Margot), 'La Dame de
+Monsoreau' (The Lady of Monsoreau), and 'Les Quarante-Cinq' (The
+Forty-Five). These are, with the trilogy of the 'Mousquetaires,' his
+central works as a romancer, and he was twenty-five when he began to
+deal with the romance of history. His habit was to narrate his play or
+novel, to his friends, to invent as he talked, and so to arrive at his
+general plan. The mere writing gave him no trouble. We shall later
+show his method in the composition of 'The Three Musketeers.'
+
+'Christine' had been wrecked among the cross-currents of theatrical
+life. 'Henri III.' was more fortunate. Dumas was indeed obliged to
+choose between his little office and the stage; he abandoned his
+secretaryship. In 1829 occurred this "duel between his past and his
+future." Just before the first night of the drama, Dumas's mother,
+whom he tenderly loved, was stricken down by paralysis. He tended her,
+he watched over his piece, he almost dragged the Duc d'Orleans to the
+theatre. On that night he made the acquaintance of Hugo and Alfred de
+Vigny. Dumas passed the evening between the theatre and his mother's
+bedside. When the curtain fell, he was "called on"; the audience stood
+up uncovered, the Duc d'Orleans and all!
+
+Next morning Dumas, like Byron, "woke to find himself famous." He had
+"made his name" in the only legitimate way,--by his work. Troubles
+followed, difficulties with the Censorship, duels and rumors of duels,
+and the whole romantic upheaval which accompanied the Revolution of
+1830. Dumas was attached again to the Orleans household. He dabbled in
+animal magnetism, which had been called mesmerism, and now is known as
+hypnotism. The phenomena are the same; only the explanations vary.
+About 1830 there was a mania for animal magnetism in Paris; Lady
+Louisa Stuart recounted some of the marvels to Sir Walter Scott, who
+treated the reports with disdain. When writing his romance 'Joseph
+Balsamo' (a tale of the French Revolution), Dumas made studies of
+animal magnetism, and was, or believed himself to be, an adept. The
+orthodox party of modern hypnotists merely hold that by certain
+physical means, a state of somnambulism can be produced in certain
+people. Once in that state, the patients are subject, to "suggestion,"
+and are obedient to the will of the hypnotizer. He for his part exerts
+no "magnetic current," no novel unexplained force or fluid. Some
+recent French and English experiments are not easily to be reconciled
+with this hypothesis. Dumas himself believed that he exerted a
+magnetic force, and without any "passes" or other mechanical means,
+could hypnotize persons who did not know what he was about, and so
+were not influenced by "suggestion." In a few cases he held that his
+patients became clairvoyant; one of them made many political
+prophecies,--all unfulfilled. Another, in trance, improved vastly as a
+singer; "her normal voice stopped at _contre-si_. I bade her rise to
+_contre-re_, which she did; though incapable of it when awake." So
+far, this justifies the plot of Mr. Du Maurier's novel 'Trilby.' Dumas
+offers no theory; he states facts, as he says, including
+"post-hypnotic suggestion."
+
+These experiments were made by Dumas merely as part of his studies for
+'Joseph Balsamo' (Cagliostro); his conclusion was that hypnotism is
+not yet reduced to a scientific formula. In fiction it is already
+overworked. Dumas got his 'Christine' acted at last. Then broke out
+the Revolution of 1830. Dumas's description of his activity is "as
+good as a novel," but too long and varied for condensation. It seems
+better to give this extract about his life of poverty before his
+mother died, before fame visited him. (I quote Miss Cheape's
+translation of the passage included in her 'Stories of Beasts,'
+published by Longmans, Green and Company.)
+
+    He had, in later years, named a cat Mysouff II.
+
+    "If you won't think me impertinent, sir," said Madame
+    Lamarque, "I should so like to know what Mysouff means."
+
+    "Mysouff just means Mysouff, Madame Lamarque."
+
+    "It is a cat's name, then?"
+
+    "Certainly, since Mysouff the First was so-called. It is
+    true, Madame Lamarque, you never knew Mysouff." And I became
+    so thoughtful that Madame Lamarque was kind enough to
+    withdraw quietly, without asking any questions about Mysouff
+    the First.
+
+    That name had taken me back to fifteen years ago, when my
+    mother was still living. I had then the great happiness of
+    having a mother to scold me sometimes. At the time I speak
+    of, I held a situation in the service of the Duc d'Orleans,
+    with a salary of 1500 francs. My work occupied me from ten in
+    the morning until five in the afternoon. We had a cat in
+    those days, whose name was Mysouff. This cat had missed his
+    vocation; he ought to have been a dog. Every morning I
+    started for my office at half-past nine, and came back every
+    evening at half-past five. Every morning Mysouff followed me
+    to the corner of a particular street, and every evening I
+    found him in the same street, at the same corner, waiting for
+    me. Now the curious thing was that on the days when I had
+    found some amusement elsewhere, and was not coming home to
+    dinner, it was of no use to open the door for Mysouff to go
+    and meet me. Mysouff, in the attitude of the serpent with its
+    tail in its mouth, refused to stir from his cushion. On the
+    other hand, on the days I did come, Mysouff would scratch at
+    the door until some one opened it for him. My mother was very
+    fond of Mysouff; she used to call him her barometer.
+
+    "Mysouff marks my good and my bad weather," my dear mother
+    would say: "the days you come in are my days of sunshine; my
+    rainy days are when you stay away."
+
+    When I came home I used to see Mysouff at the street corner,
+    sitting quite still and gazing into the distance. As soon as
+    he caught sight of me, he began to move his tail; then as I
+    drew nearer, he rose and walked backward and forward across
+    the pavement with his back arched and his tail in the air.
+    When I reached him, he jumped up upon me as a dog would have
+    done, and bounded and played round me as I walked towards the
+    house; but when I was close to it he dashed in at full speed.
+    Two seconds after, I used to see my mother at the door.
+
+    Never again in this world, but perhaps in the next, I shall
+    see her standing waiting for me at the door.
+
+    That is what I was thinking of, dear readers, when the name
+    of Mysouff brought back all these recollections; so you
+    understand why I did not answer Madame Lamarque's question.
+
+The life of Dumas after 1830 need not be followed step by step;
+indeed, for lack of memoirs, to follow it is by no means easy.
+
+Dumas, by dint of successful plays, and later of successful novels,
+earned large sums of money--L40,000 in one year, it is said. He
+traveled far and wide, and compiled books of travel. In the forties,
+before the Revolution of 1848, he built a kind of Abbotsford of his
+own, named "Monte Cristo," near St. Germains, and joyously ruined
+himself. "Monte Cristo," like Abbotsford, has been described as a
+palace. Now, Abbotsford is so far from being a palace that Mr. Hope
+Scott, when his wife, Scott's granddaughter, inherited the place, was
+obliged to build an additional wing.
+
+At Monte Cristo Dumas kept but one man-servant, Michel (his "Tom
+Purdie"), who was groom, keeper, porter, gardener, and everything. Nor
+did Dumas ruin himself by paying exorbitant prices for poor lands, as
+Scott did. His collection of books and curios was no rival for that of
+Abbotsford. But like Scott, he gave away money to right and left, and
+he kept open house. He was eaten up by parasites,--beggars, poor
+greedy hangers-on of letters, secretaries, above all by tribes of
+musical people. On every side money flowed from him; hard as he
+worked, largely as he earned, he spent more. His very dog brought in
+thirteen other dogs to bed and board. He kept monkeys, cats, eagles, a
+vulture, a perfect menagerie. His own account of these guests may be
+read in "My Pets"; perhaps the most humorous, good-humored, and
+amusing of all his works.
+
+The Revolution of 1848 impoverished him and drove him from Monte
+Cristo; not out of debt to his neighbors. Dumas was a cheerful giver,
+but did not love to "fritter away his money in paying bills." He
+started newspapers, such as The Musketeer, and rather lost than gained
+by a careless editorship. A successful play would enrich him, and he
+would throw away his gains. He went with Garibaldi on his expedition
+against the King of Naples, and was received with ingratitude by the
+Neapolitans.
+
+A friend of Daniel Dunglas Home, the "medium," he accompanied him to
+Russia, where Home married a lady of a noble and wealthy family.
+Returned to France, Dumas found his popularity waning. His plays often
+failed; he had outlived his success and his generation; he had saved
+nothing; he had to turn in need to his son Alexandre, the famous
+dramatist. Finally he died, doubting the security of his own fame, in
+the year of the sorrows of France.
+
+Dumas is described by Michelet as "a force of nature." Never was there
+in modern literature a force more puissant, more capricious, or more
+genial. His quantity of mind was out of all proportion to its quality.
+He could learn everything with ease; he was a skilled cook, a fencer;
+he knew almost as if by intuition the technique and terminology of all
+arts and crafts. Ignorant of Greek, he criticized and appreciated
+Homer with an unmatched zest and appreciation. Into the dry bones of
+history he breathed life, mere names becoming full-blooded
+fellow-creatures under his spell. His inspiration was derived from
+Scott, a man far more learned than he, but scarcely better gifted with
+creative energy. Like Scott he is long, perhaps prolix; like him he is
+indifferent to niceties of style, does not linger over the choice of
+words, but serves himself with the first that comes to hand. Scott's
+wide science of human nature is not his; but his heroes, often rather
+ruffianly, are seldom mere exemplary young men of no particular mark.
+More brilliantly and rapidly than Scott, he indicates action in
+dialogue. He does not aim at the construction of rounded plots; his
+novels are chronicles which need never stop while his heroes are
+alive. His plan is to take a canvas of fact, in memoir or history, and
+to embroider his fantasies on that. Occasionally the canvas (as Mr.
+Saintsbury says) shows through, and we have blocks of actual history.
+His 'Joan of Arc' begins as a romance, and ends with a comparatively
+plain statement of facts too great for any art but Shakespeare's. But
+as a rule it is not historical facts, it is the fictitious adventures
+of characters living in an historical atmosphere, that entertain us in
+Dumas.
+
+The minute inquirer may now compare the sixteenth-century 'Memoirs of
+Monsieur D'Artagnan' (fictitious memoirs, no doubt) with the use made
+of them by Dumas in 'The Three Musketeers' and 'Twenty Years After.'
+The 'Memoirs' (reprinted by the Librairie Illustree, Paris) gave Dumas
+his opening scenes; gave him young D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, Aramis,
+Rosnay, De Treville, Milady, the whole complicated intrigue of Milady,
+D'Artagnan, and De Vardes. They gave him several incidents, duels, and
+"local color." By making Milady the wife of Athos, Dumas knotted his
+plot; he added the journey to England, after the Queen's diamonds;
+from a subordinate character he borrowed the clerical character of
+Aramis; a mere hint in the 'Memoirs' suggested the Bastion
+Saint-Gervais. The discrimination of character, the dialogue, and many
+adventures, are Dumas's own; he was aided by Maquet in the actual
+writing. In a similar way, Brantome and L'Estoile, in their 'Memoirs,'
+supply the canvas of the tales of the Valois cycle.
+
+The beginner in Dumas will assuredly find the following his best
+works. For the Valois period, 'The Horoscope' (a good deal neglected),
+'Queen Margot,' 'The Lady of Monsoreau,' 'The Forty-Five.' 'Isabeau of
+Baviere,' an early novel, deals with the anarchy and misery before the
+coming of Jeanne d'Arc. For Henri II., 'The Two Dianas' is indicated.
+For the times of Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIV., we have 'The Three
+Musketeers,' 'Twenty Years After,' and 'The Viscount of Bragelonne.'
+These deal with the youth, middle age, old age, and death of
+D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. The Revolutionary novels,
+'Joseph Balsamo,' 'The Queen's Necklace,' and others, are much less
+excellent. The Regency is not ill done in 'The Regent's Daughter'; and
+'The Chevalier of Harmenthal,' with 'Olympe of Cleves,' has many
+admirers. Quite apart from these is the immense modern fantasy of 'The
+Count of Monte Cristo'; the opening part alone is worthy of the
+master. 'The Black Tulip,' so warmly praised by Thackeray, is an
+innocent little romance of the days of Dutch William. _Les jeunes
+filles_ may read 'The Black Tulip': indeed, Dumas does not sacrifice
+at all to "the Goddess of Lubricity," even when he describes very lax
+moralities.
+
+With a knowledge of these books, and of 'My Pets' and the 'Memoirs,'
+any student will find himself at home in Dumas, and can make wider
+ranges in that great wilderness of fancy. Some autobiographical
+details will be found in the novel called 'Ange Pithou.' 'Isaac
+Laquedem' was meant to be a romance of the Wandering Jew; only two
+volumes are published. Philosophy a reader will not find, nor delicate
+analysis, nor "chiseled style"; but he will be in touch with a great
+sunny life, rejoicing in all the accidents of existence.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (A. Lang)]
+
+
+
+THE CURE FOR DORMICE THAT EAT PEACHES
+
+From 'The Count of Monte Cristo'
+
+
+Not on the same night he had intended, but the next morning, the Count
+of Monte Cristo went out on the road to Orleans. Leaving the village
+of Linas, without stopping at the telegraph, which at the moment the
+count passed threw out its long bony arms, he reached the tower of
+Montlhery, situated, as every one knows, upon the highest point of the
+plain of that name. At the foot of the hill the count dismounted, and
+began to ascend the mountain by a little winding path about eighteen
+inches wide; when he reached the summit he found himself stopped by a
+hedge, upon which green fruit had succeeded to red and white flowers.
+
+Monte Cristo looked for the door of the inclosure, and was not long in
+finding it. It was a little wooden gate, working on willow hinges, and
+fastened with a nail and string. The count soon understood its
+mechanism, and the door opened. He then found himself in a little
+marvelously well-kept garden, about twenty feet long by twelve wide,
+bounded on one side by part of the hedge, in which was formed the
+ingenious machine we have named a door; and on the other by the old
+tower, covered with ivy and studded with wild flowers. Monte Cristo
+stopped, after having closed the door and fastened the string to the
+nail, and cast a look around.
+
+"The man at the telegraph," said he, "must either keep a gardener or
+devote himself passionately to horticulture." Suddenly he struck
+himself against something crouching behind a wheelbarrow filled with
+leaves; the something rose, uttered an exclamation of astonishment,
+and Monte Cristo found himself facing a man about fifty years old, who
+was plucking strawberries, which he was placing upon vine-leaves. He
+had twelve leaves and about as many strawberries, which, on rising
+suddenly, he let fall from his hand. "You are gathering your crop,
+sir?" said Monte Cristo, smiling.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," replied the man, raising his hand to his cap; "I am
+not up there, I know, but I have only just come down."
+
+"Do not let me interfere with you in anything, my friend," said the
+count; "gather your strawberries, if indeed there are any left."
+
+"I have ten left," said the man, "for here are eleven, and I had
+twenty-one, five more than last year. But I am not surprised; the
+spring has been warm this year, and strawberries require heat, sir.
+This is the reason that, instead of the sixteen I had last year, I
+have this year, you see, eleven already plucked--twelve, thirteen,
+fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Ah, I miss three!
+they were here last night, sir--I am sure they were here--I counted
+them. It must be the son of Mother Simon who has stolen them; I saw
+him strolling about here this morning. Ah! the young rascal! stealing
+in a garden; he does not know where that may lead him to."
+
+"Certainly, it is wrong," said Monte Cristo, "but you should take into
+consideration the youth and greediness of the delinquent."
+
+"Of course," said the gardener, "but that does not make it the less
+unpleasant. But, sir, once more I beg pardon; perhaps you are an
+official that I am detaining here?" And he glanced timidly at the
+count's blue coat.
+
+"Calm yourself, my friend," said the count, with that smile which at
+his will became so terrible or benevolent, and which this time beamed
+only with the latter expression; "I am not an inspector, but a
+traveler, conducted here by curiosity he half repents of, since he
+causes you to lose your time."
+
+"Ah! my time is not valuable," replied the man, with a melancholy
+smile. "Still, it belongs to the government, and I ought not to
+waste it; but having received the signal that I might rest for an
+hour" (here he glanced at a sun-dial, for there was everything in
+the inclosure of Montlhery, even a sun-dial), "and having ten
+minutes before me, and my strawberries being ripe, when a day
+longer--by-the-by, sir, do you think dormice eat them?"
+
+"Indeed, I should think not," replied Monte Cristo: "dormice are bad
+neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved, as the Romans did."
+
+"What! did the Romans eat them?" said the gardener; "eat dormice?"
+
+"I have read so," said the count.
+
+"Really! They can't be nice, though they do say 'as fat as a
+dormouse.' It is not a wonder they are fat, sleeping all day, and only
+waking to eat all night. Listen: last year I had four apricots--they
+stole one; I had one nectarine, only one--well, sir, they ate half of
+it on the wall; a splendid nectarine--I never ate a better."
+
+"You ate it?"
+
+"That is to say, the half that was left--you understand; it was
+exquisite, sir. Ah, those gentlemen never choose the worst morsels;
+like Mother Simon's son, who has not chosen the worst strawberries.
+But this year," continued the horticulturist, "I'll take care it shall
+not happen, even if I should be forced to sit up the whole night to
+watch when the strawberries are ripe." Monte Cristo had seen enough.
+Every man has a devouring passion in his heart, as every fruit has its
+worm; that of the man at the telegraph was horticulture. He began
+gathering the vine-leaves which screened the sun from the grapes, and
+won the heart of the gardener. "Did you come here, sir, to see the
+telegraph?" he said.
+
+"Yes, if not contrary to the rules."
+
+"Oh no," said the gardener; "there are no orders against doing so,
+providing there is nothing dangerous, and that no one knows what we
+are saying."
+
+"I have been told," said the count, "that you do not always yourselves
+understand the signals you repeat."
+
+"Certainly, sir; and that is what I like best," said the man, smiling.
+
+"Why do you like that best?"
+
+"Because then I have no responsibility. I am a machine then, and
+nothing else; and so long as I work, nothing more is required of me."
+
+"Is it possible," said Monte Cristo to himself, "that I can have met
+with a man that has no ambition? That would spoil my plans."
+
+"Sir," said the gardener, glancing at the sun-dial, "the ten minutes
+are nearly expired; I must return to my post. Will you go up with me?"
+
+"I follow you." Monte Cristo entered the tower, which was divided into
+three stages. The lowest contained gardening implements, such as
+spades, rakes, watering-pots, hung against the wall; this was all the
+furniture. The second was the usual dwelling or rather sleeping-place
+of the man; it contained a few poor articles of household furniture, a
+bed, a table, two chairs, a stone pitcher, and some dry herbs hung up
+to the ceiling, which the count recognized as sweet-peas, and of which
+the good man was preserving the seeds, having labeled them with as
+much care as if he had been a botanist.
+
+"Does it require much study to learn the art of telegraphing, sir?"
+asked Monte Cristo.
+
+"The study does not take long; it was acting as a supernumerary that
+was so tedious."
+
+"And what is the pay?"
+
+"A thousand francs, sir."
+
+"It is nothing."
+
+"No; but then we are lodged, as you perceive."
+
+Monte Cristo looked at the room. They passed on to the third stage; it
+was the room of the telegraph. Monte Cristo looked in turns at the two
+iron handles by which the machine was worked. "It is very
+interesting," he said; "but it must be very tedious for a lifetime."
+
+"Yes. At first my neck was cramped with looking at it, but at the end
+of a year I became used to it; and then we have our hours of
+recreation, and our holidays when we have a fog."
+
+"Ah, to be sure."
+
+"Those are indeed holidays to me; I go into the garden, I plant,
+prune, trim, and kill the insects all day long."
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Ten years, and five as a supernumerary make fifteen."
+
+"You are--"
+
+"Fifty-five years old."
+
+"How long must you serve to claim the pension?"
+
+"Oh, sir, twenty-five years."
+
+"And how much is the pension?"
+
+"A hundred crowns."
+
+"Poor humanity!" murmured Monte Cristo.
+
+"What did you say, sir?" asked the man.
+
+"I was saying it was very interesting."
+
+"What was?"
+
+"All you were showing me. And you really understand none of these
+signals?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+"And have you never tried to understand them?"
+
+"Never. Why should I?"
+
+"But still there are some signals only addressed to you."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And do you understand them?"
+
+"They are always the same."
+
+"And they mean--"
+
+"_Nothing new_; _You have an hour_; or _To-morrow_."
+
+"This is simple enough," said the count; "but look! is not your
+correspondent putting himself in motion?"
+
+"Ah yes; thank you, sir."
+
+"And what is it saying--anything you understand?"
+
+"Yes; it asks if I am ready."
+
+"And you reply?"
+
+"By the same sign, which at the same time tells my right-hand
+correspondent that I am ready, while it gives notice to my left-hand
+correspondent to prepare in his turn."
+
+"It is very ingenious," said the count.
+
+"You will see," said the man, proudly; "in five minutes he will
+speak."
+
+"I have then five minutes," said Monte Cristo to himself; "it is more
+time than I require. My dear sir, will you allow me to ask you a
+question?"
+
+"What is it, sir?"
+
+"You are fond of gardening?"
+
+"Passionately."
+
+"And you would be pleased to have, instead of this terrace of twenty
+feet, an inclosure of two acres?"
+
+"Sir, I should make a terrestrial paradise of it."
+
+"You live badly on your thousand francs?"
+
+"Badly enough; but yet I do live."
+
+"Yes; but you have only a small garden."
+
+"True, the garden is not large."
+
+"And then, such as it is, it is filled with dormice, who eat
+everything."
+
+"Ah! they are my scourges."
+
+"Tell me, should you have the misfortune to turn your head while your
+right-hand correspondent was telegraphing--"
+
+"I should not see him."
+
+"Then what would happen?"
+
+"I could not repeat the signals."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Not having repeated them, through negligence, I should be fined."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A hundred francs."
+
+"The tenth of your income--that would be fine work."
+
+"Ah!" said the man.
+
+"Has it ever happened to you?" said Monte Cristo.
+
+"Once, sir, when I was grafting a rose-tree."
+
+"Well, suppose you were to alter a signal, and substitute another?"
+
+"Ah, that is another case; I should be turned off, and lose my
+pension."
+
+"Three hundred francs."
+
+"A hundred crowns; yes, sir; so you see that I am not likely to do any
+of these things."
+
+"Not even for fifteen years' wages? Come, it is worth thinking about?"
+
+"For fifteen thousand francs!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sir, you alarm me."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Sir, you are tempting me?"
+
+"Just so; fifteen thousand francs, do you understand?"
+
+"Sir, let me see my right-hand correspondent!"
+
+"On the contrary, do not look at him, but on this."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"What! do you not know these little papers?"
+
+"Bank-notes!"
+
+"Exactly; there are fifteen of them."
+
+"And whose are they?"
+
+"Yours, if you like."
+
+"Mine!" exclaimed the man, half suffocated.
+
+"Yes; yours--your own property."
+
+"Sir, my right-hand correspondent is signaling."
+
+"Let him."
+
+"Sir, you have distracted me; I shall be fined."
+
+"That will cost you a hundred francs; you see it is your interest to
+take my bank-notes."
+
+"Sir, my right-hand correspondent redoubles his signals; he is
+impatient."
+
+"Never mind--take these;" and the count placed the packet in the hands
+of the man. "Now, this is not all," he said; "you cannot live upon
+your fifteen thousand francs."
+
+"I shall still have my place."
+
+"No! you will lose it, for you are going to alter the sign of your
+correspondent."
+
+"Oh, sir, what are you proposing?"
+
+"A jest!"
+
+"Sir, unless you force me--"
+
+"I think I can effectually force you;" and Monte Cristo drew another
+packet from his pocket. "Here are ten thousand more francs," he said;
+"with the fifteen thousand already in your pocket, they will make
+twenty-five thousand. With five thousand you can buy a pretty little
+house with two acres of land; the remaining twenty thousand will bring
+you in a thousand francs a year."
+
+"A garden with two acres of land!"
+
+"And a thousand francs a year."
+
+"Oh heavens!"
+
+"Come, take them!" and Monte Cristo forced the bank-notes into his
+hand.
+
+"What am I to do?"
+
+"Nothing very difficult."
+
+"But what is it?"
+
+"To repeat these signs;" Monte Cristo took a paper from his pocket,
+upon which were drawn three signs, with numbers to indicate the order
+in which they were to be worked.
+
+"There, you see it will not take long."
+
+"Yes; but--"
+
+"Do this, and you will have nectarines and all the rest." The mark was
+hit: red with fever, while the large drops fell from his brow, the man
+executed, one after the other, the three signs given by the count;
+notwithstanding the frightful contortions of the right-hand
+correspondent, who, not understanding the change, began to think the
+gardener had become mad. As to the left-hand one, he conscientiously
+repeated the same signals, which were definitively carried to the
+Minister of the Interior. "Now you are rich," said Monte Cristo.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, "but at what a price!"
+
+"Listen, friend," said Monte Cristo. "I do not wish to cause you any
+remorse; believe me, then, when I swear to you that you have wronged
+no man, but on the contrary have benefited mankind." The man looked at
+the bank-notes, felt them, counted them; he turned pale, then red;
+then rushed into his room to drink a glass of water, but he had no
+time to reach the water-jug, and fainted in the midst of his dried
+herbs. Five minutes after the new telegram reached the minister,
+Debray had the horses put to his carriage, and drove to Danglars's.
+
+"Has your husband any Spanish bonds?" he asked of the baroness.
+
+"I think so, indeed! He has six millions' worth."
+
+"He must sell them at whatever price."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because Don Carlos has fled from Bourges, and has returned to Spain."
+
+"How do you know?"--Debray shrugged his shoulders. "The idea of asking
+how I hear the news!" he said. The baroness did not wait for a
+repetition; she ran to her husband, who immediately hastened to his
+agent and ordered him to sell at any price. When it was seen that
+Danglars sold, the Spanish funds fell directly. Danglars lost five
+hundred thousand francs; but he rid himself of all his Spanish shares.
+The same evening the following was read in Le Messager:--
+
+    "Telegraphic dispatch. The King, Don Carlos, has escaped the
+    vigilance exercised over him at Bourges, and has returned to
+    Spain by the Catalonian frontier. Barcelona has risen in his
+    favor."
+
+All that evening nothing was spoken of but the foresight of Danglars,
+who had sold his shares, and of the luck of the stock-jobber, who only
+lost five hundred thousand francs by such a blow. Those who had kept
+their shares, or bought those of Danglars, looked upon themselves as
+ruined, and passed a very bad night. Next morning Le Moniteur
+contained the following:
+
+    "It was without any foundation that Le Messager yesterday
+    announced the flight of Don Carlos and the revolt of
+    Barcelona. The King (Don Carlos) has not left Bourges, and
+    the peninsula is in the enjoyment of profound peace. A
+    telegraphic signal, improperly interpreted owing to the fog,
+    was the cause of this error."
+
+The funds rose one per cent, higher than before they had
+fallen. This, reckoning his loss, and what he had missed gaining,
+made the difference of a million to Danglars. "Good!" said
+Monte Cristo to Morrel, who was at his house when the news
+arrived of the strange reverse of fortune of which Danglars had
+been the victim. "I have just made a discovery for twenty-five
+thousand francs, for which I would have paid a hundred thousand."
+
+"What have you discovered?" asked Morrel.
+
+"I have just discovered the method of ridding a gardener of
+the dormice that eat his peaches."
+
+
+
+THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BELT OF PORTHOS, AND THE HANDKERCHIEF OF
+ARAMIS
+
+From 'The Three Musketeers'
+
+
+Furious with rage, D'Artagnan crossed the ante-room in three strides,
+and began to descend the stairs four steps at a time, without looking
+where he was going; when suddenly he was brought up short by knocking
+violently against the shoulder of a musketeer who was leaving the
+apartments of M. De Treville. The young man staggered backwards from
+the shock, uttering a cry, or rather a yell.
+
+"Excuse me," said D'Artagnan, trying to pass him, "but I am in a great
+hurry."
+
+He had hardly placed his foot on the next step, when he was stopped by
+the grasp of an iron wrist on his sash.
+
+"You are in a great hurry!" cried the musketeer, whose face was the
+color of a shroud; "and you think that is enough apology for nearly
+knocking me down? Not so fast, my young man. I suppose you imagine
+that because you heard M. De Treville speaking to us rather brusquely
+to-day, that everybody may treat us in the same way? But you are
+mistaken, and it is as well you should learn that you are not M. De
+Treville."
+
+"Upon my honor," replied D'Artagnan, recognizing Athos, who was
+returning to his room after having his wound dressed, "upon my honor,
+it was an accident, and therefore I begged your pardon. I should have
+thought that was all that was necessary. I repeat that I am in a very
+great hurry, and I should be much obliged if you would let me go my
+way."
+
+"Monsieur," said Athos, loosening his hold, "you are sadly lacking in
+courtesy, and one sees that you must have had a rustic upbringing."
+
+D'Artagnan was by this time half-way down another flight; but on
+hearing Athos's remark he stopped short.
+
+"My faith, monsieur!" exclaimed he, "however rustic I may be, I shall
+not come to you to teach me manners."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Athos.
+
+"Oh, if I was only not in such haste," cried D'Artagnan; "if only I
+was not pursuing somebody--"
+
+"Monsieur, you will find me without running after me. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"And where, if you please?"
+
+"Near Carmes-Deschaux."
+
+"At what hour?"
+
+"Twelve o'clock."
+
+"Very good. At twelve I will be there."
+
+"And don't be late, for at a quarter past twelve I will cut off your
+ears for you."
+
+"All right," called out D'Artagnan, dashing on down-stairs after his
+man; "you may expect me at ten minutes before the hour."
+
+But he was not to escape so easily. At the street door stood Porthos,
+talking to a sentry, and between the two men there was barely space
+for a man to pass. D'Artagnan took it for granted that he could get
+through, and darted on, swift as an arrow, but he had not reckoned on
+the gale that was blowing. As he passed, a sudden gust wrapped
+Porthos's mantle tight round him; and though the owner of the garment
+could easily have freed him had he so chosen, for reasons of his own
+he preferred to draw the folds still closer.
+
+D'Artagnan, hearing the volley of oaths let fall by the musketeers,
+feared he might have damaged the splendor of the belt, and struggled
+to unwind himself; but when he at length freed his head, he found that
+like most things in this world the belt had two sides, and while the
+front bristled with gold, the back was mere leather; which explains
+why Porthos always had a cold and could not part from his mantle.
+
+"Confound you!" cried Porthos, struggling in his turn, "have you gone
+mad, that you tumble over people like this?"
+
+"Excuse me," answered D'Artagnan, "but I am in a great hurry. I am
+pursuing some one, and--"
+
+"And I suppose that on such occasions you leave your eyes behind you?"
+asked Porthos.
+
+"No," replied D'Artagnan, rather nettled; "and thanks to my eyes, I
+often see things that other people don't."
+
+Possibly Porthos might have understood this allusion, but in any case
+he did not attempt to control his anger, and said sharply:--
+
+"Monsieur, we shall have to give you a lesson if you take to tumbling
+against the musketeers like this!"
+
+"A lesson, monsieur!" replied D'Artagnan; "that is rather a severe
+expression."
+
+"It is the expression of a man who is always accustomed to look his
+enemies in the face."
+
+"Oh, if that is all, there is no fear of _your_ turning your back on
+anybody," and enchanted at his own wit, the young man walked away in
+fits of laughter.
+
+Porthos foamed with rage, and rushed after D'Artagnan.
+
+"By-and-by, by-and-by," cried the latter; "when you have not got your
+mantle on."
+
+"At one o'clock then, behind the Luxembourg."
+
+"All right; at one o'clock," replied D'Artagnan as he vanished around
+the corner.
+
+But he could see no one either in the street he had passed through, or
+in the one his eager gaze was searching; however slowly the stranger
+might have walked, he had gone his way, or perhaps into some house.
+D'Artagnan inquired of everybody he met, but could find nothing at all
+about him. This chase however did him good in one way; for in
+proportion as the sweat started out on his forehead, his heart began
+to cool.
+
+He began to think over the many unlucky things which had happened. It
+was scarcely eleven in the morning, and yet this morning had already
+brought him into disgrace with M. Treville, who must think the way
+D'Artagnan had left him was rather boorish.
+
+Moreover, he had gotten himself into two fierce duels with two men,
+each able to kill three D'Artagnans; in a word, with two
+musketeers,--beings he set so high that he placed them above all other
+men.
+
+It was a sad lookout. To be sure, as the youth was certain to be
+killed by Athos, he was not much disturbed about Porthos. As hope is
+the last thing to die in a man's heart, however, he ended by hoping
+that he might come out alive from both duels, even if dreadfully
+injured; and on that supposition he scored himself in this way for his
+conduct:--
+
+"What a rattle-headed dunce I am! That brave and unfortunate Athos was
+wounded right on that shoulder I ran against head-foremost, like a
+ram. The only thing that surprises me is that he didn't strike me dead
+on the spot; he had provocation enough, for I must have hurt him
+savagely. As to Porthos--oh! as to Porthos--that's a funny affair!"
+
+And the youth began to laugh aloud in spite of himself; looking round
+carefully, however, to see if his laughing alone in public without
+apparent cause aroused any suspicion.
+
+"As to Porthos, it is funny enough, to be sure, but I am a crazy
+blockhead all the same. Are people to be run into without warning? No!
+And have I any right to peep under their cloaks to see what they
+haven't got? He would have forgiven me, I am sure, if I had said
+nothing to him about that cursed cloak,--with a double meaning, it is
+true, but too broad a joke in one of them! Ah! cursed Gascon that I
+am, I believe I should crack a joke if I was being roasted over a slow
+fire. Friend D'Artagnan," he went on, speaking to himself with the
+gentleness he thought fair, "if you get away, which there is not much
+chance of, I would advise you to practice entire politeness for the
+future. You must henceforth be admired and quoted as a model of it. To
+be obliging and civil does not necessarily make a man a coward. Look
+at Aramis, now: mildness and grace embodied; and did anybody ever
+dream of calling Aramis a coward? No indeed, and from this instant I
+will try to model myself after him. And luckily, here he is."
+
+D'Artagnan, walking and soliloquizing, had come within a few steps of
+the Aiguillon House, and in front of it saw Aramis chatting gayly with
+three of the King's Guards. Aramis also saw D'Artagnan; but not having
+forgotten that it was in his presence M. de Treville had got so angry
+in the morning, and as a witness of the rebuke was not at all
+pleasant, he pretended not to see him. D'Artagnan, on the other hand,
+full of his plans of conciliation and politeness, approached the young
+man with a profound bow accompanied by a most gracious smile. Aramis
+bowed slightly but did not smile. Moreover, all four immediately broke
+off their conversation.
+
+D'Artagnan was not so dull as not to see he was not wanted; but he was
+not yet used enough to social customs to know how to extricate himself
+dexterously from his false position, which his generally is who
+accosts people he is little acquainted with, and mingles in a
+conversation which does not concern him. He was mentally casting about
+for the least awkward manner of retreat, when he noticed that Aramis
+had let his handkerchief fall, and (doubtless by mistake) put his foot
+on it. This seemed a favorable chance to repair his mistake of
+intrusion: he stooped down, and with the most gracious air he could
+assume, drew the handkerchief from under the foot in spite of the
+efforts made to detain it, and holding it out to Aramis, said:--
+
+"I believe, sir, this is a handkerchief you would be sorry to lose?"
+
+The handkerchief was in truth richly embroidered, and had a cornet and
+a coat of arms at one corner. Aramis blushed excessively, and snatched
+rather than took the handkerchief.
+
+"Ha! ha!" exclaimed one of the guards, "will you go on saying now,
+most discreet Aramis, that you are not on good terms with Madame de
+Bois-Tracy, when that gracious lady does you the favor of lending you
+her handkerchief!"
+
+Aramis darted at D'Artagnan one of those looks which tell a man that
+he has made a mortal enemy; then assuming his mild air he said:--
+
+"You are mistaken, gentlemen: this handkerchief is not mine, and I
+cannot understand why this gentleman has taken it into his head to
+offer it to me rather than to one of you. And as a proof of what I
+say, here is mine in my pocket."
+
+So saying, he pulled out his handkerchief, which was also not only a
+very dainty one, and of fine linen (though linen was then costly), but
+was embroidered and without arms, bearing only a single cipher, the
+owner's.
+
+This time D'Artagnan saw his mistake; but Aramis's friends were by no
+means convinced, and one of them, addressing the young musketeer with
+pretended gravity, said:--
+
+"If things were as you make out, I should feel obliged, my dear
+Aramis, to reclaim it myself; for as you very well know, Bois-Tracy is
+an intimate friend of mine, and I cannot allow one of his wife's
+belongings to be exhibited as a trophy."
+
+"You make the demand clumsily," replied Aramis; "and while I
+acknowledge the justice of your reclamation, I refuse it on account of
+the form."
+
+"The fact is," D'Artagnan put in hesitatingly, "I did not actually see
+the handkerchief fall from M. Aramis's pocket. He had his foot on it,
+that's all, and I thought it was his."
+
+"And you were deceived, my dear sir," replied Aramis coldly, very
+little obliged for the explanation; then turning to the guard who had
+professed himself Bois-Tracy's friend--"Besides," he went on, "I have
+reflected, my dear intimate friend of Bois-Tracy, that I am not less
+devotedly his friend than you can possibly be, so that this
+handkerchief is quite as likely to have fallen from your pocket as
+from mine!"
+
+"On my honor, no!"
+
+"You are about to swear on your honor, and I on my word; and then it
+will be pretty evident that one of us will have lied. Now here,
+Montaran, we will do better than that: let each take a half."
+
+"Perfectly fair," cried the other two guardsmen; "the judgment of
+Solomon! Aramis, you are certainly full of wisdom!"
+
+They burst into a loud laugh, and as may be supposed, the incident
+bore no other fruit. In a minute or two the conversation stopped, and
+the three guards and the musketeer, after heartily shaking hands,
+separated, the guards going one way and Aramis another.
+
+"Now is the time to make my peace with this gentleman," said
+D'Artagnan to himself, having stood on one side during all the latter
+part of the conversation; and in this good spirit drawing near to
+Aramis, who was going off without paying any attention to him, he
+said:--
+
+"You will excuse me, I hope."
+
+"Ah!" interrupted Aramis, "permit me to observe to you, sir, that you
+have not acted in this affair as a man of good breeding ought."
+
+"What!" cried D'Artagnan, "do you suppose--"
+
+"I suppose that you are not a fool, and that you knew very well, even
+though you come from Gascony, that people do not stand on
+handkerchiefs for nothing. What the devil! Paris is not paved with
+linen!"
+
+"Sir, you do wrong in trying to humiliate me," said D'Artagnan, in
+whom his native pugnacity began to speak louder than his peaceful
+resolutions. "I come from Gascony, it is true; and since you know it,
+there is no need to tell you that Gascons are not very patient, so
+that when they have asked pardon once, even for a folly, they think
+they have done at least as much again as they ought to have done."
+
+"Sir, what I say to you about this matter," said Aramis, "is not for
+the sake of hunting a quarrel. Thank Heaven, I am not a swashbuckler,
+and being a musketeer only for a while, I only fight when I am forced
+to do so, and always with great reluctance; but this time the affair
+is serious, for here is a lady compromised by you."
+
+"By us, you mean," cried D'Artagnan.
+
+"Why did you give me back the handkerchief so awkwardly?"
+
+"Why did you let it fall so awkwardly?"
+
+"I have said that the handkerchief did not fall from my pocket."
+
+"Well, by saying that you have told two lies, sir; for I saw it fall."
+
+"Oh ho! you take it up that way, do you, Master Gascon? Well, I will
+teach you how to behave yourself."
+
+"And I will send you back to your pulpit, Master Priest. Draw, if you
+please, and instantly--"
+
+"Not so, if you please, my good friend; not here, at least. Do you not
+see that we are opposite Aiguillon House, full of the Cardinal's
+creatures? How do I know that it is not his Eminence who has honored
+you with the commission to bring him in my head? Now, I entertain an
+absurd partiality for my head, it seems to suit my shoulders so
+finely. I have no objection to killing you, you may be sure, but
+quietly, in a snug, distant spot, where you will not be able to boast
+of your death to anybody."
+
+"I agree, but don't be too confident; and take away your
+handkerchief--whether it belongs to you or somebody else, perhaps you
+may stand in need of it to bandage up a wound. As a Gascon, I don't
+put off engagements for prudence's sake."
+
+"Prudence is a virtue useless enough to musketeers, I know, but
+indispensable to churchmen; and as I am only a temporary musketeer, I
+hold it best to be prudent. At two o'clock I shall have the honor of
+expecting you at Treville's. There I will point out the best place and
+time to you."
+
+The two bowed and separated. Aramis went up the street which led to
+the Luxembourg; while D'Artagnan, seeing that the appointed hour was
+coming near, took the road to the Carmes-Deschaux, saying to himself,
+"I certainly cannot hope to come out of these scrapes alive; but if I
+am doomed to be killed, it will be by a royal musketeer."
+
+
+
+THE DEFENSE OF THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS
+
+From 'The Three Musketeers'
+
+
+When D'Artagnan arrived, he found his three friends all together.
+Athos was thinking deeply, Porthos was twirling his mustache, and
+Aramis was reading his prayers out of a beautiful little book bound in
+blue velvet.
+
+"My faith, gentlemen!" exclaimed he, "I hope that what you have to
+tell me is very important, or I shall owe you a grudge for dragging
+me here, out of my bed, after a whole night passed in taking and
+dismantling a bastion! Ah, it is a thousand pities you were not there!
+It was warm work!"
+
+"We were somewhere else, where it was not very cold either," replied
+Porthos, giving his mustache another twist....
+
+"Aramis," said Athos, "didn't you breakfast the other day at
+Parpaillot's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Were you comfortable there?"
+
+"No, I did not like it at all. It was a fast day, and they had nothing
+but meat."
+
+"What, no fish to be had in a seaport town?"
+
+"They say," replied Aramis, taking up his book, "that they have all
+taken to the deep sea, since the Cardinal built that dike."
+
+"That is not what I was asking," replied Athos. "Were you quite free
+and at your ease, or did any one pay attention to you?"
+
+"Oh, nobody paid any attention to me. And if _that_ is your object,
+Athos, Parpaillot's will suit us very well."
+
+"Let us go at once then," said Athos, "for these walls are like
+paper."
+
+On the way they met Grimaud [the valet of Athos], whom Athos beckoned
+silently to follow them. Grimaud, according to his custom, obeyed
+without a word. The poor fellow had almost forgotten how to speak!
+
+It did not take them long to reach Parpaillot's, but unluckily the
+hour was ill chosen for a private conference. The _reveille_ had just
+been sounded, and the sleepy soldiers were all pouring into the inn.
+This state of matters delighted the landlord, but was hardly so
+agreeable to the four friends, who merely nodded sulkily at the
+salutations of the crowd.
+
+"If we are not careful," said Athos, rousing himself, "we shall find
+ourselves landed in some quarrel, which would be highly inconvenient
+at this moment. D'Artagnan, tell us about your night's work, and then
+we will tell you about ours."
+
+"Ah yes," said a light-horse soldier, who was slowly sipping a glass
+of brandy, "you were down at the trenches last night, I think, and I
+believe you had a brush with the Rochellois."
+
+D'Artagnan looked at Athos, to see if he ought to answer or not.
+
+"My dear fellow," replied Athos, "I don't think you are aware that M.
+De Busigny did you the honor to address you! Since these gentlemen are
+interested in last night's affair, tell them about it."
+
+"Is it true that you captured a bastion?" asked a Swiss, who had
+filled his beer up with rum.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied D'Artagnan, "we had that honor. We also
+introduced a barrel of powder into a corner, which in exploding opened
+a really beautiful breach; and as the bastion was not built yesterday,
+the whole building was severely shaken."
+
+"What bastion was it?" said a dragoon, who was holding a goose on the
+point of his sword, and cooking it at the fire.
+
+"The Bastion Saint-Gervais," replied D'Artagnan; "the Rochellois
+behind it were always annoying our men."
+
+"And there was a good deal of sharp-shooting?"
+
+"A good deal. We lost five men, and the Rochellois eight or ten."
+
+"But this morning," went on the light-horseman, "they will probably
+send down some pioneers to rebuild the bastion."
+
+"Yes, probably," answered D'Artagnan.
+
+"Gentlemen," broke in Athos, "I want to propose a bet."
+
+"What bet?" asked the light-horseman.
+
+"I bet you, M. De Busigny, that I and my three friends Porthos,
+Aramis, and D'Artagnan, will breakfast in the Bastion Saint-Gervais,
+and will hold it an hour by the clock, against all comers."
+
+Porthos and Aramis looked at each other. They were beginning to
+understand what Athos had in his head.
+
+"But," objected D'Artagnan, leaning over to whisper to Athos, "we
+shall be killed without a chance of escape."
+
+"We shall be killed a great deal more certainly if we don't go,"
+replied Athos.
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated Porthos, twirling his mustache, "that is a grand
+bet."
+
+"I take it," said M. De Busigny; "let us fix the stakes."
+
+"That is easily done," replied Athos. "We are four and you are four.
+The loser shall give the whole eight a dinner."
+
+"Very well, let us agree to that," said M. De Busigny and the dragoon.
+
+"Your breakfast is ready, gentlemen," broke in the landlord at this
+instant.
+
+"Then bring it here," answered Athos.
+
+The landlord obeyed, and Athos, making a sign to Grimaud, pointed out
+a large basket standing in a corner, which he was to fill with wine
+and food.
+
+"But where are you going to eat it?" asked the landlord.
+
+"What does that matter to you as long as you are paid?" replied Athos,
+throwing two pistoles on the table. Then, turning to M. De Busigny, he
+observed:--
+
+"Will you have the kindness, monsieur, to set your watch by mine, or
+let me set mine by yours?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur," said the light-horseman, drawing out a
+beautiful watch incrusted with diamonds; "half-past seven."
+
+"Five-and-twenty minutes to eight. So I am five minutes faster than
+you;" and bowing to the rest of the company, the four young men took
+the road to the Bastion Saint-Gervais, followed by Grimaud carrying
+the basket. He had not the faintest idea where they were going, or
+what they were to do, but Athos had given his orders, and he always
+obeyed without questioning.
+
+As long as they were within the camp, the four friends remained
+silent; but once they had passed the wall of circumvallation,
+D'Artagnan, who was completely in the dark, thought it was time to ask
+for an explanation.
+
+"And now, my dear Athos," said he, "will you be good enough to tell me
+where we are bound for?"
+
+"Why, for the bastion, of course."
+
+"And what are we to do when we get there?"
+
+"I told you before. We are going to breakfast."
+
+"But why didn't we do that at Parpaillot's?"
+
+"Because we had some important matters to discuss, and it was
+impossible to talk for five minutes at that inn, with all those people
+coming and going, and perpetually bowing and speaking to you. Here at
+least," continued Athos, pointing to the bastion, "we shall not be
+interrupted."
+
+"It seems to me," said D'Artagnan, with the caution which was as much
+his characteristic as his foolhardy courage, "it seems to me that we
+might have found some secluded place among the sand-hills on the
+sea-shore."
+
+"Oh, somebody would have seen, and in a quarter of an hour spies would
+have informed the Cardinal that we were holding council."
+
+"Yes," said Aramis. "Athos is right. _Animadvertuntur in desertis._"
+
+"A desert would have done very well," replied Porthos; "but first we
+should have to find it."
+
+"There is no desert where a bird cannot fly overhead, or a fish jump
+out of the water, or a rabbit run out of his hole; and bird, fish, and
+rabbit have all become spies of the Cardinal. Much better to go on
+with our adventure, which we cannot now give up without dishonor. We
+have made a bet, and a bet on the spur of the moment; a bet of which I
+defy any one to guess the true meaning. To win it, we must hold the
+bastion for an hour. Either they will attack us, or they won't. If we
+are left unmolested, we shall have plenty of time to talk without any
+one overhearing us, for I will answer for the walls of this bastion
+having no ears. If they try to dislodge us, we can talk all the same,
+and in defending our position shall cover ourselves with glory. You
+see that from every point of view we have the whip hand."
+
+"Yes," said D'Artagnan, "but most certainly we shall attract some
+stray bullet."
+
+"My good fellow," remarked Athos, "do you really think that the
+enemy's bullets are those we have most cause to fear?"
+
+"But surely, if we were embarking on such an expedition, we ought to
+have brought our muskets?"
+
+"Porthos, you are a goose! What would be the good of burdening
+ourselves with anything so useless?"
+
+"I should hardly think that a heavy musket, a dozen cartridges, and a
+powder flask would be useless when one is in the presence of an
+enemy."
+
+"Dear me!" said Athos, "didn't you hear what D'Artagnan was saying?"
+
+"What did D'Artagnan say?" asked Porthos.
+
+"He said that during last night's attack eight or ten Frenchmen were
+killed, and as many Rochellois."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, hasn't everybody been too busy ever since to think of stripping
+the dead bodies?"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"What then? Why, we shall find their muskets, their flasks, and their
+cartridges, all waiting for us; and instead of four muskets and twelve
+charges, there will be fifteen pieces and a hundred bullets."
+
+"O Athos," exclaimed Aramis, "you are a great man!"
+
+Porthos nodded approval; only D'Artagnan did not seem to be convinced;
+and Grimaud appeared to have his doubts, for seeing they were still
+making for the bastion (which up to that moment he had declined to
+believe), he plucked his master by the coat.
+
+"Where are we going?" he asked by a sign.
+
+Athos pointed out the bastion.
+
+"But," objected Grimaud, speaking always in pantomime, "we shall leave
+our bodies there."
+
+Athos raised his hands and eyes to heaven. Grimaud placed his basket
+on the ground and sat down, shaking his head.
+
+Athos took a pistol from his belt, looked to see if it was well
+primed, cocked it, and approached the barrel to Grimaud's ear. Grimaud
+was on his legs again, as if by magic. Athos then signed to him to
+take up the basket and go on.
+
+Grimaud obeyed.
+
+When they reached the bastion, the four friends turned round and
+beheld over three hundred soldiers assembled at the gate of the camp;
+M. De Busigny, the dragoon, the Swiss, and their silent companion
+forming a group apart.
+
+Athos removed his hat, put it on the edge of his sword, and waved it
+in the air.
+
+The spectators returned his salute and gave a great hurrah, which
+penetrated to their ears even at that distance. Then all four
+disappeared inside the bastion, where Grimaud had preceded them.
+
+
+
+THE CONSULTATION OF THE MUSKETEERS
+
+From 'The Three Musketeers'
+
+
+As Athos had assumed, the bastion was only occupied by a dozen dead
+men, French and Rochellois.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Athos, to whom the command of the expedition
+naturally fell, "while Grimaud lays out breakfast, we will begin by
+picking up the muskets and cartridges, and of course there is nothing
+in this employment to prevent our talking. Our friends here," he
+added, pointing to the dead, "will pay no attention to us."
+
+"But after we have made sure they have nothing in their pockets, we
+had better throw them into the trench," said Porthos.
+
+"Yes," replied Athos, "that is Grimaud's business."
+
+"Well then," said D'Artagnan, "let Grimaud search them, and after he
+has done so, throw them over the wall."
+
+"He shall do nothing of the sort," replied Athos; "we may find them
+useful yet."
+
+"You are going mad, my good fellow! Of what use can these dead men
+be?"
+
+"Don't judge hastily, say the gospel and the Cardinal," replied Athos.
+"How many guns have we got?"
+
+"Twelve," said Aramis.
+
+"How many charges?"
+
+"A hundred."
+
+"That will do. Now let us load."
+
+They set to work; and as they finished loading the last gun, Grimaud
+made a sign that breakfast was ready.
+
+By a gesture Athos replied that they were ready also, and then pointed
+out a pepper-box turret, where Grimaud was to keep watch. To help him
+pass the time Athos allowed him to take some bread, two cutlets, and a
+bottle of wine....
+
+"Now," said D'Artagnan, "that there is no chance of our being
+overheard, I hope you will tell us your secret."
+
+"I trust, gentlemen, to give you both pleasure and glory at once,"
+replied Athos. "I have made you take a charming walk, and now here is
+an excellent breakfast; while below, as you may see through the
+loop-holes, are five hundred persons, who consider us to be either
+lunatics or heroes,--two classes of idiots who have much in
+common...."
+
+"What is the matter, Grimaud? As the circumstances are grave, I will
+allow you to speak, but be short, I beg. What is it?"
+
+"A troop."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"Twenty?"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Sixteen pioneers, four soldiers."
+
+"How far off?"
+
+"Five hundred paces."
+
+"Then we have just time to finish this fowl and drink your health,
+D'Artagnan."
+
+A few minutes later the troop hove in sight, marching along a narrow
+trench that connected the bastion and the town.
+
+"Bah!" said Athos. "It was scarcely worth while disturbing ourselves
+for a mere handful of rascals armed with pickaxes, hoes, and shovels.
+Grimaud had only got to make them a sign to return whence they came,
+and I am sure they would have left us in peace."
+
+"I doubt it," said D'Artagnan, "for they are advancing steadily. And
+besides the sappers, there are four soldiers and a brigadier, all
+armed with muskets."
+
+"It is only because they have not seen us," replied Athos.
+
+"Upon my honor," cried Aramis, "I feel quite ashamed to fire on poor
+devils like that."
+
+"False priest!" exclaimed Porthos, "to have pity on heretics."
+
+"Aramis is right," said Athos. "I will warn them."
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" said D'Artagnan. "You will get yourself
+shot, my good fellow."
+
+But Athos paid no attention to this remark, and mounting the breach,
+his hat in one hand and his musket in the other, he addressed the
+troop, who were so astonished at this unexpected apparition that they
+halted about fifty paces distant. "Gentlemen," he said, bowing
+courteously as he spoke, "I am at this moment breakfasting with some
+friends in the shelter of this bastion. As you know, there is nothing
+so unpleasant as to be disturbed during your meals; therefore we
+should be greatly obliged if you would postpone any business you may
+have here, till we have finished, or else call again. Unless, indeed,
+you have the happy inspiration to quit the side of rebellion, and to
+drink, with us, to the health of the King of France."
+
+"Do take care, Athos!" exclaimed D'Artagnan; "don't you see they are
+aiming at you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," said Athos; "but they are only civilians, who
+don't know how to shoot; and they will never touch me."
+
+He had scarcely uttered the words when four muskets fired
+simultaneously. The balls fell round Athos, but not one grazed him.
+
+Four muskets immediately answered, but these were better directed than
+the others. Three of the soldiers fell dead, and one of the sappers
+was wounded.
+
+"Grimaud, another musket," said Athos, who was still on the breach.
+Grimaud obeyed; a second volley was fired; the brigadier and two
+pioneers fell dead, and the rest of the troop took flight.
+
+"Now we must make a sortie," cried Athos; and the four comrades dashed
+out of the fort, picked up the muskets belonging to the dead soldiers,
+and retreated to the bastion, carrying the trophies of their
+victory....
+
+"To arms!" called Grimaud.
+
+The young men jumped up and ran for their muskets.
+
+This time the advancing troop was composed of twenty or twenty-five
+men, but they were no longer sappers, but soldiers of the garrison.
+
+"Hadn't we better return to the camp?" said Porthos. "The fight is not
+equal at all."
+
+"Impossible, for three reasons," said Athos. "First, because we
+haven't finished breakfast; second, because we have several important
+things to discuss; and third, because there are still ten minutes
+before the hour is up."
+
+"Well, anyway," remarked Aramis, "we had better have some plan of
+campaign."
+
+"It is very simple," replied Athos. "The moment the enemy is within
+reach, we fire. If they still come on, we fire again, and go on firing
+as long as our guns are loaded. If any of them are left, and they try
+to carry the place by assault, we will let them get well into the
+ditch, and then drop on their heads a piece of the wall, that only
+keeps poised by a kind of miracle."
+
+"Bravo," cried Porthos. "Athos, you were born to be a general; and the
+Cardinal, who thinks himself a great commander, is not to be compared
+to you."
+
+"Gentlemen," replied Athos, "remember, one thing at a time. Cover your
+man well."
+
+"I have mine," said D'Artagnan.
+
+"And I," said Porthos and Aramis.
+
+"Then fire;" and as Athos gave the word, the muskets rang out and four
+men fell. Then the drum beat, and the little army advanced to the
+charge, while all the while the fire was kept up, irregularly, but
+with a sure aim. The Rochellois however did not flinch, but came on
+steadily.
+
+When they reached the foot of the bastion, the enemy still numbered
+twelve or fifteen. A sharp fire received them, but they never
+faltered, and leaping the trench, prepared to scale the breach.
+
+"Now, comrades!" cried Athos. "Let us make an end of them. To the
+wall!"
+
+And all four, aided by Grimaud, began to push with their guns a huge
+block of wall, which swayed as if with the wind, and then rolled
+slowly down into the trench. A horrible cry was heard, a cloud of dust
+mounted upwards; and all was silent.
+
+"Have we crushed them all, do you think?" asked Athos.
+
+"It looks like it," answered D'Artagnan.
+
+"No," said Porthos, "for two or three are limping off."
+
+Athos looked at his watch.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "an hour has elapsed since we came here, and we
+have won our bet." ...
+
+"What is going on in the town?" asked Athos.
+
+"It is a call to arms."
+
+They listened, and the sound of a drum reached their ears.
+
+"They must be sending us an entire regiment," said Athos.
+
+"You don't mean to fight a whole regiment?" said Porthos.
+
+"Why not?" asked the musketeer. "If we had only had the sense to bring
+another dozen bottles, I could make head against an army!"
+
+"As I live, the drum is coming nearer," said D'Artagnan.
+
+"Let it," replied Athos. "It takes a quarter of an hour to get from
+here to the town, so it takes a quarter of an hour to get from the
+town here. That is more than enough time for us to arrange our plans.
+If we leave this, we shall never find such a good position.... But I
+must first give Grimaud his orders;" and Athos made a sign to his
+servant.
+
+"Grimaud," said he, pointing to the dead who were lying on the
+bastion, "you will take these gentlemen and prop them up against the
+wall, and put their hats on their heads and their guns in their
+hands."
+
+"Great man!" ejaculated D'Artagnan; "I begin to see."
+
+"You do?" asked Porthos.
+
+"Do _you_ understand, Grimaud?" said Aramis.
+
+Grimaud nodded.
+
+"Then we are all right," said Athos....
+
+"On guard!" cried D'Artagnan. "Look at those red and black points
+moving down there! A regiment, did you call it, Athos?--it is a
+perfect army!"
+
+"My word, yes!" said Athos, "there they come! How cunning to beat
+neither drums nor trumpets. Are you ready, Grimaud?"
+
+Grimaud silently nodded, and showed them a dozen dead men, arranged
+skillfully in various attitudes, some porting arms, some taking aim,
+others drawing their swords.
+
+"Well done!" exclaimed Athos, "it does honor to your imagination."
+
+"If it is all the same to you," said Porthos, "I should like to
+understand what is going on."
+
+"Let us get away first," replied D'Artagnan, "and you will understand
+after."
+
+"One moment, please! Give Grimaud time to clear away the breakfast."
+
+"Ah!" said Aramis; "the red and black specks are becoming more
+distinct, and I agree with D'Artagnan that we have no time to lose
+before we regain the camp."
+
+"Very well," rejoined Athos, "I have nothing to say against
+retreating. The wager was for an hour, and we have been here an hour
+and a half. Let us be off at once."
+
+The four comrades went out at the back, following Grimaud, who had
+already departed with the basket.
+
+"Oh!" cried Athos, stopping suddenly, "what the devil is to be done?"
+
+"Has anything been forgotten?" asked Aramis.
+
+"Our flag, man, our flag! We can't leave our flag in the enemy's
+hands, if it is nothing but a napkin." And Athos dashed again into the
+bastion, and bore away the flag unhurt, amid a volley of balls from
+the Rochellois.
+
+He waved his flag, while turning his back on the troops of the town,
+and saluting those of the camp. From both sides arose great cries, of
+anger on the one hand and enthusiasm on the other, and the napkin,
+pierced with three bullet-holes, was in truth transformed into a flag.
+"Come down, come down!" they shouted from the camp.
+
+Athos came down, and his friends, who had awaited him anxiously,
+received him with joy.
+
+"Be quick, Athos," said D'Artagnan; "now that we have got everything
+but money, it would be stupid to get killed."
+
+But Athos would not hurry himself, and they had to keep pace with him.
+
+By this time Grimaud and his basket were well beyond bullet range,
+while in the distance the sounds of rapid firing might be heard.
+
+"What are they doing?" asked Porthos; "what are they firing at?"
+
+"At our dead men," replied Athos.
+
+"But they don't fire back."
+
+"Exactly so; therefore the enemy will come to the conclusion that
+there is an ambuscade. They will hold a council, and send an envoy
+with a flag of truce, and when they at last find out the joke, we
+shall be out of reach. So it is no use getting apoplexy by racing."
+
+"Oh, I understand," said Porthos, full of astonishment.
+
+"That is a mercy!" replied Athos, shrugging his shoulders, as they
+approached the camp, which was watching their progress in a ferment of
+admiration.
+
+This time a new fusillade was begun, and the balls whistled close to
+the heads of the four victors and fell about their ears. The
+Rochellois had entered the bastion.
+
+"What bad shooting!" said D'Artagnan. "How many was it we killed?
+Twelve?"
+
+"Twelve or fifteen."
+
+"And how many did we crush?"
+
+"Eight or ten."
+
+"And not a scratch to show for it."
+
+"Ah, what is that on your hand, D'Artagnan? It looks to me like
+blood."
+
+"It's nothing," replied D'Artagnan.
+
+"A spent ball?"
+
+"Not even that."
+
+"But what is it, then?" As we have said, the silent and resolute Athos
+loved D'Artagnan like his own son, and showed every now and then all
+the anxiety of a father.
+
+"The skin is rubbed off, that is all," said D'Artagnan. "My fingers
+were caught between two stones--the stone of the wall and the stone of
+my ring."
+
+"That is what comes of having diamonds," remarked Athos
+disdainfully....
+
+"Here we are at the camp, and they are coming to meet us and bring us
+in triumphantly."
+
+And he only spoke the truth, for the whole camp was in a turmoil. More
+than two thousand people had gazed, as at a play, at the lucky bit of
+braggadocio of the four friends,--braggadocio of which they were far
+from suspecting the real motive. The cry of "Long live the
+musketeers," resounded on all sides, and M. De Busigny was the first
+to hold out his hand to Athos and to declare that he had lost his
+wager. The dragoon and the Swiss had followed him, and all the others
+had followed the dragoon and the Swiss. There was nothing but
+congratulations, hand-shakings, embraces; and the tumult became so
+great that the Cardinal thought there must be a revolt, and sent La
+Houdiniere, his captain of guards, to find out what was the matter.
+
+"Well?" asked the Cardinal, as his messenger returned.
+
+"Well, monseigneur," replied La Houdiniere, "it is about three
+musketeers and a guardsman who made a bet with M. De Busigny to go and
+breakfast at the Bastion Saint-Gervais, and while breakfasting, held
+it for two hours against the enemy, and killed I don't know how many
+Rochellois."
+
+"You asked the names of these gentlemen?"
+
+"Yes, monseigneur."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."
+
+"Always my three heroes," murmured the Cardinal. "And the guardsman?"
+
+"M. D'Artagnan."
+
+"Always my young rogue! I must gain over these men."
+
+And the same evening, the Cardinal had a conversation with M. De
+Treville about the morning's exploit, with which the whole camp was
+still ringing. M. De Treville, who had heard it all at first hand,
+gave his Eminence all the details, not forgetting the episode of the
+napkin.
+
+"Very good, M. De Treville," said the Cardinal; "but you must get me
+that napkin, and I will have three golden lilies embroidered on it,
+and give as a banner to your company."
+
+"Monseigneur," replied M. De Treville, "that would be an injustice to
+the guards. M. D'Artagnan does not belong to me, but to M. Des
+Essarts."
+
+"Then you must take him," said the Cardinal. "As these four brave
+soldiers love each other so much, they ought certainly to be in the
+same regiment."
+
+That evening M. De Treville announced the good news to the three
+musketeers and to D'Artagnan, and invited them all to breakfast the
+following day.
+
+D'Artagnan was nearly beside himself with joy. As we know, it had
+been the dream of his life to be a musketeer.
+
+
+
+THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
+
+From 'The Viscount of Bragelonne'
+
+
+     [Dumas adopts the theory that the Man in the Iron Mask was
+     the suppressed twin brother of Louis XIV.]
+
+"What is all this noise?" asked Philippe, turning towards the door of
+the concealed staircase. And as he spoke a voice was heard saying,
+"This way, this way. Still a few steps, sire."
+
+"It is M. Fouquet's voice," said D'Artagnan, who was standing near the
+Queen Mother.
+
+"Then M. D'Herblay will not be far off," added Philippe; but little
+did he expect to see the person who actually entered.
+
+All eyes were riveted on the door, from which the voice of M. Fouquet
+proceeded; but it was not he who came through.
+
+A cry of anguish rang through the room, breaking forth simultaneously
+from the King and the spectators, and surely never had been seen a
+stranger sight.
+
+The shutters were half closed, and only a feeble light struggled
+through the velvet curtains, with their thick silk linings, and the
+eyes of the courtiers had to get accustomed to the darkness before
+they could distinguish between the surrounding objects. But once
+discerned, they stood out as clear as day.
+
+So, looking up, they saw Louis XIV. in the doorway of the private
+stair, his face pale and his brows bent; and behind him stood Fouquet.
+
+The Queen Mother, whose hand held that of Philippe, uttered a shriek
+at the sight, thinking that she beheld a ghost.
+
+Monsieur staggered for a moment and turned away his head, looking from
+the King who was facing him to the King who was by his side.
+
+Madame on the contrary stepped forward, thinking it must be her
+brother-in-law reflected in a mirror. And indeed, this seemed the only
+rational explanation of the double image.
+
+Both young men, agitated and trembling, clenching their hands, darting
+flames of fury from their eyes, dumb, breathless, ready to spring at
+each other's throats, resembled each other so exactly in feature,
+figure, and even, by pure accident, in dress, that Anne of Austria
+herself stood confounded. For as yet the truth had not dawned on her.
+There are some torments that we all instinctively reject. It is
+easier far to accept the supernatural, the impossible.
+
+That he should encounter such obstacles had never for one moment
+occurred to Louis. He imagined he had only to show himself, for the
+world to fall at his feet. The Sun-king could have no rival; and where
+his rays did not fall, there must be darkness--
+
+As to Fouquet, who could describe his bewilderment at the sight of the
+living portrait of his master? Then he thought that Aramis was right,
+and that the new-comer was every whit as much a king as his double,
+and that after all, perhaps he had made a mistake when he had declined
+to share in the _coup d'etat_ so cleverly plotted by the General of
+the Jesuits.
+
+And then, it was equally the blood royal of Louis XIII. that Fouquet
+had determined to sacrifice to blood in all respects identical; a
+noble ambition, to one that was selfish. And it was the mere aspect of
+the pretender which showed him all these things.
+
+D'Artagnan, leaning against the wall and facing Fouquet, was debating
+in his own mind the key to this wonderful riddle. He felt
+instinctively, though he could not have told why, that in the meeting
+of the two Louis XIV's lay the explanation of all that had seemed
+suspicious in the conduct of Aramis during the last few days.
+
+Suddenly Louis XIV., by nature the most impatient of the two young
+men, and with the habit of command that was the result of training,
+strode across the room and flung open one of the shutters. The flood
+of light that streamed through the window caused Philippe
+involuntarily to recoil, and to step back into the shelter of an
+alcove.
+
+The movement struck Louis, and turning to the Queen he said:
+
+"Mother, do you not know your own son, although every one else has
+denied his King?"
+
+Anne trembled at his voice and raised her arms to heaven, but could
+not utter a single word.
+
+"Mother," retorted Philippe in his quietest tones, "do you not know
+your own son?"
+
+And this time it was Louis who stepped back.
+
+As for Anne, pierced to the heart with grief and remorse, she could
+bear it no longer. She staggered where she stood, and unaided by her
+attendants, who seemed turned into stone, she sank down on a sofa with
+a sigh.
+
+This spectacle was too much for Louis. He rushed to D'Artagnan, whose
+brain was going round with bewilderment, and who clung to the door as
+his last hope.
+
+"To me, musketeer! Look us both in the face, and see which is the
+paler, he or I."
+
+The cry awoke D'Artagnan from his stupor, and struck the chord of
+obedience strong in the bosom of every soldier. He lifted his head,
+and striding straight up to Philippe laid his hand on his shoulder,
+saying quietly:--
+
+"Monsieur, you are my prisoner."
+
+Philippe remained absolutely still, as if nailed to the floor, his
+eyes fixed despairingly on the King who was his brother. His silence
+reproached him as no words could have done, with the bitterness of the
+past and the tortures of the future.
+
+And the King understood, and his soul sank within him. His eyes fell,
+and drawing his brother and sister-in-law with him, he hastily quitted
+the room; forgetting in his agitation even his mother, lying
+motionless on the couch beside him, not three paces from the son whom
+for the second time she was allowing to be condemned to a death in
+life.
+
+Philippe drew near to her, and said softly:--
+
+"If you had not been my mother, madame, I must have cursed you for the
+misery you have caused me."
+
+D'Artagnan overheard, and a shiver of pity passed through him. He
+bowed respectfully to the young prince, and said:--
+
+"Forgive me, monseigneur; I am only a soldier, and my faith is due to
+him who has left us."
+
+"Thank you, M. D'Artagnan. But what has become of M. D'Herblay?"
+
+"M. D'Herblay is safe, monseigneur," answered a voice behind them;
+"and while I am alive and free, not a hair of his head shall be hurt."
+
+"M. Fouquet!" said the prince, smiling sadly.
+
+"Forgive me, monseigneur," cried Fouquet, falling on his knees; "but
+he who has left the room was my guest."
+
+"Ah!" murmured Philippe to himself with a sigh, "you are loyal friends
+and true hearts. You make me regret the world I am leaving. M.
+D'Artagnan, I will follow you."
+
+As he spoke, Colbert entered and handed to the captain of the
+musketeers an order from the King; then bowed, and went out.
+
+D'Artagnan glanced at the paper, and in a sudden burst of wrath
+crumpled it in his hand.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the prince.
+
+"Read it, monseigneur," answered the musketeer.
+
+And Philippe read these words, written hastily by the King himself:--
+
+"M. D'Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the Iles
+Sainte-Marguerite. He will see that his face is covered with an iron
+mask, which must never be lifted on pain of death."
+
+"It is just," said Philippe; "I am ready."
+
+"Aramis was right," whispered Fouquet to D'Artagnan, "this is as good
+a king as the other."
+
+"Better," replied D'Artagnan; "he only needed you and me."
+
+
+
+A TRICK IS PLAYED ON HENRY III. BY AID OF CHICOT
+
+From 'The Lady of Monsoreau'
+
+
+The King and Chicot remained quiet and silent for the next ten
+minutes. Then suddenly the King sat up, and the noise he made roused
+Chicot, who was just dropping off to sleep.
+
+The two looked at each other with sparkling eyes.
+
+"What is it?" asked Chicot in a low voice.
+
+"Do you hear that sighing sound?" replied the King in a lower voice
+still. "Listen!"
+
+As he spoke, one of the wax candles in the hand of the golden satyr
+went out; then a second, then a third. After a moment, the fourth went
+out also.
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried Chicot, "that is more than a sighing sound." But he
+had hardly uttered the last word when in its turn the lamp was
+extinguished, and the room was in darkness, save for the flickering
+glow of the dying embers.
+
+"Look out!" exclaimed Chicot, jumping up.
+
+"He is going to speak," said the King, shrinking back into his bed.
+
+"Then listen and let us hear what he says," replied Chicot, and at the
+same instant a voice which sounded at once both piercing and hollow,
+proceeded from the space between the bed and the wall.
+
+"Hardened sinner, are you there?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Lord." gasped Henri with chattering teeth.
+
+"Dear me!" remarked Chicot, "that is a very hoarse voice to have come
+from heaven! I feel dreadfully frightened; but never mind!"
+
+"Do you hear me?" asked the voice.
+
+"Yes, Lord," stammered Henri; "and I bow before your anger."
+
+"Do you think you are carrying out my will by performing all the
+mummeries you have taken part in to-day, while your heart is full of
+the things of this world?"
+
+"Well said!" cried Chicot; "you touched him there!"
+
+The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went up to him.
+
+"Well," murmured Henri, "are you convinced now?"
+
+"Wait a bit," answered Chicot.
+
+"What do you want more?"
+
+"Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me take your
+place."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me."
+
+"And do you think I shall escape?"
+
+"We will try, anyway;" and with affectionate persistence he pushed the
+King out of bed, and took his place.
+
+"Now, Henri," he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all to me."
+
+Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.
+
+"You are silent," continued the voice, "which proves that your heart
+is hardened."
+
+"Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord!" exclaimed Chicot, imitating the King's
+nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, he whispered to the
+King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice does not seem to know
+that it is Chicot who is speaking."
+
+"Oh!" replied Henri, "what do you suppose is the meaning of that?"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen yet!"
+
+"Miserable creature that you are!" went on the voice.
+
+"Yes, Lord, yes!" answered Chicot. "I am a horrible sinner, hardened
+in crime."
+
+"Then confess your sins, and repent."
+
+"I acknowledge," said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my cousin
+Conde, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly."
+
+"What is that you are saying?" cried the King. "There is no good in
+mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long ago."
+
+"Oh, has it?" replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to something
+else."
+
+"Answer," said the voice.
+
+"I acknowledge," said the false Henri, "that I behaved like a thief
+toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in stealing away to
+France one fine night, carrying with me all the crown jewels; and I
+repent bitterly."
+
+"Idiot!" exclaimed Henri, "what are you talking about now? Nobody
+remembers anything about that."
+
+"Let me alone," answered Chicot, "I must go on pretending to be the
+King."
+
+"Speak," said the voice.
+
+"I acknowledge," continued Chicot, "that I snatched the throne from my
+brother D'Alencon, who was the rightful heir, since I had formally
+renounced my claims when I was elected King of Poland; I repent
+bitterly."
+
+"Rascal!" cried the King.
+
+"There is yet something more," said the voice.
+
+"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother, Catherine de'
+Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law the King of Navarre,
+after first destroying all his friends, and my sister Queen
+Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers; and I repent
+bitterly."
+
+"Scoundrel! Cease!" muttered the King, his teeth clenched in anger.
+
+"Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as well as we
+do."
+
+"There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with politics,"
+said the voice.
+
+"Ah, now we are getting to it," observed Chicot dolefully; "it is
+about my conduct, I suppose?"
+
+"It is," answered the voice.
+
+"I cannot deny," continued Chicot, always speaking in the name of the
+King, "that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a hopeless trifler, an
+incorrigible hypocrite."
+
+"It is true," said the voice.
+
+"I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in particular; and
+such a good wife too."
+
+"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the world,"
+cried the voice angrily.
+
+"Oh dear!" wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I certainly have
+sinned terribly."
+
+"And by your example you have caused others to sin."
+
+"That is true, sadly true."
+
+"You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition."
+
+"Bah!" said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there quite?"
+
+"No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not let him go
+back to his family at break of day."
+
+"Dear me!" said Chicot to the King, "the voice seems to take a great
+interest in the house of Cosse."
+
+"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as Sardanapalus,
+Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz."
+
+Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more frightened
+than ever.
+
+"I am lost," he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice from on high
+will be my death-warrant."
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
+
+(1824-1895)
+
+BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
+
+
+We shall not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the younger.
+The history of a great writer is the history of his works. He was born
+in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name on the register of births
+appears as "Alexandre, son of Marie Catherine Lebay, seamstress." He
+was not acknowledged by his father until he had reached his sixth
+year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize this particular because it had
+great influence on the bent of his genius. During all his life Dumas
+was haunted by a desire of rehabilitating illegitimate children, of
+creating a reaction against their treatment by the Civil Code and the
+prejudice which makes of them something little better than outcasts in
+society.
+
+"When seven years old," he himself says, "I entered as a boarder the
+school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Genevieve. Thence I
+passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School; the
+principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with whom he
+collaborated under the _nom de plume_ of Dinaux. This school, which
+numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and with the rather
+strange habits which I tried to depict in 'The Clemenceau Case,'
+occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino de Paris and the
+'Pole-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left the Saint-Victor
+School for Monsieur Henon's school, which was situated in the Rue de
+Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the College Bourbon (now
+the Lycee Condorcet) that I received all my instruction, as the pupils
+of the two schools where I lived attended the college classes. I never
+belonged to any of the higher State schools,--I have not even the
+degree of bachelor."
+
+At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He did not
+stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life which he
+saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled with serious
+yearnings.
+
+"You have debts," his father said to him. "Do as I do: work, and you
+will pay them."
+
+Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a
+one-act play in verse, 'The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly,
+would mention to-day but for his signature. The date was 1845, and the
+author was then twenty-one. Other works by him were published at
+various times in the Journal des Demoiselles.
+
+"I was," he has said, "the careless, lazy, and spoilt child of all my
+father's friends. I believed in the eternity of youth, of strength, of
+joy. I spent the whole day laughing, the whole night sleeping, unless
+I had some reason for writing verses."
+
+About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing,
+which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the
+public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic
+composition. Only two of his novels have survived: 'La Dame aux
+Camelias' ('Camille': 1848), because from this book came the immortal
+drama by the same title; and 'The Clemenceau Case,' because the author
+wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent, and because
+moreover it is a first-rate work.
+
+It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first performance
+of 'Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary. For two
+or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to theatre.
+Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed simply shocking,
+and the play was still forbidden in London after its performances in
+France were numbered by the hundreds.
+
+There is this special trait in 'Camille'--it was a work all instinct
+with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said: "I
+might perhaps make another 'Demi-Monde'; I could not make another
+'Camille.'" There existed, indeed, other works which have all the
+fire and charm of the twentieth year. 'Polyeucte' is Corneille's
+masterpiece; his 'Cid' breathes the spirit of youth: Corneille at
+forty could not have written the 'Cid.' Racine's first play is
+'Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the 'Barber of Seville'; Rossini, when
+young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen years
+later he himself wrote his 'William Tell,' a higher work, but a work
+which was not young.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR.]
+
+If the theatrical managers had recoiled from 'Camille' in spite of the
+great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after a
+pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it is
+because it contained the germ of a whole dramatic revolution. Now, the
+author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said to himself,
+"I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama, and erect a new
+one on its ruins." To tell the truth, he had no idea of what he was
+doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He had thrown it still throbbing
+upon the stage, without any regard for the dramatic conventions which
+were then imposed upon playwrights, and which were almost accepted as
+laws. He had simply depicted what he had seen. All the managers,
+attached as they were to the old customs, and respectful of the
+traditions, had trembled with horror when they saw moving around
+Camille the ignoble Prudence, the idiotic Due de Varville, the silly
+Saint-Gaudens. But the public--though the fact was suspected neither
+by them nor by the public itself--yearned for more truth upon the
+boards. When 'Camille' was presented to them, the play-goers uttered a
+cry of astonishment and joy: that was the thing! that was just what
+they wanted! From that day, which will remain as a date in the history
+of the French stage, the part of Camille has been performed by all the
+celebrated actresses. The part has two sides: one may see in it a
+degraded woman who has fallen profoundly in love, rather late in life;
+one may also see in it a woman, already poetical in her own nature,
+suddenly carried away by a great passion into the sacred regions of
+the Ideal.
+
+Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head after
+so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temptation of
+at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the theatre after
+the first performance, the author had all the managers at his feet,
+and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only had his
+signature. But he had learned, by the side of "a prodigal father," the
+art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the footlights
+again, save with a work upon which he had been able to bestow all the
+care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before he gave, at the
+Gymnase theatre, 'Diane de Lys.'
+
+'Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was not
+exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly
+conceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing
+to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy. It
+is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which
+the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works.
+It will leave no great trace in his career.
+
+Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre--I do not dare to say
+his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most enjoyable
+play he ever wrote, 'Le Demi-Monde' (The Other Half-World). In this
+play he discovered and defined the very peculiar world of those women
+who live on the margin of regular "society," and try to preserve its
+tone and demeanor. What scientific and strong construction are here!
+What an admirable disposition of the scenes, both flexible and
+logical! And through the action, which moves on with wonderful
+straightforwardness and breadth, how many portraits, drawn with a
+steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive features that you would
+know them if you met them on the street! Olivier de Jalin, the refined
+Parisian, the dialectician of the play, who is no other than Dumas
+himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome and honest, but not keen or
+Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de Sanctis, whose head turns with
+the wind, whose tongue cannot rest one moment; and especially Suzanne
+d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so devious in her motions, so
+_roublarde_, as a Parisian of to-day would say.
+
+Between 'The Demi-Monde,' and 'La Question d'Argent' (The Money
+Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work. 'La Question
+d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but its reception
+by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy fact that plays
+turning upon money have never been successful. Le Sage's 'Turcaret' is
+a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the luck to please the crowd.
+Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very curiously studied character.
+The author has represented in him the commonest type of the shady
+money-man, the unconscious rascal. And very skillfully he made an
+individual out of that general type, by giving to Jean Giraud a
+certain rough good-nature; the appearance of a good fellow, with a
+certain degree of fineness; a mixture of humility and self-conceit, of
+awkwardness and impudence, and even some ideas as to the power of
+money that do not lack dignity, and some real liberality of sentiment
+and act,--for wealth alone, though acquired by ignominious means,
+suggests and dictates to the great robbers some advantageous movements
+which the small rascal cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of
+the Second Empire how many pictures of honest people, every one of
+whom, in his or her way, is good and fine!
+
+One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre, 'Le
+Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year 'Un Pere Prodigue'
+(A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free adaptation as
+'My Awful Dad').
+
+In 'Le Fils Naturel' Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play, a
+kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we have seen
+him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosophical
+considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the play
+has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis. It does
+not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our worldly
+prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. 'Le Fils
+Naturel' is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or
+rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.
+
+'Un Pere Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped no
+one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonniere, Dumas had shown us
+some traits of his illustrious father, who _had_ been a prodigal
+father; and that he had depicted himself in Viscount Andre. Every one
+made comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial
+disrespect. The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer
+it. He had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into
+such different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them
+their true prototypes. Then--and this is no small praise--if Count de
+la Rivonniere is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his
+fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and
+generous sentiments,--has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the
+father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic
+in the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of
+animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more
+vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much
+as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not
+one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together,
+drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered, so
+charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin as
+gayly as he can.
+
+For four years after the production of 'Un Pere Prodigue' Dumas wrote
+nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a strange play,
+'L'Ami des Femmes' (A Friend of the Sex), which completely failed.
+After 'L'Ami des Femmes' there was another interruption, not of
+Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production. Perhaps he was sick of
+an art which had caused him a cruel disappointment. He turned again to
+novel-writing, and published (1866) 'L'Affaire Clemenceau' (The
+Clemenceau Case), the success of which was not as great as he had
+hoped. In France, when a man is superior in one specialty people will
+not let him leave it. He is not allowed to be at once an unequaled
+novelist and a first-rate dramatist.
+
+At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident which
+created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the stage, and
+towards a new form of comedy.
+
+M. Emile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Second
+Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and
+knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been a
+great friend of Dumas pere, and had kept up the most affectionate
+intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the
+stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to
+oblige his father's friend, made out of it 'Le Supplice d'une Femme'
+(A Woman's Torture). Emile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and
+somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that
+Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: "Neither shall I,"
+Dumas retorted.
+
+'A Woman's Torture' was acted at the Comedie Francaise with
+extraordinary success. This success was for Dumas a warning and a
+lesson. 'A Woman's Torture' was a three-act play, short, concise,
+panting, which hurried to the _coup de theatre_ of the second act,
+upon which the drama revolved, and rushed to its conclusion. The time
+of five-act comedies, with ample expositions, copious developments,
+philosophical disquisitions, curious and fanciful episodes, was gone.
+Henceforth the dramatist had to deal with a hurried and _blase_
+public, which, taking dinner at eight, could give to the theatre but a
+short time, and an attention disturbed by the labor of digestion. 'A
+Woman's Torture,' which lasted only an hour and a half, and proceeded
+only by rapid strokes, was exactly what that public wanted. After that
+time Dumas wrote only three-act and one-act plays; using four acts
+only for 'Les Idees de Madame Aubray' (Madame Aubray's Ideas); and
+these four acts are very short. In 1867 this play announced Dumas's
+return to the stage; and Dumas is here more paradoxical than he had
+ever been. His theme looked like a wager not simply against bourgeois
+prejudices, but even against good sense, and, I dare to say, against
+justice. This wager was won by Dumas, thanks to an incredible display
+of skill. He took up the thesis a second time in 'Denise,' and won his
+wager again, but with less difficulty. In 'Denise' the lover struggles
+only against social prejudices, and allows himself to be carried away
+by one of those emotional fits which disturb and confound human
+reason. In 'Madame Aubray's Ideas' the triumph is one of pure logic.
+
+'Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse Georges'
+followed rather closely on 'Madame Aubray's Ideas.' 'A Wedding
+Call'!--what a thunderbolt then! It was of but one act, _but_ one act
+the effect of which was prodigious, the echo of which is still heard.
+Time and familiarity have now softened for us the too sharp outlines
+of this bitter play. It has been acknowledged a masterpiece. It is
+certainly one of the boldest works of this extraordinary magician,
+who, thanks to his unerring skill and to the dazzling wit of his
+dialogue, brought the public to listen to whatever he chose to put
+upon the stage. It seemed that, like a lion tamer in the arena, Dumas
+took pleasure in belaboring and exasperating this many-headed monster,
+in order to prove to his own satisfaction that he could subdue its
+revolts.
+
+'La Princesse Georges' is a work of violent and furious passion. We
+find in it Madame de Terremonde, the good woman who adores her
+husband, but who adores him with fury, who wants him all to herself,
+and who, when sure that she is betrayed, passes from the most
+exasperated rage to tears and despair. There is in the first act a
+scene of exposition which has become celebrated. No one ever so
+rapidly mastered the public; no one ever from the first stroke so
+painfully twisted the heart of the spectators.
+
+Let us pass rapidly over 'La Femme de Claude' (Claude's Wife: 1873).
+Of all his plays it is the one Dumas said he liked best, the one he
+most passionately defended with all sorts of commentaries, letters,
+prefaces, etc.; the one which he insisted on having revived, a long
+time after it had failed. To my mind that play was a mistake; and the
+public, in spite of Dumas's arguments, in spite of the protests of the
+critics, who are often very glad to distinguish themselves by not
+yielding to the common voice,--the public insisted on agreeing with
+me.
+
+Only a few months later, Dumas brilliantly retrieved himself with
+'Monsieur Alphonse.' His Madame Guichard is the most cheerfully vulgar
+type of the _parvenue_ which any one ever dared to put upon the stage.
+She can hardly read and write; she is no longer young, and she is "to
+boot" very proud of her money; she has no tact and no taste; but at
+heart she is a good sort of woman. Her morality is as primitive as her
+education. But deceit disgusts her; she hates but one thing, she
+says,--lying. She is not troubled by conventionalities; and her speech
+has all the color and energy of popular speech. But see! Dumas in
+depicting this woman preserved exquisite measure. Madame Guichard says
+many pert and droll things; she never utters a coarse word. Her
+language is picturesque; it is free from slang. Hers is a vulgar
+nature, but she does not offend delicate ears by the grossness of her
+utterance. Dumas never drew a more living picture; she is the joy of
+this rather sad play.
+
+All that remain to be reviewed are 'L'Etrangere,' 'La Princesse de
+Bagdad,' and 'Francillon'; all of which were given at the Comedie
+Francaise. 'L'Etrangere' is indeed a melodrama, with an admixture of
+comedy. Had he gone further in that direction, Dumas might have made a
+new sort of play, which would perhaps have reigned a long time on the
+stage. But after this trial, successful though it was, he stopped. 'La
+Princesse de Bagdad' entirely failed. 'Francillon' was Dumas's last
+success at the Comedie Francaise.
+
+After 1887 Dumas gave nothing to the stage. He had completed a great
+five-act play, 'The Road to Thebes,' which the manager of the Comedie
+Francaise hoped every year to put on the boards. Dumas kept promising
+it; but either from distrust of himself or of the public, or from
+fatigue, or fear of meeting with failure, he asked for new delays,
+until the day when he declared that not only the play would not be
+acted during his life, but that he would not even allow it to be acted
+after his death.
+
+This death he saw coming, with sad but calm eyes. It was a sorrow for
+us to see this man, whom we had known so quick and alert, grow weaker
+every day, showing the progress of disease in his shriveled features
+and body. The complexion had lost all color, the cheeks had become
+flaccid, the eye had no life left.
+
+On October 1st, 1895, he wrote to his friend Jules Claretie:--"Do not
+depend upon me any more; I am vanquished. There are moments when I
+mourn my loss, as Madame D'Houdetot said when dying." He was at Puys,
+by the seaside, when he wrote that despairing letter. He returned to
+Marly, there to die, surrounded by his family, on November 28th, 1895,
+in a house which he loved and which had been bequeathed to him years
+before by an intimate friend.
+
+His loss threw into mourning the world of letters, and the whole of
+Paris. People discovered then--for death loosens every tongue and
+every pen--how kind and generous in reality was Dumas, who had often
+been accused of avarice by those who contrasted him with his father;
+how many services he had discreetly rendered, how open his hand always
+was. His constant cheerfulness and good-nature had finally caused him
+to be forgiven for his wit, which was sarcastic and cutting, and for
+his success, which had thrown so many rivals into the shade. This
+witty man, who was always obliging and even tender-hearted, had no
+envy, and gave his applause without a shadow of reserve to the
+successes of others. Every young author found in him advice and
+support; he did not expect gratitude, and therefore was soured by no
+disappointment. He was a good man, partly from nature, partly from
+determination; for he deemed that, after all, the best way to live
+happy in this world is to make happy as many people as possible.
+
+If in this long essay I have not spoken of Dumas as a moralist, it is
+because, in my opinion, in spite of all that has been said, Dumas was
+a dramatist a great deal more than a philosopher. In his comedies he
+discussed a great many moral and social questions, without giving a
+solution for any; or rather, the solutions that he gave were due not
+to any set of fixed principles, but to the conclusion which he was
+preparing for this play or that. He said, indifferently, "Kill her" or
+"Forgive her," according to the requirements of the subject which he
+had selected; and he would afterwards write a sensational preface with
+a view to demonstrate that the solution this time given by him was the
+only legitimate one. These prefaces are very amusing reading; for he
+wrote them with all the fire of his nature, and he had the gift of
+movement. But they were a strange medley of incongruous and
+contradictory statements. Every idea that he expresses can be grasped
+and understood; but it is impossible to see how it agrees with those
+that precede and follow. It is a chaos of clear ideas.
+
+Dumas was not a philosopher, but an agitator. He stirred up a great
+many questions; he drew upon them our distracted attention; he
+compelled us to think of them. Therein he did his duty as a dramatist.
+
+He gave much thought to the fate of woman in our civilization. We may
+say, however, that though loving her much, he still more feared her,
+and I shall even add, despised her. All his characters who have the
+mission of defending morality and good sense are very attentive to
+her, but keep her at arm's-length. They are affectionate counselors,
+not lovers. They hold her to be a frail being, who must be controlled
+and guided. Some one has said that there was in Dumas something of the
+Catholic priest. It is true. He was to women a lay director of
+conscience.
+
+He was a great connoisseur of pictures and a great art lover. Music, I
+think, is the only art that did not affect him much. He was a dazzling
+talker; his plays teem with bright sayings; his conversation sparkled
+with them. I did not know him in his prime, when he delighted his
+friends and companions by his unceasing flow of spirits. I became
+intimate with him only later. If you knew how to start him, he simply
+coruscated. I never knew any one, save Edmond About, who was as witty,
+and who, like About, always paid you back in good sounding coin.
+
+Dumas was a member of the French Academy. He had not wished for that
+honor, because it had been denied to his father. He desired, in his
+reception speech, to call up the great spirit of this illustrious
+father and make it share his academician's chair. He had this joy; the
+two Dumas were received on the same day. Their two names will never
+perish.
+
+[Illustration: Signature (Francisque Sarcey)]
+
+[The editors have been compelled, for lack of space, to leave out that
+part of M. Sarcey's valuable essay which is a professional analysis of
+several of Dumas's plays, and which would be of interest, chiefly, to
+special students of the French drama and stage.]
+
+
+
+THE PLAYWRIGHT IS BORN--AND MADE
+
+From the Preface to 'A Prodigal Father'
+
+
+Of all the various forms of thought, the stage is that which nearest
+approaches the plastic arts--inasmuch as we cannot work in it unless
+we know its material processes; but with this difference: that in the
+other arts one learns these processes, while in play-writing one
+guesses them; or to speak more accurately, they are in us to begin
+with.
+
+One can become a painter, a sculptor, a musician, by sheer study: one
+does not become a dramatic author in this fashion. A caprice of
+nature makes your eye in such a way that you can see a thing after a
+particular manner, not absolutely correct, but which must nevertheless
+appear, to any other persons that you wish to have so think, the only
+correct point of view. The man really called to write for the stage
+reveals what is an extremely rare faculty, in his very first
+attempts,--say in a farce in school, or a drawing-room charade. There
+is a sort of science of optics and of perspective that enables one to
+draw a personage, a character, a passion, an impulse of the soul, with
+a single stroke of the pen. Dramatic _cheating of the eye_ is so
+complete that often the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the
+play, desiring to give himself once more the same emotion that he has
+felt as one of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in
+the written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the
+passage where the emotion lies hid. It was a word, a look, a silence,
+a gesture, a purely atmospheric combination, that held him spellbound.
+So comes in the genius of the playwright's trade, if those two words
+can be associated. One may compare writing for the stage in relation
+to other phases of literature, as we compare ceiling painters with
+[painters of] pictures for the wall or the easel. Woe to the painter
+if he forget that his composition is to be looked at from a distance,
+with a light below it!
+
+A man without merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher, an
+author, may turn out to be a dramatic author of the first class; that
+is to say, in the work of setting in motion before you the purely
+external movements of mankind; and on the other hand, to become in the
+theatre the thinker, the moralist, the philosopher, or the author to
+whom one listens, one must indispensably be furnished with the
+particular and natural qualities of a man of much lower grade. In
+short, to be a master in the art of writing for the stage, you must be
+a poor hand in the superior art....
+
+That dramatic author who shall know mankind like Balzac, and who shall
+know the theatre like Scribe, will be the greatest dramatic author
+that has ever existed.
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
+    by E. Irenaeus Stevenson
+
+
+
+AN ARMED TRUCE
+
+From 'A Friend of the Sex'
+
+
+    [The following conversation in the first act of the play
+    takes place in the pleasant morning-room of a country-house
+    near Paris, the home of M. and Madame Leverdet. M. Leverdet
+    is asleep in his chair. The speakers are Madame Leverdet, a
+    coquettish, sprightly lady approaching middle age, and young
+    M. De Ryons, a friend and neighbor. Madame Leverdet is
+    determined to marry off De Ryons advantageously, and as soon
+    as possible. Unfortunately he is a confirmed bachelor, not to
+    say woman-hater, whose cynicism is the result of severely
+    disappointing experiences. Under that cynicism there is
+    however genuine respect and even chivalry as to the right
+    sort of woman,--the superior and sincere type, which he does
+    not happen often to encounter.]
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Let us come to serious topics while we are alone,
+my friend.
+
+_De Ryons_--And apropos of them?
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Are you willing to be married off yet?
+
+_De Ryons_ [_with a start of terror_]--Pardon me, my dear lady! At
+what hour can I take the first train for Paris?
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Now listen to me, at least.
+
+_De Ryons_--What! Here it is two years since I have called on you; I
+come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all good friendship,
+with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am totally unsuspecting; all
+I ask is to have a little lively chat with a clever woman--and see how
+you receive me.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_continuing_]--A simple, charming young girl--
+
+_De Ryons_ [_interrupting her, and in the same tone_]-- --musical,
+speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society woman, a
+domestic woman,--all at the choice of the applicant.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_laughing_]--Yes, and pretty and graceful and rich;
+and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.
+
+_De Ryons_--She is quite right there. I shall make a charming
+husband--I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old; all my teeth,
+all my hair (no such very common detail, the way young men are
+nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income as a landed
+proprietor--oh, I am an excellent match: only unfortunately I am not a
+marrying man.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--And why not, if you please?
+
+_De Ryons_ [_smiling_]--It would interfere severely with my studies.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--What sort of studies?
+
+_De Ryons_--My studies of--woman.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Really! I don't understand you.
+
+_De Ryons_--What! Do you not know that I am making women my
+particular, my incessant study, and that I am reckoning on leaving
+some new and very interesting documents dealing with that branch of
+natural history?--a branch very little understood just at present, in
+spite of all that has been written on the topic. My friend, I cannot
+sacrifice the species to the individual; I belong to science. It is
+quite impossible for me to give myself wholly and completely--as one
+certainly should do when he marries--to one of those charming and
+terrible little carnivora for whose sake men dishonor themselves, ruin
+themselves, kill themselves; whose sole preoccupation, in the midst of
+the universal carnage that they make, is to dress themselves now like
+umbrellas and now like table bells.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_scornfully_]--So you really think you understand
+women, do you?
+
+_De Ryons_--I rather think I do. Why, just as you see me this instant,
+at the end of five minutes' study or conversation I can tell you to
+what class a woman belongs,--whether to the middle class, to women of
+rank, artists, or whatever you please; what are her tastes, her
+characteristics, her antecedents, the state of her heart,--in a word,
+everything that concerns my special science.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Really! Will you have a glass of water?
+
+_De Ryons_--Not yet, thank you.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--I suppose, then, you are under the impression that
+you know me too.
+
+_De Ryons_--As if I did not!
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Well, and I am--what?
+
+_De Ryons_--Oh, you are a clever woman. It is for that reason that I
+call on you [_aside:_ every two years].
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Will you kindly give me the sum of your
+observations in general? You can tell me so much, since I am a clever
+woman.
+
+_De Ryons_--The true, the true, the true sum?
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Yes.
+
+_De Ryons_--Simply that woman of our day is an illogical, subordinate,
+and mischief-making creature. [_In saying this De Ryons draws back and
+crouches down as if expecting to be struck._]
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--So then, you detest women?
+
+_De Ryons_--I? I detest women? On the contrary, I adore them; but I
+hold myself in such a position toward them that they cannot bite me. I
+keep on the outside of the cage.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Meaning by that--what?
+
+_De Ryons_--Meaning by that, that I am a friend of the sex; for I have
+long perceived that just as truly as women are dangerous in love, just
+so much are they adorable in friendship, with men;--that is to say,
+with no obligations, and therefore no treasons; no rights, and in
+consequence no tyrannies. One assists, too, as a spectator, often as a
+collaborator, in the comedy of love. A man under such conditions sees
+before his nose the stage tricks, the machinery, the changes of
+scenes, all that stage mounting so dazzling at a distance and so
+simple when one is near by. As a friend of the sex and on a basis of
+friendship, one estimates the causes, the contradictions, the
+incoherences, of that phantasmagoric changeableness that belongs to
+the heart of a woman. So you have something that is interesting and
+instructive. Under such circumstances a man is the consoler, and gives
+his advice; he wipes away tears; he brings quarrelsome lovers
+together; he asks for the letters that must be returned; he hands back
+the photographs (for you know that in love affairs photographs are
+taken only in order to be returned, and it is nearly always the same
+photograph that serves as many times as may be necessary. I know one
+photograph that I have had handed back by three different men, and it
+ended its usefulness by being given for good and all to a fourth one,
+who was--not single).... In short, you see, my dear madam, I am above
+all the friend of those women--who have known what it is to be in
+love. And moreover inasmuch, just as Rochefoucauld says, as women do
+not think a great deal of their first experience,--why, one fine day
+or another--
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--You prove to be the second one.
+
+_De Ryons_--No, no; I have no number, I! A well-brought-up woman never
+goes from one experience of the heart to another one, without a decent
+interval of time, more or less long. Two railroad accidents never come
+together on the same railway. During the _intervals_ a woman really
+needs a friend, a good confidant; and it is then that I turn up. I let
+her tell me all the melancholy affairs in question; I see the unhappy
+victim in tears after the traitor has called; I lament with her, I
+weep with her, I make her laugh with me: and little by little I
+replace the delinquent without her seeing that I am doing so. But then
+I know very well that I am without importance, that I am a mere
+politician of the moment, a cabinet minister without a portfolio, a
+sentimental distraction without any consequences; and some fine day,
+after having been the confidential friend as to past events, I become
+the confidential friend as to future ones,--for the lady falls in love
+for the second time with somebody who knows nothing of the first
+experience, who will never know anything about it, and who of course
+must be made to suppose he represents the first one. Then I go away
+for a little time and leave them to themselves, and then I come back
+like a new friend to the family. By-and-by, when the dear creature is
+reckoning up the balance-sheet of her past, when her conscience pours
+into her ear the names that she would rather not remember, and my name
+comes with the others, she reflects an instant,--and then she says
+resolutely and sincerely to herself, "Oh, _he_ does not count!" My
+friend, I am always the one that does not count, and I like it
+extremely.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_ [_indignantly_]--You are simply a monster!
+
+_De Ryons_--Oh no, oh no, oh no, I am not!
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--According to your own account, you have no faith in
+women.... Wretch! Ungrateful creature! And yet it is woman who
+inspires all the great things in this life.
+
+_De Ryons_--But somehow forbids us to accomplish them.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Go out from here, my dear De Ryons, and never let
+me see you again.
+
+_De Ryons_ [_rising promptly and making a mocking bow_]--My dear
+lady--
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--No, I will _not_ shake hands with you.
+
+_De Ryons_--Then I shall die of chagrin--that's all about it.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Do you know how you will end, you incorrigible
+creature? When you are fifty years old you will have rheumatism.
+
+_De Ryons_--Yes, or sciatica. But I shall find some one who will
+embroider me warm slippers.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Indeed you will not! You will marry your cook.
+
+_De Ryons_--That depends on how well she cooks. Again farewell, dear
+madam.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--No, stay one moment.
+
+_De Ryons_--It is you who are keeping me; so look out.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Let me have really your last word on the whole
+matter.
+
+_De Ryons_--It is very easily given. There are just two kinds of
+women: those who are good women, and those who are not.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Without fine distinctions?
+
+_De Ryons_--Without fine distinctions.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--What is one to do in the case of those who are
+not--good women?
+
+_De Ryons_--They must be consoled.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--And those who are?
+
+_De Ryons_--They must be guaranteed against being anything else; and
+as to that process of guarantee I have taken a patent.
+
+_Madame Leverdet_--Come now, if you are playing in parlor theatricals,
+say so. What are you trying to be,--Lovelace or Don Quixote?
+
+_De Ryons_--I am neither the one nor the other. I am a man who, having
+nothing else to do, took to studying women just as another man studies
+beetles and minerals, only I am under the impression that my
+scientific study is more interesting and more useful than that of the
+other savant--because we meet your sex everywhere. We meet the mother,
+the sister, the daughter, the wife, the woman who is in love; and it
+is important to be well informed upon such an eternal associate in
+our lives. Now I am a man of my time, exercised over one theory
+or another, hardly knowing what he must believe, good or bad, but
+inclined to believe in good when occasion presents itself. I respect
+women who respect themselves.... It is not I who created the world; I
+take it as I find it.... And as to marriage, the day when I shall find
+a young girl with the four qualities of goodness of heart, sound
+health, thorough self-respect, and cheerfulness,--the squaring of the
+conjugal hypothenuse,--then I count for nothing all my long term of
+waiting; like the great Doctor Faust, I become young again, and such
+as I am, I give myself to her. My friend, if this same young girl of
+whom you have been speaking (and by the way, I know her just as well
+as you do) really unites these conditions,--I do not believe she does
+so, though I shall see very soon,--why then, I will marry her
+to-morrow--I will marry her to-night. But in the mean time, as I have
+positively nothing to do,--if you happen to know a self-respecting
+woman who needs to be kept from a bit of folly ... why, I am wholly at
+your service.
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
+    by E. Irenaeus Stevenson
+
+
+
+TWO VIEWS OF MONEY
+
+From 'The Money Question'
+
+
+    [The following passage occurs in the first act of Dumas's
+    play. The characters include the young parvenu Jean Giraud,
+    the aristocratic M. De Cayolle, and several others, all
+    guests in the drawing-room of the country-house of Madame
+    Durieu. In course of the conversation Giraud refers to his
+    father, at one time a gardener on the estate of M. De
+    Charzay.]
+
+_Jean Giraud_--Oh, yes, yes, I have got along in the world, as people
+say. There are people who blush for their fathers; I make a brag of
+mine--that's the difference.
+
+_Rene de Charsay_--And what is Father Giraud nowadays? Oh, I beg your
+pardon--
+
+_Jean_--Don't be embarrassed--we keep on calling him Father Giraud all
+the same. He is a gardener still, only he gardens on his own account.
+He owns the house that your father was obliged to sell a while ago. My
+father has never had but one idea,--our Father Giraud,--and that is to
+be a land-owner; I bought that piece of property for him, and so he is
+as happy as a fish in the water. If you like, we will go and take
+breakfast with him to-morrow morning. He will be delighted to see you.
+How things change, eh? There, where a while ago we were the servants,
+now we are the masters; though we are not so very proud, for all that.
+
+_Countess Savelli_ [_aside_]--He has passed the Rubicon of parvenus!
+He has confessed his father! Now nothing can stop his way!
+
+_Jean_ [_to De Charsay_]--I have wanted to see you for a long time,
+but I have not been sure how you would meet me.
+
+_Rene_--I would have met you with pleasure, as my uncle would have met
+you. One cannot utter reproaches to a man who has made his own
+fortune, except when he has made it by dishonest means; a man who owes
+it to his intelligence and his probity, who uses it worthily,
+everybody is ready to meet kindly, as you are met here.
+
+_Jean_--Sir, it is not necessary that a man should use his fortune
+nobly, provided it is made--that is the main thing!
+
+_Madame Durieu_--Oh, oh, M. Giraud! there you spoil everything that
+you have said.
+
+_Jean_--I don't say that of my own case, madam, but I say just what I
+say,--money is money, whatever may be the kind of hands where it
+sticks. It is the sole power that one never disputes. You may dispute
+virtue, beauty, courage, genius; but you can't dispute money. There is
+not one civilized being, rising in the morning, who does not recognize
+the sovereignty of money, without which he would have neither the roof
+which shelters, him, nor the bed in which he sleeps, nor the bread
+that he eats. Whither are bound these masses of people crowding in the
+streets?--from the employe sweating under his too heavy burden, to the
+millionaire hurrying down to the Bourse behind his two trotters? The
+one is running after fifteen sous, the other after one hundred
+thousand francs. Why do we all have these shops, these railroads,
+these factories, these theatres, these museums, these lawsuits between
+brothers and sisters, between fathers and sons, these revelations,
+these divisions in families, these murders? All for pieces, more or
+less numerous, of that white or yellow metal which people call silver
+or gold. And pray who will be the most thought of at the end of this
+grand race after money? The man who brings back the most of it. Ah,
+nowadays a man has no business to have more than one object in
+life--and that is to become as rich as possible! For my part, that has
+always been my idea; I have carried it out: I congratulate myself on
+it. Once upon a time everybody found me homely, stupid, a bore; to-day
+everybody finds me handsome, witty, amiable,--and the Lord knows if
+_I_ am witty, amiable, handsome! On the day when I might be stupid
+enough to let myself be ruined, to become plain "Jean" as before,
+there would not be enough stones in the Montmartre quarries to throw
+at my head. But there, that day is a good way off, and meantime many
+of my business acquaintances have been ruined for the sake of keeping
+me from ruin. The last word, too, the greatest praise that I could
+give to wealth, certainly is, that such a circle as I find myself in
+at present has had the patience to listen so long to the son of a
+gardener, who has no other right to their attention than the poor
+little millions that he has made.
+
+_Durieu_ [_aside_]--It is all absolutely true, every word that he has
+been saying--gardener's son that he is! He sees our epoch just as it
+really is.
+
+_Madame Durieu_--Come now, my dear M. De Cayolle, what do you think of
+what M. Giraud has been telling us?
+
+_Cayolle_--I think, madam, that the theories of M. Giraud are sound,
+but sound only as to that society in which M. Giraud has lived until
+now: a world of speculation, whose one object naturally ought to be to
+make money. As to wealth itself, it brings about infamous things, but
+it also brings about great and noble things. In that respect it is
+like human speech: a bad thing for some people, a good thing for
+others, according to the use they make of it. This obligation of our
+state of society that makes a man wake up each morning with taking
+thought of the necessary sum for his personal wants, lest he take what
+does not belong to him, has created the finest intelligence of all the
+ages! It is simply to this need of money every day that we owe
+Franklin, who began the world by being a printer's apprentice;
+Shakespeare, who used to hold horses at the door of the theatre which
+later he was going to immortalize; Machiavelli, who was secretary to
+the Florentine republic at fifteen crowns a month; Raphael, the son of
+a mere dauber; Jean Jacques Rousseau, a notary's clerk and an
+engraver,--one who did not have a dinner every day; Fulton, once upon
+a time a mechanic, who gave us steam: and so many others. Had these
+same people been born with an income of half a million livres apiece,
+there would have been a good many chances that not one of them would
+ever have become what he did become. [_To M. Giraud._] This race after
+wealth, of which you speak, M. Giraud, has good in it: even if it
+enriches some silly people or some rascals, if it procures for them
+the consideration of those in a humble station of life,--of the lower
+classes, of those who have cash relations with society, on the other
+hand there is a great deal of good in the spur given to faculties
+which would otherwise remain stationary; enough good to pardon some
+errors in the distribution of wealth. Just in proportion as you enter
+into the true world of society--a world which is almost unknown to
+you, M. Giraud--you will find that a man who is received there is
+received only in proportion to his personal value. Look around here
+where we are, without taking the trouble to go any further, and you
+will see that money has not the influence you ascribe to it. For
+proof, here is Countess Savelli, with half a million francs income,
+who in place of dining out with millionaires besieging her house every
+day, comes quietly here to dine with our friends the Durieus, people
+without title, poor people measured by her fortune; and she comes here
+for the pleasure of meeting M. De Charzay, who has not more than a
+thousand crowns income, but who, for all the millionaires in the
+world, would never do a thing a man ought not to do; and she meets
+here M. De Roncourt, who has a business of fifteen hundred francs
+because he gave up his fortune to creditors who were not his own
+creditors. There is Mademoiselle De Roncourt, who sacrificed her dowry
+to the same sentiment of honor; yonder is Mademoiselle Durieu, who
+would never be willing to become the wife of any other than an honest
+man, even if he had for his rivals all the Croesuses present and to
+come; and last of all, one meets me here,--a man who has for money (in
+the acceptation that you give the word) the most profound contempt.
+Now, M. Giraud, if we listened to you for so long a time, it is
+because we are well-bred people, and besides, you talk very well; but
+there has been no flattery for your millions in our attention, and the
+proof is that everybody has been listening to me a longer time than to
+you,--listening to me, who have not like you a thousand-franc note to
+put along with every one of my phrases!
+
+_Jean_--Who is that gentleman who has just been speaking?
+
+_Durieu_--That is M. De Cayolle.
+
+_Jean_--The railway director?
+
+_Durieu_--Yes.
+
+_Jean_ [_going to M. De Cayolle_]--M. De Cayolle, I hope you will
+believe that I am very glad to meet you.
+
+_Cayolle_--I dare say you are, monsieur. [_M. De Cayolle as he utters
+the words turns his back upon Giraud and steps aside_.]
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    E. Irenaeus Stevenson
+
+
+
+M. DE REMONIN'S PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE
+
+From 'L'Etrangere'
+
+
+_Madame de Rumieres_--See here, now, Remonin, you who claim to explain
+everything as a learned man--can you solve this proposition? Why is it
+that with all the quantity of love in this world, there are so many
+unhappy marriages?
+
+_M. Remonin_--I could give you a perfect explanation, my dear lady, if
+you were not a woman.
+
+_Madame de Rumieres_--You mean that the explanation is not decent?
+
+_M. Remonin_--No, I mean that it is a matter based on the abstract....
+It is this. The reason why marriages are rarely happy, in spite of the
+"quantity of love" in question, is because love and marriage,
+scientifically considered, have no relationship. They belong to two
+sorts of things, completely differing. Love is of the physical.
+Marriage is a matter of chemistry.
+
+_Madame de Rumieres_--Explain yourself.
+
+_Remonin_--Certainly. Love is an element of the natural evolution of
+our being; it comes to us of itself in course of our life, at one time
+or another, independent of all our will, and even without a definite
+object. The human creature can wish to be in love before really loving
+any one!... But marriage is a social combination, an adjustment, that
+refers itself to chemistry, as I have said; since chemistry concerns
+itself with the action of one element on another and the phenomena
+resulting: ... to the end of bringing about family life, morality, and
+labor, and in consequence the welfare of man, as involved in all
+three. Now, so often as you really can conform to the theory of such a
+blending of things, so long as you happen to have effected in marriage
+such a combination of the physical _and_ chemical, all goes well; the
+experiment is happy, it results well. But if you are ignorant or
+maladroit enough to seek and to make a combination of two refractory
+chemical forces in the matrimonial experiment, then in the place of a
+fusion you will find you have only inert forces; and the two elements
+remain there, together but unfused, eternally opposed to each other,
+never able to be united!... Or else there is not merely inertia--there
+are shocks, explosions, catastrophes, accidents, dramas....
+
+_Madame de Rumieres_--Have you ever been in love?
+
+_M. Remonin_--I? My dear marquise, I am a scientist--I have never had
+time! And you?
+
+_Madame de Rumieres_--I have loved my children. M. de Rumieres was a
+charming man all his life; but he didn't expect me really to love him.
+My son tells me his affairs of the heart; ... my daughter has already
+made me a grandmother ... I have little to reproach myself as to my
+past life, and now I look on at the lives of others, sometimes much
+interested. I am like the subscribers to the Opera, who know the whole
+repertory by heart, but who can always hear some passages with
+pleasure and who encourage the debutants.
+
+    Condensed and translated for 'A Library of the World's Best
+    Literature,' by E. Irenaeus Stevenson.
+
+
+
+REFORMING A FATHER
+
+From 'A Prodigal Father'
+
+
+    [The ensuing dialogue occurs in the first act of the play.
+    The Count de Ravonnieres and his son Andre reside together in
+    their comfortable bachelor's establishment in Paris, and are
+    devotedly attached to one another. The count, unfortunately,
+    has only grown more careless of money, more a gay man of the
+    world, as he has grown older; and blessed with a youthfulness
+    of physique and temperament that nothing impairs, he is as
+    thriftless as he is fascinating. His son, accordingly, has
+    had to be the economist of their resources, which are at a
+    dangerous ebb. As the scene opens, the count is preparing to
+    take luncheon, with Joseph, the confidential servant of the
+    house, in attendance.]
+
+_Joseph_--Monsieur is served.
+
+_Count de Ravonnieres_--Very well. You will please go to my florist
+Lemoine, the Opera florist,--you know who I mean,--and tell him to
+send, to-day, with my card,--he has a lot of cards of mine in
+advance,--to Mademoiselle Albertine de la Borde, 26 or 28 Rue de la
+Paix--I don't exactly remember the number that the lady gave me--
+
+_Joseph_--No. 26.
+
+_Count_--Ah! You know her address, do you?
+
+_Joseph_--Yes, sir.
+
+_Count_--To send her a bouquet of white lilacs and roses. And I don't
+need you any more: go at once. [_Joseph bows, and hands the Count a
+large envelope._] What's all this?
+
+_Joseph_--Some law papers that have come in your absence, sir, which I
+did not think ought to be forwarded to Dieppe.
+
+_Count_ [_without taking the papers_]--Quite right. Has my son seen
+them?
+
+_Joseph_--No, sir.
+
+_Count_--Very well; don't let him see them. Put them away with the
+others.
+
+_Joseph_--May I beg monsieur to say a good word for me to his son?
+
+_Count_--As to what, Joseph?
+
+_Joseph_--Your son, sir, has just told me to look out for another
+situation; and I am so attached to the family--
+
+_Count_--Oh, I will straighten all that out; if my son sends you away
+I will take you into our service again. Come now, get off to my
+florist; be quick about it.
+
+    _As_ Joseph _goes out,_ Andre _enters. He does not at first
+    perceive his father, but on turning toward the table
+    discovers him._
+
+_Andre_--Ah! you are here, are you?
+
+_Count_--Yes, I have been here during an hour; and moreover, a very
+agreeable person has been doing the honors of your establishment on my
+behalf.
+
+_Andre_--It is a fine time to talk about agreeable persons! You are a
+very agreeable person--
+
+_Count_--What in the world is the matter with you?
+
+_Andre_--I am perfectly furious.
+
+_Count_--Against whom?
+
+_Andre_--Against you.
+
+_Count_--Why? What have I been doing?
+
+_Andre_--You have drawn on me at sight this draft here.
+
+_Count_--Oh yes, I know very well what that means. It comes from
+London; it is to pay for the boat, you know.
+
+_Andre_--Oh yes, it comes from London, and it is to pay for the boat!
+That is no excuse for it. And what about the boat, if you please?
+
+_Count_--But my dear fellow, they had no business to present it until
+the 15th.
+
+_Andre_--Well?
+
+_Count_--Why, to-day _is_ the 15th!
+
+_Andre_--You ought to know it.
+
+_Count_--I thought that to-day was only the 14th! Have you paid it?
+
+_Andre_--Of course.
+
+_Count_--Ah! then I owe you six thousand francs. That's all there is
+to the matter.
+
+_Andre_--Yes, that's all! But you never said a word to me about it; I
+had no money in the house: I had to send to our man of business. May I
+beg of you in the future to be so good as to--
+
+_Count_--Poor boy! poor boy! Really, between ourselves, you would have
+done a great deal better (as it is a month since you have seen me, and
+since you are really very fond of me) to embrace me in meeting me
+again, rather than to say all these things to me that you have been
+saying!
+
+_Andre_ [_embracing his father heartily_]--Oh, of course they make no
+difference, when it comes to _that_!
+
+_Count_--Your second impulse is a very good one; but you ought to have
+begun with it. All the same, I do not in the less ask pardon for the
+inconvenience that I have caused you, my boy. [_Takes some bank-notes
+from his pocket._] Here are your six thousand francs, and [_holding
+out the remainder of the notes to Andre_] since you need money, help
+yourself.
+
+_Andre_--Where in the world does that money come from?
+
+_Count_--Oh, it is some money that I have received.
+
+_Andre_--There was none coming to you from anywhere!
+
+_Count_--There is always something to come to one, if he looks around
+carefully. And now let us speak of serious things.
+
+_Andre_--Yes, by all means. Father, are you not disposed to settle
+down?
+
+_Count_--What do you mean by "settle down"?
+
+_Andre_--To save money, for one thing.
+
+_Count_--Save money! I should be charmed to do so; but I really do not
+see how we can do it. We certainly live as modestly as possible. This
+house belongs to us; we have only four saddle horses, four carriage
+horses, a couple of extra horses for evening service (we could not get
+along with less), two coachmen, two valets, two grooms, one cook. Why,
+we haven't even a housekeeper.
+
+_Andre_--No, we only want that!
+
+_Count_--We never receive any except masculine society; we certainly
+are not extravagant as to the table. Look at me here: I am
+breakfasting this minute on two eggs and a glass of water. It seems to
+me that with our fortune--
+
+_Andre_--Our fortune? Would you like to know in what condition our
+fortune is?
+
+_Count_--You ought to know better than I, since it is you who have had
+the running of affairs since your majority.
+
+_Andre_--Well then, I _do_ know the expenses; and let me tell you that
+you have counted up only those that are part of our life in Paris, and
+you have not said a syllable of those that belong to our country one.
+
+_Count_--Those that belong to our country one! Those are all just so
+much economy.
+
+_Andre_--So then the place at Vilsac is just so much economy?
+
+_Count_--Of course. We get everything from it, from eggs up to oxen.
+
+_Andre_--Yes, and even to wild boars, when it suits you to shoot one.
+Now be so good as to consider the place at Vilsac, which you call a
+matter of economy. First of all, it brings us in absolutely nothing.
+
+_Count_--It never has brought us in anything.
+
+_Andre_--It is mortgaged for two hundred thousand francs.
+
+_Count_--That happened when I was young.
+
+_Andre_--Are you under the impression that there comes a time when
+mortgages wear themselves out? I wish they did. But I am afraid that
+you deceive yourself; and in the mean time, you are paying every year
+a mortgagor's interest. Furthermore, at Vilsac--
+
+_Count_--Where, remember, we spend September, October, November, all
+of which is positively an economy--
+
+_Andre_--Furthermore, as to Vilsac, this summer place where we pass
+September, October, and November,--all of which is positively an
+economy,--the proof of its being an economy is that here we are in the
+middle of September, and we are just setting out for Dieppe.
+
+_Count_--For one time only, by chance! And moreover, we will have to
+go down to Vilsac by the end of the month, for I have asked those
+fellows to come down there for the shooting.
+
+_Andre_--Yes, in this economical country place, where you have asked
+all those gentlemen to come down for the shooting, at the end of the
+month--
+
+_Count_--Really, one would be bored to death without that!
+
+_Andre_--In this same economical establishment, I say, you have twelve
+keepers.
+
+_Count_--Quite true; but it is one of the best preserves in France,
+and really, there are so many poachers--
+
+_Andre_--You have two masters of hounds, you have ten horses,--in
+short, a whole hunting equipage; and I don't speak of the indemnities
+that you pay year by year, if only for the rabbits that you kill.
+
+_Count_--The fact is, there _are_ thousands of rabbits; but shooting
+rabbits is such fun!
+
+_Andre_--Add to that the entertainments that it occurs to you to give
+every now and then, with fireworks and so on, during the evening.
+
+_Count_--Oh, yes, but that pleases all the peasants of the
+neighborhood, who adore me; between ourselves it _is_ rather--Oh, my
+dear boy! if I had only been rich, what fine things I would have done!
+In France, people do not know how to spend money. In Russia it is
+quite another matter! Now, there you have people who understand how to
+give an entertainment. But then what can anybody do with two hundred
+thousand livres for an income?
+
+_Andre_--Father, one can do exactly what you have done,--one can ruin
+himself.
+
+_Count_--What! ruin himself?
+
+_Andre_--Yes. When my mother died your personal fortune brought you,
+as you say, an income of two hundred thousand livres; and the money
+which my mother left to me, of which you have had the use until I came
+of age, amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand livres.
+
+_Count_--I certainly have made an accounting to you in the matter.
+
+_Andre_--A perfectly exact one, only--
+
+_Count_--Only--?
+
+_Andre_--Only in doing so you have seriously impaired your own
+capital.
+
+_Count_--Why did you not say that to me at the time?
+
+_Andre_--Because I too--I was thinking of nothing but spending money.
+
+_Count_--You ought to have warned me about this before now.
+
+_Andre_--But I--I was doing then just what I see you doing; I was
+taking life exactly as you had taught me to take it.
+
+_Count_--Andre, I hope that is not a reproach.
+
+_Andre_--God bless me, no. I am only saying to you why I have not
+looked after your interests better than you have ever done so
+yourself.
+
+_Count_--Very good, Then I am going to explain to you why I brought
+you up--
+
+_Andre_--Not worth while, my dear father. There is no good in going
+back to that, and I know quite well--
+
+_Count_--On the contrary, you know nothing at all about the matter,
+and you will please allow me to speak. It will be a consolation. You
+are perfectly right as to things that have no common-sense in them;
+and if I have brought you up after a certain manner, it is just
+because I myself suffer from a different kind of education. _I_ was
+brought up very severely; at twenty-two years I knew nothing of life.
+I was born, I was kept hanging on at Vilsac, with my father and my
+mother, who were saints on earth, with my great-uncle, who had the
+gout, and with my tutor, who was an abbe. I was born with a
+constitution like iron. I went hunting day by day for whole months, on
+foot or on horseback. I ate my meals like an ogre. I rode every sort
+of a horse, and I was a swordsman like St. George himself. As for
+other things, my dear fellow, there was no use dreaming about them: I
+had not a crown in my pocket. The other sex--well, I had heard it said
+that there was a world of women somewhere, but I certainly did not
+know where it was. One day my father asked me if I was willing to
+marry, and I cried out, "Oh yes, yes!" with such an explosion that my
+father himself could not help laughing--he who never laughed. I was
+presented to a young girl, virtuous and beautiful; and I fell in love
+with her with a passion which at first fairly frightened the delicate
+and timid creature. Such was your mother, my dear Andre, and to her I
+owe the two happiest years of my life; it is true that I owe to her
+also my greatest grief, for at the end of those two years she died.
+But it must be said, either to the blame or to the praise of nature,
+that organizations such as mine are proof against the severest shocks.
+At twenty-four years I found myself rich, a widower, free to do what I
+pleased, and thrown--with a child a year old--into the midst of this
+world called Paris, of which I knew nothing whatever. Ought I to have
+condemned you to this sort of life that I had led at Vilsac, and which
+had been for me so often an intolerable bore? No, I obeyed my real
+nature. I gave you my qualities and my shortcomings, without reckoning
+closely in the matter; I have sought in your case your affection
+rather than your obedience or your respect. I have never taught you
+economy, it is true, but then I did not know anything about that
+myself; and besides, I had not a business and a business name to leave
+you. To have everything in common between us, one heart and one purse,
+to be able to give each other everything and say everything to each
+other,--that has been our motto. The puritans will think that they
+have a right to blame this intimacy as too close: let them say so if
+they choose. We have lost, it seems, some hundreds of thousands of
+francs; but we have gained this,--that we can always count upon each
+other, you upon me and I upon you. Either of us will be ready at any
+moment to kill himself for the other, and that is the most important
+matter between a father and a son; all the rest is not worth the
+trouble that one takes to reason about it. Don't you think I am right?
+
+_Andre_--All that is true, my dear father! and I am just as much
+attached to you as you are to me. Far be it from me to reproach you;
+but now in my turn I want to make a confession to you. You are an
+exception in our society; your fettered youth, your precocious
+widowerhood, are your excuses, if you need any. You were born at a
+time when all France was in a fever, and when the individual, as well
+as the great mass of people, seemed to be striving to spend by every
+possible means a superabundance of vitality. Urged toward active life
+by nature, by curiosity, by temperament, you have cared for things
+that were worth caring for,--for them only; for entertaining yourself,
+for hunting, for fine horses, for the artist world, for people of rank
+and distinction. In such an environment as this you have paid your
+tribute to your country, you have paid the debt of your rank in life
+and of your name. But I, on the other hand, like almost all my
+generation, brought in contact with a fashionable world from the time
+that I began life,--I, born in an epoch of lassitude and
+transition,--I led for a while this life by mere imitation in
+laziness.... It is a kind of existence that no longer amuses me; and
+moreover, I can tell you that it never did amuse me. To sit up all
+night turning over cards; to get up at two o'clock in the afternoon,
+to have horses put to the carriage and go for the drive around the
+Lake, or to ride horseback; to live by day with idlers and to pass my
+evenings with such parasites as your friend M. De Tournas--all that
+seems to me the height of foolishness. And at the bottom of your own
+thoughts you think just as I do. So now, now that you really have got
+to a serious explanation of affairs, let us reach a real irrevocable
+determination of them. Are you willing to let me arrange your life for
+you in the future exactly as I would wish to arrange my own life? Are
+you willing to have confidence in me, and after having brought me up
+in your way, are you willing that in turn, while there is still time
+for it, I should--bring you up in mine?
+
+_Count_--Yes, go on.
+
+_Andre_--Very well,--to severe diseases strong remedies. You think a
+great deal of our Vilsac estate?
+
+_Count_--I was born there. I should not be sorry to end my days
+there.
+
+_Andre_--Very well. We will keep Vilsac for you, and find money in
+some other way to pay off the mortgage.
+
+_Count_--How?
+
+_Andre_--That's my business; only you must send away the two piqueurs,
+and six of the keepers.
+
+_Count_--Poor fellows!
+
+_Andre_--And only four horses are to be kept. No more entertainments
+are to be given, no more fireworks. You will entertain only two or
+three intimate friends now and then,--if we find as many friends as
+that among all those that are about us nowadays here.--and you will
+stay at Vilsac seven or eight months of the year.
+
+_Count_--Alone!
+
+_Andre_--Wait a little. I have not finished yet. This house where we
+are must be sold. We must put out of doors these servants, who are
+just so many thieves; and we will keep at Paris only a very modest
+stopping-place.
+
+_Count_--Will you kindly allow me to get my breath?
+
+_Andre_--Don't stir, or my surgical operation will not be successful.
+Now that your debts are paid there will be left to you--
+
+_Count_--There will be left to me--
+
+_Andre_--Forty thousand livres income, and as much for me,--no more;
+and with all that, during three or four years you will not have the
+capital at your disposition.
+
+_Count_--Heavens, what a smash!
+
+_Andre_--Are you willing to accept my scheme?
+
+_Count_--I must.
+
+_Andre_--Very well, then: sign these papers!
+
+_Count_--What are they?
+
+_Andre_--They are papers which I have just got from the notary, and
+which I have been expecting to make you sign while at Dieppe and send
+to me; but since you are here--
+
+_Count_ [_signs_]--Since I am here, I may as well sign at once: you
+are quite right,--there you are.
+
+_Andre_--Very well; now as, according to my notions, just as much as
+you are left to yourself you will slip back into the same errors as in
+the past--
+
+_Count_--What are you going to do further?
+
+_Andre_--Guess.
+
+_Count_--You are going to forbid--
+
+_Andre_--Are you out of your senses? I am going to marry you off.
+
+_Count_--Marry me off!
+
+_Andre_--Without permission.
+
+_Count_--And how about yourself?
+
+_Andre_--I am going to marry myself off--afterwards. You must begin as
+an example.
+
+_Count_--Andre, do you know something?
+
+_Andre_--What?
+
+_Count_--Some one has told you the very thing I have had in mind.
+
+_Andre_--Nobody has told me anything.
+
+_Count_--Your word on it?
+
+_Andre_--My word on it.
+
+_Count_--Explain yourself. You, all by yourself, have had this idea of
+marriage?
+
+_Andre_--I myself.
+
+_Count_--Deny now the sympathy between us!
+
+_Andre_--Well?
+
+_Count_--It exists [_putting his arms around his son_]. There, embrace
+me!
+
+_Andre_--And you accept?
+
+_Count_--As if I would do anything else!
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    E. Irenaeus Stevenson
+
+
+
+MR. AND MRS. CLARKSON
+
+From 'L'Etrangere'
+
+
+    [These scenes, the final ones of the drama, occur in the
+    private drawing-room of Catherine, the young Duchess of
+    Septmonts. Mr. Clarkson, a wealthy American man of business,
+    a Californian, has just received a note from the Duke of
+    Septmonts, a blase young roue of high family, requesting him
+    to call at once. He has come, in some bewilderment, to find
+    the duke. Mr. Clarkson has only a formal acquaintance with
+    the duke, but Mrs. Clarkson, who resides much of the time in
+    Paris, acting as Mr. Clarkson's business representative,
+    knows the duke confidentially. The Duchess of Septmonts
+    receives Clarkson.]
+
+_Mr. Clarkson_--I beg your pardon, madam, for having insisted on
+making my way in here; but a few moments ago I found on returning to
+my house, a letter from your husband. It asked me for a rendezvous as
+soon as possible, without giving me a reason for it. I find M. de
+Septmonts not at home. May I ask you if you know how I can be of
+service to him?
+
+_Catherine_--I was under the impression that in his letter, M. de
+Septmonts explained to you the matter in which he wishes your
+assistance.
+
+_Clarkson_--No.
+
+_Catherine_--Did not his letter contain another letter, sealed, which
+he purposed leaving in your hands?
+
+_Clarkson_--No.
+
+_Catherine_--Are you really telling me the truth?
+
+_Clarkson_--I never lie, madam: I have too much business on my hands;
+it would mix me up quite too much in my affairs.
+
+_Catherine_--Then perhaps it is to Mrs. Clarkson that my husband has
+intrusted that letter.
+
+_Clarkson_--No. She would have mentioned it; for I told her that I had
+received a line from the Duke, and was on my way to this house.
+
+_Catherine_--Perhaps your wife did not tell you--all.
+
+_Clarkson_--She has no earthly reason to conceal anything from me!
+
+_Catherine_--True! I know very well that she is your wife only in
+name; she told me as much when I was at her house yesterday.
+
+_Clarkson_--Really! She must be very much pleased with you, for she
+does not talk readily about her personal affairs.
+
+_Catherine_--Unfortunately, it is quite otherwise as far as I am
+concerned; she has not hidden from me the fact that she detests me,
+and that she will do me all the injury she possibly can.
+
+_Clarkson_--You? Injury? For what reason? Pray, what have you done to
+her?
+
+_Catherine_--Nothing! I have known her only two days. Nevertheless--
+
+_Clarkson_--Nevertheless--
+
+_Catherine_--What I was going to say is not my secret, sir, it is
+hers, and she alone has the right to tell it to you. But as to this
+letter that my husband has told my father he has sent to you--it is I
+who wrote that letter. You may as well know, too, that it was
+abstracted from my possession; and moreover, that with that letter any
+one can indeed do me all the mischief with which your wife, Mrs.
+Clarkson, has threatened me.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_very gravely_]--Then we must know at once if my wife has
+that letter. I will write her to come here immediately and join
+us--that I have something very important to communicate to her--here.
+Are you willing to have her come? [_He writes while he speaks._]
+
+_Catherine_--Certainly.
+
+_Clarkson_--Then we can have a general explanation. You may be sure,
+madam, that I shall never lend my hand to anything that means harm to
+you, or to any woman: I come from the country where we respect women.
+
+_Catherine_ [_rings the bell, and says to a servant who answers
+it_]--See that this letter is sent immediately. Be careful that it
+does not go astray. It is not my letter. This gentleman has written
+it. [_Exit servant._]
+
+_Clarkson_--And now, madam, do you know why M. de Septmonts wishes to
+have an interview with me?
+
+_Catherine_--Yes, I can guess. It concerns me, perhaps; but I have no
+right to discuss the matter. It is something which belongs to the
+Duke, and he alone has the right to impart it to you. All I can do is
+to beg of you to have all details thoroughly explained to you, and to
+look into them very carefully.
+
+    _A_ Servant _enters_
+
+_Servant_--M. le Duc has come in; he will be glad to have Mr. Clarkson
+come to him.
+
+_Clarkson_--Very good. [_Going_.] I bid you good evening, madam.
+
+_Catherine_ [_to the servant_]--Wait a moment. [_Going to Clarkson and
+speaking in a low voice._] Suppose I were to ask you a very great
+service.
+
+_Clarkson_--Ask it, madam.
+
+_Catherine_--Suppose I were to ask you to say to my husband that you
+are waiting for him here in this drawing-room--that you will be glad
+to speak with him _here_.
+
+_Clarkson_--Nothing but that? With great pleasure. [_To the servant._]
+Say to M. de Septmonts that I shall be obliged if he will join
+me--here. [_Servant goes out._]
+
+_Catherine_--I shall leave you; for if I know what is going to be
+discussed in this interview, I neither could nor should take part in
+it; but whatever may come of it, I shall never forget that you have
+done everything that you could do as a courtesy to me,--and that you
+are a gentleman. [_Exit Catherine._]
+
+_Clarkson_ [_alone_]--Charming! She is charming, that little woman;
+but may I be hanged if I understand one word of what is going on here.
+
+    The Duke of Septmonts _comes in hastily, and advances to_
+    Clarkson.
+
+_Septmonts_--I have just come from your house, Mr. Clarkson. Mrs.
+Clarkson told me you were here. I returned at once. Pardon me for
+troubling you. If when I came in I asked you to come to my own
+drawing-room, and have thus troubled you once more, it is because I
+was told you were expecting me here, with the duchess. This is her
+private parlor; and as what we have to say is a matter for men--
+
+_Clarkson_--Therefore the duchess went to her own room when your
+return here was announced.
+
+_Septmonts_--Mr. Clarkson, did _she_ tell the servant that you would
+prefer to hold our conversation here?
+
+_Clarkson_--No, I told him.
+
+    [_Septmonts goes to the door of the room by which Catherine
+    went out, and closes the portiere._]
+
+_Clarkson_ [_in a scornful aside_]--What an amount of mystery and
+precaution!
+
+_Septmonts_--The matter is this, Mr. Clarkson. I must fight a duel
+to-morrow morning. This duel can terminate only in the death of one or
+other of the contestants. I am the insulted one, therefore I have the
+choice of weapons. I choose the sword.
+
+_Clarkson_--Do you fence well?
+
+_Septmonts_--I believe I am one of the best fencers in Paris. But
+another friend on whom I could count is one of those men of the world
+who discuss all the details of an affair, and with whom the
+preliminaries of such a meeting might last several days. I want to get
+through with the matter at once.
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! The fact is, you _do_ give an importance and a
+solemnity to such things in France that we don't understand, we
+Americans, who settle the question in five minutes on the first corner
+of the street, in the sight of everybody.
+
+_Septmonts_--That is just the reason that I allowed myself to apply to
+you, Mr. Clarkson. Now, are you disposed to be present as my second?
+
+_Clarkson_--Bless me, with all my heart! Besides, when I mentioned
+your letter to Mrs. Clarkson she told me to do all I could to serve
+you. Have you and my wife known each other long?
+
+_Septmonts_--About four years; and I owe your wife a great deal,
+morally speaking. I have no desire to conceal the fact. I was not yet
+married when I met Mrs. Clarkson. One day I had lost a large sum at
+play,--a hundred and fifty thousand francs,--which I did not have, and
+tried in vain to procure; for at that time I was completely ruined.
+Mrs. Clarkson very generously lent me the sum, and I repaid it, with
+interest equivalent to the capital.
+
+_Clarkson_--But as you were ruined, duke, how could you pay this large
+capital and this large interest? Did your father or mother die? In
+France the death of parents is a great resource, I know.
+
+_Septmonts_--No. I was an orphan, and I had no expectations. I
+married.
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah, true! You French people make much of marriages for
+money! It's a great advantage over us Americans, who only marry for
+love. Now with us, in such a case as yours, a man goes into some
+business or other; he goes to mining; he works. But every country has
+its own customs. I beg your pardon for interrupting you. After all, it
+doesn't concern me. Come back to our duel.
+
+_Septmonts_--I have a letter here in my hands--
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! You have a letter in your hands--
+
+_Septmonts_--A letter which compromises my wife--
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! I am completely at your service. I belong to the sort
+of men who do not admit any compromises in matters of that kind.
+
+_Septmonts_--I may be killed--one has to look ahead. If I lose my
+life, I lose it by having been so injured by my wife that I intend to
+be revenged on her.
+
+_Clarkson_--And how?
+
+_Septmonts_--I wish that the contents of this letter, which I have in
+my possession, shall become public property if I am killed.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_coldly_]--Ah! And how can I serve you as to that?
+
+_Septmonts_--I will intrust this sealed letter to you. [_He takes the
+letter from his pocket._] Here it is.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_still more coldly_]--Very well.
+
+_Septmonts_--Now, if I survive, you will restore it to me as it is. If
+not, then in the trial which will follow, you will read it in a court.
+I wish the letters to become public. Then it will be known that I
+avenged my honor under a feigned pretext; and M. Gerard and the
+duchess will be so situated that they will never be able to see each
+other again.
+
+_Clarkson_--Nonsense! Once dead, what does it matter to you?
+
+_Septmonts_--I am firm there. Will you kindly accept the commission?
+
+_Clarkson_ [_in a formal tone_]--Surely.
+
+_Septmonts_--Here is the letter.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_takes it and holds it as he speaks_]--But, duke, now that
+I think about it, when this trial occurs it is probable, even certain,
+that I shall not be in France. I was expecting to leave Paris on
+business to-morrow morning at the latest. I can wait until to-morrow
+evening to please you, and to help you with this duel of yours; but
+that is really all the time I can spare.
+
+_Septmonts_--Very well; then you will have the goodness to give this
+letter to Mrs. Clarkson with the instructions I have just given you,
+and it will be in equally good hands.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_looking at the letter_]--All right. A blank envelope.
+What is there to indicate that this letter was addressed to M. Gerard?
+
+_Septmonts_--The envelope with his name on it is inside.
+
+_Clarkson_--You found this letter?
+
+_Septmonts_--I found it--before it was mailed.
+
+_Clarkson_--And as you had your suspicions you--opened it?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes.
+
+_Clarkson_--I beg your pardon for questioning you so, but you yourself
+did me the honor to say that you wished me to be _fully_ informed. Do
+you know whether the sentiments between M. Gerard and the duchess were
+of long standing?
+
+_Septmonts_--They date from before my marriage.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_looking toward the apartment of the duchess_]--Oh, I see.
+That is serious!
+
+_Septmonts_--They loved each other, they wanted to marry each other,
+but my wife's father would not consent.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_reflectively_]--M. Gerard wanted to marry her, did he?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes; but when he learned that Mademoiselle Mauriceau was
+a millionaire, as he had nothing and had no title other than his plain
+name Gerard, he withdrew his pretensions.
+
+_Clarkson_--That was a very proper thing for the young man to do. It
+doesn't surprise me!
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes; but now, Mr. Clarkson, this young gentleman has come
+back--
+
+_Clarkson_--And is too intimate a friend to your wife?
+
+_Septmonts_--Ah, I do not say that!
+
+_Clarkson_--What do you say, then?
+
+_Septmonts_--That as the letter in question gives that impression, the
+situation amounts to the same thing as far as a legal process is
+concerned.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_thoughtfully and coldly_]--Oh-h-h!
+
+_Septmonts_--Don't you agree with me, Mr. Clarkson?
+
+_Clarkson_--No, not at all. I can understand revenge on those who have
+injured us, but not on those who haven't done so. And I don't like
+vengeance on a woman anyway, even when she is guilty; and certainly
+not when she is innocent; and you owe your wife a great deal--between
+ourselves, you owe your wife a great deal, duke. I understand now why,
+for once, your father-in-law M. Mauriceau sides with his daughter and
+M. Gerard against you. He is sure they both are innocent. By-the-by,
+does M. Mauriceau also know of this letter?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes. He even tried to take it from me by force.
+
+_Clarkson_--Why did he not take it?
+
+_Septmonts_--Ah, because you see, I had the presence of mind to tell
+him that I did not have it any longer--that I had sent it to you!
+
+_Clarkson_ [_ironically_]--That _was_ very clever!
+
+_Septmonts_--And then when M. Gerard had challenged me, M. Mauriceau
+thought he would make an impression by saying to him before me, "I
+will be your second."
+
+_Clarkson_--Well, is that the whole story?
+
+_Septmonts_--Yes.
+
+_Clarkson_--Very well, my dear sir: to speak frankly, all those people
+whom you characterize so slightingly seem to me the right kind of
+people--excellent people. Your little wife seems to be the victim of
+prejudices, of morals, and of combinations about which we mere
+American savages don't know anything at all. In our American society,
+which of course I can't compare with yours, as we only date from
+yesterday,--if Mademoiselle Mauriceau had loved a fine young fellow
+like M. Gerard, her father would have given her to the man she loved;
+or if he had refused that, why she would have gone quite simply and
+been married before the justice of the peace! Perhaps her father
+wouldn't have portioned her; but then the husband would have worked,
+gone into business, and the two young people would have been happy all
+the same. As to your M. Gerard here, he is an honest man and a clever
+one. We like people who work, we Americans, and to whatever country
+they belong, we hold them as compatriots--because we are such savages,
+I suppose. So you understand that I don't at all share your opinion of
+this question.
+
+_Septmonts_--And so speaking, you mean--?
+
+_Clarkson_--That if I give you this explanation, it is because I think
+I understand that in paying me the honor of choosing me as a second,
+you thought that the men of my country were less clear-sighted, less
+scrupulous than the men of yours. In short, duke, you thought I would
+lend my hand to all these social pettinesses, these little vilenesses
+which you have just recounted with a candor that honors you.
+
+_Septmonts_--Do you happen to remember, Mr. Clarkson, that you are
+talking to _me_--in this way?
+
+_Clarkson_--To you. Because there are only two of us here! But if you
+like, we will call in other people to listen.
+
+_Septmonts_--Then, sir, you tell me to my face--
+
+_Clarkson_--I tell you to your face that to squander your
+inheritance--to have gambled away money you did not have--to borrow it
+from a woman without knowing when or how you could return it--to marry
+in order to pay your debts and continue your dissipations--to revenge
+yourself now on an innocent woman--to steal letters--to misapply your
+skill in arms by killing a brave man--why, I tell you to your face
+that all that is the work of a rascal, and that therefore a rascal you
+are. Oh, what astonishes me is that fifty people haven't told you so
+already, and that I have had to travel three thousand leagues to
+inform you on the subject! For you don't seem to have ever suspected
+it, and you don't look thoroughly convinced even now.
+
+_Septmonts_ [_controlling himself with the greatest difficulty_]--Mr.
+Clarkson, you know that I cannot call you to account until I have
+settled with your friend M. Gerard. You take a strange advantage of
+the fact, sir. But we shall meet again. Please return me the paper you
+have had from me.
+
+_Clarkson_--Your wife's letter? Never in the world! As it was
+addressed to M. Gerard, it belongs to M. Gerard. I intend to give it
+to M. Gerard. If _he_ wants to return it to you, I won't stand in the
+way; but I doubt whether he will return it.
+
+_Septmonts_--You will fight me, then, you mean?
+
+_Clarkson_--Oh! as for that; yes, fight as much as you like.
+
+_Septmonts_--Very well; when I have finished with the other, you and I
+will have our business together.
+
+_Clarkson_--Say the day after to-morrow, then?
+
+_Septmonts_--The day after to-morrow.
+
+_Clarkson_--Stop; I must start off by to-morrow night, at the latest.
+
+_Septmonts_--You can wait. And while waiting, leave me!
+
+_Clarkson_--Duke, do I look like a man to whom to say "leave" in that
+tone, and who goes? Now look at me; it isn't hard to see what I have
+decided. I don't mean you to fight with Gerard before you have fought
+with me. If Gerard kills you, I shan't have the pleasure of crossing
+swords with "one of the first fencers in Paris," which it will amuse
+me to do. If you kill him, you cause irreparable misfortunes. If you
+think I'm going to let you kill a man who has saved me twenty-five per
+cent. in the cost of washing gold, you are mistaken! Come, prove you
+are brave, even when you aren't sure of being the stronger! Go and get
+a good pair of swords from your room (since the sword is your favorite
+weapon--mine, too, for the matter of that), and follow me to those
+great bare grounds back of your house. On my way here I was wondering
+why in goodness's name they were not utilized. In the heart of the
+city they must be worth a good deal! We will prove it. As for seconds,
+umpires of the point of honor, we'll have the people who pass by in
+the street--if any do pass.
+
+    [_Septmonts rushes in a fury toward the door, but when there
+    stretches his hand toward the bell. Clarkson throws himself
+    between him and the bell._]
+
+_Clarkson_--Ah! no ringing, please! Don't play the Louis XV.
+gentleman, and order your servants to cudgel a poor beggar! or as sure
+as my name is Clarkson, I'll slap your face, sir, before all your
+lackeys!
+
+_Septmonts_--Very well, so be it! I _will_ begin with you. [_Angrily
+hastens from the room for the weapons._]
+
+_Clarkson_--Quite right! [_Looking coolly at his watch._] Let me see;
+why, perhaps I _can_ get away from Paris this evening after all. [_He
+goes calmly out at the back toward the darkened garden._]
+
+    [_The Duchess of Septmonts has pulled aside the portiere and
+    looks toward the door by which her husband and Mr. Clarkson
+    have gone out. She is very much agitated, and can hardly
+    walk. She rings the bell, and then makes an effort to appear
+    calm. The servant comes in._]
+
+_Catherine_ [_tremulously, to the servant_]--Ask my father to come
+here, immediately. [_The servant goes out. Catherine looks toward the
+window and makes a movement to go to it._] No, I will not look out! I
+will not know anything! I do not know anything; I have _heard_
+nothing; the minutes that that hand marks upon the clock, no one knows
+what they say to me. One of them will decide my life! Even if I had
+heard nothing, things would take the turn that they have, and I should
+merely be amazed in knowing of them. Instead of knowing nothing, I
+have merely to remember nothing. But no, no,--I am trying in vain to
+smother the voice of my own conscience! What I am doing is wicked.
+From the moment that I have known anything about this, I am an
+accomplice; and if one of these two men is killed he has been killed
+with my consent. No, I cannot and I will not. [_She runs toward the
+door. As she does so Mrs. Clarkson enters hastily._] You, you, madam!
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Were you not really expecting me to-day, madam? My
+husband sends me a note to say that you--and he--wish to speak to me
+immediately.
+
+_Catherine_--Madam, since Mr. Clarkson has written you, there has
+occurred a thing which neither your husband, nor I, nor you yourself
+could foresee.
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--What do you mean?
+
+_Catherine_--While my husband the duke has been explaining to Mr.
+Clarkson the reasons of the duel,--which you, you, madam, have
+provoked,--your husband, who did not find these reasons either
+sufficient or honorable, has undertaken to defend us--Gerard, yes,
+Gerard, and me,--and so very forcibly, that at this instant--
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--They are fighting?
+
+_Catherine_--Yes, yes, only a few steps away from here!
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Ah! That sounds like Clarkson! [_She takes a step
+toward the door._]
+
+_Catherine_--Madam, that duel must not go on.
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Why not?
+
+_Catherine_--I will not permit these two men to lose their lives on my
+account.
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--You? What difference does it make to you? They are
+not doing anything but what they chose to do. "Hands off," as the
+officials at the gaming-tables say when the ball has stopped rolling.
+You have wished to be free, haven't you? and you are perfectly right;
+you never said so to anybody, but you begged it all the same of One
+who can do anything. He has heard your prayer, and he has made use of
+me to save you; of me, who have been anxious to destroy you! That is
+justice; and do you think that I object--I who am to be the loser? In
+the game that I play with Destiny, every time I make up my mind that
+God is against me, I bow my head and throw up the game. I don't fear
+any one except God. He is on your side. Let us talk no more about it.
+
+    [_Just as she is speaking the last words, Clarkson comes in.
+    He is very grave._]
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--See there. You are a widow.
+
+_Clarkson_ [_to Mrs. Clarkson_]--My dear Noemi, will you be so kind as
+to hand that paper to our friend the duchess. She will perhaps feel
+some embarrassment in taking it directly from my hand--and it is a
+thing that must be returned to her. Such was the last wish of her
+husband; he really did not have time to tell me as much, but I fancy
+that I guess it right.
+
+    [_Mrs. Clarkson calmly takes the letter and goes to
+    Catherine._]
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--I once said to your friend M. Remonin that if I lost
+my game I would lose like one who plays fair. Madam, it was through me
+that your marriage came to pass; and now it is through me that your
+marriage--is dissolved. [_Turning to Clarkson._] And now, Clarkson, my
+dear, let us get out of this. You are a good and a brave fellow. I
+will go anywhere with you. I have had enough of Europe--things here
+are too small. Do you know, I really believe I am going to find myself
+in love with you! Come, let us go! I am positively smothering.
+
+_Clarkson_--Yes, let us go.
+
+    [_At the moment that Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson are going out,
+    servants and police officials, accompanied by a commissioner
+    of the police service, appear in the door. Clarkson is
+    pointed out._]
+
+_Commissioner_--I beg your pardon, monsieur,--there seems to have
+been--a murder here.
+
+_Clarkson_--Oh no, monsieur, not at all a murder--only a duel.
+
+_Commissioner_--And am I to understand, monsieur, that it is you who--
+
+_Clarkson_--Oh yes, monsieur, it is I. You have come to take me into
+custody?
+
+_Commissioner_--Yes, monsieur.
+
+_Clarkson_--What a ridiculous country! I am ready to follow you,
+monsieur. But I am an American citizen. I shall give you bail--but of
+course, the law before anything....
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Reckon on me, Clarkson. _I_ shall take charge of this
+matter.
+
+_Clarkson_--How are you going to do that?
+
+_Mrs. Clarkson_--Oh, that's my affair.
+
+    [_Mrs. Clarkson crosses the stage and whispers a word to the
+    commissioner. The commissioner bows very respectfully. Mrs.
+    Clarkson goes out._]
+
+_Commissioner_ [_to Dr. Remonin_]--You are a doctor, monsieur?
+
+_Remonin_--Yes, monsieur.
+
+_Commissioner_--Will you have the goodness to give a certificate of
+death?
+
+_Remonin_ [_significantly_]--With great pleasure!
+
+    Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
+    E. Irenaeus Stevenson
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE DU MAURIER
+
+(1834-1896)
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER]
+
+
+George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was born in Paris on March
+6th, 1834, and his early life was passed there. His father was a
+Frenchman, who had married an Englishwoman in Paris. The Du Mauriers
+came of an old family in Brittany, Du Maurier's grandfather having
+been a small _rentier_, who derived his living from glass-works.
+During Du Maurier's childhood his parents removed to Belgium and
+thence to London. At seventeen years of age he tried for a degree at
+the Sorbonne in Paris, but was not successful; and he was put, much
+against his will, to study chemistry under Dr. Williamson at
+University College, London. Du Maurier's father, whose characteristics
+are described in 'Peter Ibbetson,' was an amateur of science. It has
+been hinted by the son that certain unlucky experiments, which were
+the result of the elder Du Maurier's fancy for the natural sciences,
+considerably impaired the family fortunes. The father had bent his
+heart on the son's being a man of science, but the son's tastes were
+all for art. He did therefore little good in his chemical studies.
+
+Du Maurier's father died in 1856, and he then devoted himself
+definitely to art. He worked at the British Museum, and made
+considerable progress there. He next went to Paris, and lived the life
+which he has described in 'Trilby.' In 1857 he attended the Academy at
+Antwerp, and studied under De Kaiser and Van Lerius. His severe
+studies at Antwerp had the result that his sight was seriously
+impaired, and he lost the use of his left eye. After two years of
+enforced idleness he went to London to seek his fortune. An old
+acquaintance of his student life in Paris introduced him to Charles
+Reade, who in turn introduced him to Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch.
+Through these acquaintances he obtained employment in drawing for Once
+a Week, Punch, and the Cornhill Magazine. On the death of Leech in
+1864 he was regularly attached to the staff of Punch, and till the
+time of his death continued to work for that periodical with
+ever-increasing success. It is not too much to say that for many years
+Punch was chiefly and mainly Du Maurier. He early marked out for
+himself an entirely new path, which was not in the direction of
+caricature or broad comedy; grace, sentiment, and wit, rather than
+fun, were the characteristics of his work. He confined himself almost
+entirely to society, so that his field was a narrower one than that of
+some of his coadjutors. He had not, for instance, the masculine
+breadth of Leech, who represented with great strength and humor the
+chief characters of English life,--the parson, the soldier, the
+merchant, the farmer, etc.
+
+Du Maurier was almost entirely a carpet knight. He drew London
+society, and a certain phase of London society. The particular society
+which he represented is of very recent existence. Thirty years ago
+there was but one society in London. This was simply the ancient
+aristocratic society of England, which gathered in London in the
+season. It is true that there was an artistic society in London at
+that time, but it was quite apart and of little general recognition or
+influence. But since then there has come up in London a society made
+up chiefly of artists, professional people, and successful merchants
+(having moreover its points of contact with the old society), which is
+very strong and influential. It is this which Du Maurier knew, and
+which he represented. Even here, however, the types he has selected
+for description were very special. But they were presented with so
+much grace and charm that the public never tired of them. To his type
+of woman he was especially faithful: the tall woman with long throat
+and well-defined chin, much resembling the figures of Burne-Jones and
+Rossetti, only somewhat more mundane. We have the same woman in the
+heroine of 'Trilby.'
+
+Though Du Maurier, before beginning 'Peter Ibbetson,' had never
+written a book, he had had considerable literary experience, for he is
+said to have spent as much time upon the construction of the dialogues
+which accompanied his pictures as upon the pictures themselves. The
+story of 'Peter Ibbetson' he had often related to his friends, who had
+urged him to write it down. This he finally did,--at the special
+instance, it is said, of Henry James. It appeared in Harper's Magazine
+in 1891. 'Trilby' was published in 1894 in Harper's Magazine, and at
+once attained a great popular success. The publishers estimate that
+about 250,000 copies of the book have been sold. Du Maurier had sold
+the book outright for L2,000, but when it became apparent that the
+work was to be a success, the publishers admitted the author to a
+royalty, paying at one time $40,000. They also shared with him the
+large sums paid for the dramatization of the work. For 'The Martian,'
+his last novel, he received L10,000 outright. This also was published
+in Harper's Magazine.
+
+It is perhaps too early to pass judgment upon the merits of these
+works. They have, no doubt, grave faults. The story of 'Peter
+Ibbetson' has been completed when it is but two-thirds told. The
+remaining portion of the book is a dream. This is of course a
+dangerous reversal of the usual method of the story-teller, which is
+to make dreams seem like facts. The hypnotic part of 'Trilby' is said
+by the professional authorities on the subject to be bad science. The
+hypnotism in 'Trilby' was perhaps a journalist's idea, that subject
+being much talked of at the time the book was written. Du Maurier, it
+need hardly be said, was by training a journalist, although the
+training had been of the pencil rather than of the pen. The literary
+style of the novels is curious. It makes no pretensions to finish; the
+grammar even is sometimes at fault. But on the other hand, it has
+decided merits. It is particularly easy, flowing, and simple. These
+are not the qualities we should have expected from the nature of Du
+Maurier's literary training. The brief dialogues which he has for so
+many years appended to his sketches in 'Punch' would have educated, we
+should have thought, the qualities of brevity and point rather than
+those of ease and fullness. Certain peculiarities of the style cannot
+be defended, but the author produces his effects in spite of such
+solecisms. This is true of the matter of his stories as well as of the
+style. They are at many points inartistically constructed; but the
+stuff is good, and the works therefore hold their own in spite of
+these drawbacks. They certainly have one virtue, which is most
+necessary to the success of any work of the imagination: they have
+reality. We believe as we read, and continue to believe after we have
+ceased reading, that the Major and Mimsey and Taffy and Trilby are
+real persons. They are real to us because they have in the first case
+been real to their creator. It is possible, however, that the pictures
+which accompany the text may increase the strength of the illusion.
+
+No book, in recent years at any rate, has had so instantaneous and
+prodigious a popular success as 'Trilby.' Popularity is always hard to
+explain with any certainty. It seems to be a quality in the warp and
+woof of the mind of the man that has it. One condition appears to be
+that he shall be in sympathy with the minds of the mass of his
+fellow-beings. There was such a sympathy in Du Maurier's case; and to
+be more particular, his kindly and friendly enthusiasm was a quality
+to commend him to men. He had a power of enjoying beauty in his
+fellow-beings. Then he had had a long education in the qualities that
+make popularity. He had long studied the art of pleasing. It is not
+improbable that in these novels, which were intended for the American
+public, he may have played upon certain of our national
+susceptibilities. We in this country like to have our literature
+taken seriously by the European. It may be that Du Maurier may have
+had an inkling of this, for it is curious to note how much of our
+poetry appears in these novels. Du Maurier had a very nice taste in
+poetry, a genuine enthusiasm for it which it is heartily to be wished
+were shared by all college professors of English literature. Thus, he
+could not have chosen better lines than those which Peter Ibbetson was
+in the habit of reciting to Mimsey, 'The Water-fowl' of
+Bryant,--perhaps the most perfect poem ever produced in this
+country,--a poem so "beautifully carried," as Matthew Arnold once
+described it to the present writer. Poe's beautiful and musical lines,
+written by him at fourteen,--'Helen, thy beauty is to me,'--are also
+made use of. We have a good deal of Longfellow and other American
+writers. 'Ben Bolt' is of course an American song. These appeals to
+our national predilections may have influenced us. But the interest
+and curiosity of our practical and hard-working American public in the
+Bohemian art life of the Latin Quarter was also, no doubt, a chief
+cause of the popularity of 'Trilby.'
+
+Du Maurier did not live long to enjoy his success. He had always been
+known to his friends as a sensitive man, this quality being ascribed
+to ill health. Ill health was no doubt a chief cause of the vexation
+with which he received certain comments upon his books, in some cases
+inspired by envy of his success. Many of his recent contributions to
+Punch have been at the expense of the unsuccessful author, and have
+supported the thesis that ill success was not an indubitable proof of
+genius. When Lord Wolseley asked him what would be the title of his
+next novel, he said 'Soured by Success.' He died in London on October
+8th, 1896.
+
+
+
+AT THE HEART OF BOHEMIA
+
+From 'Trilby' Copyright 1894, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+And then--well, I happen to forget what sort of a day this particular
+day turned into, about six of the clock.
+
+If it was decently fine, the most of them went off to dine at the
+Restaurant de la Couronne, kept by the Pere Trin, in the Rue de
+Monsieur, who gave you of his best to eat and drink for twenty sols
+Parisis, or one franc in the coin of the empire. Good distending
+soups, omelets that were only too savory, lentils, red and white
+beans, meat so dressed and sauced and seasoned that you didn't know
+whether it was beef or mutton, flesh, fowl, or good red herring,--or
+even bad, for that matter,--nor very greatly care.
+
+And just the same lettuce, radishes, and cheese of Gruyere or Brie as
+you got at the Trois Freres Provencaux (but not the same butter!). And
+to wash it all down, generous wine in wooden "brocs," that stained a
+lovely aesthetic blue everything it was spilled over.
+
+And you hobnobbed with models, male and female, students of law and
+medicine, painters and sculptors, workmen and blanchisseuses and
+grisettes, and found them very good company, and most improving to
+your French, if your French was of the usual British kind, and even to
+some of your manners, if these were very British indeed. And the
+evening was innocently wound up with billiards, cards, or dominoes at
+the Cafe du Luxembourg opposite; or at the Theatre du Luxembourg, in
+the Rue de Madame, to see funny farces with screamingly droll
+Englishmen in them; or still better, at the Jardin Bullier (la
+Closerie des Lilas), to see the students dance the cancan, or try and
+dance it yourself, which is not so easy as it seems; or best of all,
+at the Theatre de l'Odeon, to see Fechter and Madame Doche in the
+'Dame aux Camelias.'
+
+Or if it were not only fine, but a Saturday afternoon into the
+bargain, the Laird would put on a necktie and a few other necessary
+things, and the three friends would walk arm-in-arm to Taffy's hotel
+in the Rue de Seine, and wait outside till he had made himself as
+presentable as the Laird, which did not take very long. And then
+(Little Billee was always presentable) they would, arm-in-arm, the
+huge Taffy in the middle, descend the Rue de Seine and cross a bridge
+to the Cite, and have a look in at the Morgue. Then back again to the
+quays on the Rive Gauche by the Pont Neuf, to wend their way westward;
+now on one side to look at the print and picture shops and the
+magasins of bric-a-brac, and haply sometimes buy thereof, now on the
+other to finger and cheapen the second-hand books for sale on the
+parapet, and even pick one or two utterly unwanted bargains, never to
+be read or opened again.
+
+When they reached the Pont des Arts they would cross it, stopping in
+the middle to look up the river towards the old Cite and Notre Dame,
+eastward, and dream unutterable things and try to utter them. Then
+turning westward, they would gaze at the glowing sky and all it glowed
+upon--the corner of the Tuileries and the Louvre, the many bridges,
+the Chamber of Deputies, the golden river narrowing its perspective
+and broadening its bed, as it went flowing and winding on its way
+between Passy and Grenelle to St. Cloud, to Rouen, to the Havre, to
+England perhaps--where _they_ didn't want to be just then; and they
+would try and express themselves to the effect that life was
+uncommonly well worth living in that particular city at that
+particular time of the day and year and century, at that particular
+epoch of their own mortal and uncertain lives.
+
+Then, still arm-in-arm and chatting gayly, across the court-yard of
+the Louvre, through gilded gates well guarded by reckless imperial
+Zouaves, up the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as far as the Rue Castiglione,
+where they would stare with greedy eyes at the window of the great
+corner pastry-cook, and marvel at the beautiful assortment of bonbons,
+pralines, dragees, marrons glaces--saccharine, crystalline substances
+of all kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an illumination;
+precious stones, delicately frosted sweets, pearls and diamonds so
+arranged as to melt in the mouth; especially, at this particular time
+of the year, the monstrous Easter eggs of enchanting hue, enshrined
+like costly jewels in caskets of satin and gold; and the Laird, who
+was well read in his English classics and liked to show it, would
+opine that "they managed these things better in France."
+
+Then across the street by a great gate into the Allee des Feuillants,
+and up to the Place de la Concorde--to gaze, but quite without base
+envy, at the smart people coming back from the Bois de Boulogne. For
+even in Paris "carriage people" have a way of looking bored, of taking
+their pleasure sadly, of having nothing to say to each other, as
+though the vibration of so many wheels all rolling home the same way
+every afternoon had hypnotized them into silence, idiocy, and
+melancholia.
+
+And our three musketeers of the brush would speculate on the vanity of
+wealth and rank and fashion; on the satiety that follows in the wake
+of self-indulgence and overtakes it; on the weariness of the pleasures
+that become a toil--as if they knew all about it, had found it all out
+for themselves, and nobody else had ever found it out before!
+
+Then they found out something else--namely, that the sting of healthy
+appetite was becoming intolerable; so they would betake themselves to
+an English eating-house in the Rue de la Madeleine (on the left-hand
+side near the top), where they would renovate their strength and their
+patriotism on British beef and beer, and household bread, and bracing,
+biting, stinging yellow mustard, and horseradish, and noble
+apple-pie, and Cheshire cheese; and get through as much of these in an
+hour or so as they could for talking, talking, talking; such happy
+talk! as full of sanguine hope and enthusiasm, of cocksure
+commendation or condemnation of all painters, dead or alive, of modest
+but firm belief in themselves and each other, as a Paris Easter egg is
+full of sweets and pleasantness (for the young).
+
+And then a stroll on the crowded, well-lighted boulevards, and a bock
+at the cafe there, at a little three-legged marble table right out on
+the genial asphalt pavement, still talking nineteen to the dozen.
+
+Then home by dark old silent streets and some deserted bridge to their
+beloved Latin Quarter, the Morgue gleaming cold and still and fatal in
+the pale lamplight, and Notre Dame pricking up its watchful twin
+towers, which have looked down for so many centuries on so many happy,
+sanguine, expansive youths walking arm-in-arm by twos and threes, and
+forever talking, talking, talking....
+
+The Laird and Little Billee would see Taffy safe to the door of his
+_hotel garni_ in the Rue de Seine, where they would find much to say
+to each other before they said good-night--so much that Taffy and
+Little Billee would see the Laird safe to _his_ door, in the Place St.
+Anatole des Arts. And then a discussion would arise between Taffy and
+the Laird on the immortality of the soul, let us say, or the exact
+meaning of the word "gentleman," or the relative merits of Dickens and
+Thackeray, or some such recondite and quite unhackneyed theme, and
+Taffy and the Laird would escort Little Billee to _his_ door, in the
+Place de l'Odeon, and he would re-escort them both back again, and so
+on till any hour you please.
+
+Or again, if it rained, and Paris through the studio window loomed
+lead-colored, with its shiny slate roofs under skies that were ashen
+and sober, and the wild west wind made woeful music among the
+chimney-pots, and little gray waves ran up the river the wrong way,
+and the Morgue looked chill and dark and wet, and almost uninviting
+(even to three healthy-minded young Britons), they would resolve to
+dine and spend a happy evening at home.
+
+Little Billee, taking with him three francs (or even four), would dive
+into back streets and buy a yard or so of crusty new bread, well
+burned on the flat side, a fillet of beef, a litre of wine, potatoes
+and onions, butter, a little cylindrical cheese called "bondon de
+Neufchatel," tender curly lettuce, with chervil, parsley, spring
+onions, and other fine herbs, and a pod of garlic, which would be
+rubbed on a crust of bread to flavor things with.
+
+Taffy would lay the cloth English-wise, and also make the salad, for
+which, like everybody else I ever met, he had a special receipt of his
+own (putting in the oil first and the vinegar after); and indeed, his
+salads were quite as good as everybody else's.
+
+The Laird, bending over the stove, would cook the onions and beef into
+a savory Scotch mess so cunningly that you could not taste the beef
+for the onions--nor always the onions for the garlic!
+
+And they would dine far better than at le Pere Trin's, far better than
+at the English Restaurant in the Rue de la Madeleine--better than
+anywhere else on earth!
+
+And after dinner, what coffee, roasted and ground on the spot, what
+pipes and cigarettes of "caporal," by the light of the three shaded
+lamps, while the rain beat against the big north window, and the wind
+went howling round the quaint old medieval tower at the corner of the
+Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres (the old street of the bad lepers),
+and the damp logs hissed and crackled in the stove!
+
+What jolly talk into the small hours! Thackeray and Dickens again, and
+Tennyson and Byron (who was "not dead yet" in those days); and Titian
+and Velasquez, and young Millais and Holman Hunt (just out); and
+Monsieur Ingres and Monsieur Delacroix, and Balzac and Stendhal and
+George Sand; and the good Dumas! and Edgar Allan Poe; and the glory
+that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome....
+
+Good, honest, innocent, artless prattle--not of the wisest, perhaps,
+nor redolent of the very highest culture (which by the way can mar as
+well as make), nor leading to any very practical result; but quite
+pathetically sweet from the sincerity and fervor of its convictions, a
+profound belief in their importance, and a proud trust in their
+lifelong immutability.
+
+Oh happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and friendship! oh happy
+times of careless impecuniosity, and youth and hope and health and
+strength and freedom--with all Paris for a playground, and its dear
+old unregenerate Latin Quarter for a workshop and a home!
+
+
+
+CHRISTMAS IN THE LATIN QUARTER
+
+From 'Trilby.' Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+Christmas was drawing near.
+
+There were days when the whole Quartier Latin would veil its
+iniquities under fogs almost worthy of the Thames Valley between
+London Bridge and Westminster, and out of the studio window the
+prospect was a dreary blank. No Morgue! no towers of Notre Dame! not
+even the chimney-pots over the way--not even the little mediaeval toy
+turret at the corner of the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, Little
+Billee's delight!
+
+The stove had to be crammed till its sides grew a dull deep red,
+before one's fingers could hold a brush or squeeze a bladder; one had
+to box or fence at nine in the morning, that one might recover from
+the cold bath and get warm for the rest of the day!
+
+Taffy and the Laird grew pensive and dreamy, childlike and bland; and
+when they talked, it was generally about Christmas at home in merry
+England and the distant land of cakes, and how good it was to be there
+at such a time--hunting, shooting, curling, and endless carouse!
+
+It was Ho! for the jolly West Riding, and Hey! for the bonnets of
+Bonnie Dundee, till they grew quite homesick, and wanted to start by
+the very next train.
+
+They didn't do anything so foolish. They wrote over to friends in
+London for the biggest turkey, the biggest plum-pudding, that could be
+got for love or money, with mince-pies, and holly and mistletoe, and
+sturdy, short, thick English sausages, half a Stilton cheese, and a
+sirloin of beef--two sirloins, in case one should not be enough.
+
+For they meant to have a Homeric feast in the studio on Christmas
+Day--Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee--and invite all the
+delightful chums I have been trying to describe; and that is just why
+I tried to describe them--Durien, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Carnegie,
+Petrolicoconose, l'Zouzou, and Dodor!
+
+The cooking and waiting should be done by Trilby, her friend Angele
+Boisse, M. et Mme. Vinard, and such little Vinards as could be trusted
+with glass and crockery and mince-pies; and if that was not enough,
+they would also cook themselves and wait upon each other.
+
+When dinner should be over, supper was to follow, with scarcely any
+interval to speak of; and to partake of this, other guests should be
+bidden--Svengali and Gecko, and perhaps one or two more. No ladies!
+
+For as the unsusceptible Laird expressed it, in the language of a
+gillie he had once met at a servants' dance in a Highland
+country-house, "Them wimmen spiles the ball!"
+
+Elaborate cards of invitation were sent out, in the designing and
+ornamentation of which the Laird and Taffy exhausted all their fancy
+(Little Billee had no time).
+
+Wines and spirits and English beers were procured at great cost from
+M. E. Delevigne's, in the Rue St. Honore, and liqueurs of every
+description--chartreuse, curacoa, ratafia de cassis, and anisette; no
+expense was spared.
+
+Also truffled galantines of turkey, tongues, hams, rillettes de Tours,
+pates de foie gras, "fromage d'Italie" (which has nothing to do with
+cheese), saucissons d'Arles et de Lyon, with and without garlic, cold
+jellies, peppery and salt--everything that French charcutiers and
+their wives can make out of French pigs, or any other animal whatever,
+beast, bird, or fowl (even cats and rats), for the supper; and sweet
+jellies and cakes, and sweetmeats, and confections of all kinds, from
+the famous pastry-cook at the corner of the Rue Castiglione.
+
+Mouths went watering all day long in joyful anticipation. They water
+somewhat sadly now at the mere remembrance of these delicious
+things--the mere immediate sight or scent of which in these degenerate
+latter days would no longer avail to promote any such delectable
+secretion. Helas! ahime! ach weh! ay de mi! eheu! [Greek: oimot]--in
+point of fact, _alas_!
+
+That is the very exclamation I wanted.
+
+Christmas eve came round. The pieces of resistance and plum-pudding
+and mince-pies had not yet arrived from London--but there was plenty
+of time.
+
+_Les trois Angliches_ dined at le Pere Trin's, as usual, and played
+billiards and dominoes at the Cafe du Luxembourg, and possessed their
+souls in patience till it was time to go and hear the midnight mass at
+the Madeleine, where Roucouly, the great baritone of the Opera
+Comique, was retained to sing Adam's famous Noel.
+
+The whole Quarter seemed alive with the reveillon. It was a clear
+frosty night, with a splendid moon just past the full, and most
+exhilarating was the walk along the quays on the Rive Gauche, over the
+Pont de la Concorde and across the Place thereof, and up the thronged
+Rue de la Madeleine to the massive Parthenaic place of worship that
+always has such a pagan, worldly look of smug and prosperous
+modernity.
+
+They struggled manfully, and found standing and kneeling room among
+that fervent crowd, and heard the impressive service with mixed
+feelings, as became true Britons of very advanced liberal and
+religious opinions; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper
+British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one may be sure).
+
+But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beautiful music, and
+in mere sensuous _attendrissement_ they were quickly in unison with
+all the rest.
+
+For as the clock struck twelve, out pealed the organ, and up rose the
+finest voice in France:
+
+  "Minuit, Chretiens! c'est l'heure solennelle
+  Ou l'Homme-Dieu descendit parmi nous!"
+
+And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little Billee and
+submerged him; swept him off his little legs, swept him out of his
+little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love--love of
+his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that
+is and ever was and ever will be--a very large order indeed, even for
+Little Billee.
+
+And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love to one
+figure especially beloved beyond all the rest--one figure erect on
+high, with arms outstretched to him, in more than common fellowship of
+need: not the sorrowful Figure crowned with thorns, for it was in the
+likeness of a woman; but never that of the Virgin Mother of our Lord.
+
+It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif, all but
+lost amid the scum of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby, weak and
+mortal like himself, and in woeful want of pardon! and in her gray
+dove-like eyes he saw the shining of so great a love that he was
+abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his
+forever, come what would or could.
+
+  "Peuple, debout! Chante ta delivrance!
+  _Noel! Noel! Voici le Redempteur!_"
+
+So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big deep metallic baritone
+bass--above the organ, above the incense, above everything else in the
+world--till the very universe seemed to shake with the rolling thunder
+of that great message of love and forgiveness!
+
+Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to magnify and
+exaggerate all things under the subtle stimulus of sound, and the
+singing human voice had especially strange power to penetrate into his
+inmost depths--even the voice of man!
+
+And what voice but the deepest and gravest and grandest there is, can
+give worthy utterance to such a message as that,--the epitome, the
+abstract, the very essence of all collective humanity's wisdom at its
+best!
+
+
+
+"DREAMING TRUE"
+
+From 'Peter Ibbetson.' Copyright 1891, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+As I sat down on a bench by the old willow (where the rat lived), and
+gazed and gazed, it almost surprised me that the very intensity of my
+desire did not of itself suffice to call up the old familiar faces and
+forms, and conjure away these modern intruders. The power to do this
+seemed almost within my reach: I willed and willed and willed with all
+my might, but in vain; I could not cheat my sight or hearing for a
+moment. There they remained, unconscious and undisturbed, those happy,
+well-mannered, well-appointed little French people, and fed the gold
+and silver fish; and there with an aching heart I left them.
+
+Oh, surely, surely, I cried to myself, we ought to find some means of
+possessing the past more fully and completely than we do. Life is not
+worth living for many of us, if a want so desperate and yet so natural
+can never be satisfied. Memory is but a poor rudimentary thing that we
+had better be without, if it can only lead us to the verge of
+consummation like this, and madden us with a desire it cannot slake.
+The touch of a vanished hand, the sound of a voice that is still, the
+tender grace of a day that is dead, should be ours forever at our beck
+and call, by some exquisite and quite conceivable illusion of the
+senses.
+
+Alas! alas! I have hardly the hope of ever meeting my beloved ones
+again in another life. Oh, to meet their too dimly remembered forms in
+this, just as they once were, by some trick of my own brain! To see
+them with the eye, and hear them with the ear, and tread with them the
+old obliterated ways as in a waking dream! It would be well worth
+going mad, to become such a self-conjurer as that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la Michodiere.
+
+Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still jingling in
+my ears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its ineffable smile,
+still printed on the retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep.
+
+And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real, inner life
+began!
+
+All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbled
+together after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kind
+of nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode;
+everything that I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now
+the strange, vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the
+distressing sense of change and desolation.
+
+As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left
+there was a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three
+feet high and much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger
+than himself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their
+eyes, and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz together
+to an old familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their
+sides; and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon
+I perceived that their crooked faces were not really funny; indeed,
+they were fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious
+that these deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the
+avenue gate for which I was bound--to cut me off, that they might run
+me into the prison, where it was their custom to hang people of a
+Monday morning.
+
+In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue gate, and there
+stood the Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes and a kind
+smile--a heavenly vision of strength and reality.
+
+"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid--those little
+people don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here."
+
+And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; and
+I felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else--some
+strange thing that had happened to me, some new life that I had woke
+up to.
+
+For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my sense of being I,
+myself, which hitherto in my dream (as in all previous dreams up to
+then) had been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazed
+into full, consistent, practical activity--just as it is in life, when
+one is well awake and much interested in what is going on; only with
+perceptions far keener and more alert.
+
+I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and remembered all the
+events of the previous day. I was conscious that my real body,
+undressed and in bed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the
+fourth floor of an _hotel garni_ in the Rue de la Michodiere. I knew
+this perfectly; and yet here was my body too, just as substantial,
+with all my clothes on; my boots rather dusty, my shirt collar damp
+with the heat, for it was hot. With my disengaged hand I felt in my
+trousers pocket; there were my London latch-key, my purse, my
+penknife; my handkerchief in the breast pocket of my coat, and in its
+tail pockets my gloves and pipe-case, and the little water-color box I
+had bought that morning. I looked at my watch; it was going, and
+marked eleven. I pinched myself, I coughed, I did all one usually does
+under the pressure of some immense surprise, to assure myself that I
+was awake; and I _was_, and yet here I stood, actually hand in hand
+with a lady to whom I had never been introduced (and who seemed much
+tickled at my confusion); and staring now at her, now at my old
+school.
+
+The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards, and lo! in its
+place was M. Saindou's _maison d'education_, just as it had been of
+old. I even recognized on the yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry
+mud, made fifteen years ago by a day boy called Parisot, who had
+fallen down in the gutter close by, and thus left his mark on getting
+up again; and it had remained there for months, till it had been
+whitewashed away in the holidays. Here it was anew, after fifteen
+years.
+
+The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus was drawn up
+to the gates of the school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit
+each other, as French horses always did in those days. The driver
+swore at them perfunctorily.
+
+A crowd was looking on--le Pere et la Mere Francois, Madame Liard the
+grocer's wife, and other people, whom I remembered at once with
+delight. Just in front of us a small boy and girl were looking on,
+like the rest, and I recognized the back and the cropped head and thin
+legs of Mimsey Seraskier.
+
+A barrel organ was playing a pretty tune I knew quite well, and had
+forgotten.
+
+The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and full of
+self-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen boys whose faces
+and names were quite familiar to me, in smart white trousers and
+shining boots, and silken white bands round their left arms, got into
+the omnibus, and were driven away in a glorified manner--as it
+seemed--to heaven in a golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and
+hear.
+
+I was still holding the duchess's hand, and felt the warmth of it
+through her glove; it stole up my arm like a magnetic current. I was
+in Elysium; a heavenly sense had come over me that at last my
+periphery had been victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine--a
+most powerful and beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault in my
+impenetrable armor of self, after all, and the genius of strength and
+charity and loving-kindness had found it out.
+
+"Now you're dreaming true," she said. "Where are those boys going?"
+
+"To church, to make their _premiere communion_," I replied.
+
+"That's right. You're dreaming true because I've got you by the hand.
+Do you know that tune?"
+
+I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of the past, and I
+said them to her, and she laughed again, with her eyes screwed up
+deliciously.
+
+"Quite right--quite!" she exclaimed. "How odd that you should know
+them! How well you pronounce French for an Englishman! For you are Mr.
+Ibbetson, Lady Cray's architect?"
+
+I assented, and she let go my hand.
+
+The street was full of people--familiar forms and faces and voices,
+chatting together and looking down the road after the yellow omnibus;
+old attitudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old forgotten French
+ways of speech--all as it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we
+walked up the now deserted avenue.
+
+The happiness, the enchantment of it all! Could it be that I was dead,
+that I had died suddenly in my sleep, at the hotel in the Rue de la
+Michodiere? Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead too--had
+been killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to Paris? and
+that, both having died, so near each other, we had begun our eternal
+after-life in this heavenly fashion?
+
+That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told me that
+this was not death, but transcendent earthly life--and also, alas!
+that it would not endure forever!
+
+I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every movement of
+her body, every detail of her dress,--more so than I could have been
+in actual life,--and said to myself, "Whatever this is, it is no
+dream." But I felt there was about me the unspeakable elation which
+can come to us only in our waking moments when we are at our very
+best; and then only feebly, in comparison with this, and to many of us
+never. It never had to me, since that morning when I had found the
+little wheelbarrow.
+
+I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a slight
+touch of the dream in it. It was no longer quite right, and was
+getting out of drawing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my
+stay--the touch of her hand.
+
+"Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson?"
+
+"I am afraid not quite," I replied.
+
+"You must try by yourself a little--try hard. Look at this house; what
+is written on the portico?"
+
+I saw written in gold letters the words "Tete Noire," and said so.
+
+She rippled with laughter, and said, "No, try again;" and just touched
+me with the tip of her finger for a moment.
+
+I tried again, and said "Parvis Notre Dame."
+
+"That's rather better," she said, and touched me again; and I read,
+"Parva sed Apta," as I had so often read there before in old days.
+
+"And now look at that old house over there," pointing to my old home;
+"how many windows are there in the top story?"
+
+I said seven.
+
+"No; there are five. Look again!" and there were five; and the whole
+house was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it had been once
+upon a time. I could see Therese through one of the windows, making my
+bed.
+
+"That's better," said the duchess; "you will soon do it--it's very
+easy--_ce n'est que le premier pas_! My father taught me; you must
+always sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your hands
+clasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left,
+unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment cease
+thinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep and
+get there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what you
+were when awake. You must join the dream on to reality. Don't forget.
+And now I will say good-by; but before I go, give me both your hands,
+and look round everywhere as far as your eye can see."
+
+It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes, and through
+them all my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in the whole
+familiar scene, even to the distant woods of Ville d'Avray, a glimpse
+of which was visible through an opening in the trees; even to the
+smoke of a train making its way to Versailles, miles off; and the old
+telegraph, working its black arms on the top of Mont Valerien.
+
+"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward, whenever you
+come here, you will be safe as far as your sight can reach,--from this
+spot,--all through my introduction. See what it is to have a friend at
+court! No more little dancing jailers! And then you can gradually get
+farther by yourself.
+
+"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne--there's
+a gap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything
+plain in front of you--_true_, before you go a step farther, or else
+you'll have to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will
+it, and think yourself as awake, and it will come--on condition, of
+course, that you have been there before. And mind, also, you must take
+care how you touch things or people--you may hear, see, and smell; but
+you mustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about.
+It blurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why,
+but it does. You must remember that everything here is dead and gone
+by. With you and me it is different; we're alive and real--that is,
+_I_ am; and there would seem to be no mistake about your being real
+too, Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you're _not_; and
+why you are here, and what business you have in this my particular
+dream, I cannot understand; no living person has ever come into it
+before. I can't make it out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality
+this afternoon, looking out of the window at the Tete Noire, and you
+are just a stray figment of my over-tired brain--a very agreeable
+figment, I admit; but you don't exist here just now--you can't
+possibly; you are somewhere else, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille,
+perhaps, or fast asleep somewhere, and dreaming of French churches and
+palaces, and public fountains, like a good young British
+architect--otherwise I shouldn't talk to you like this, you may be
+sure!
+
+"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you,
+and you are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come--especially as
+you are only a false dream of mine, for what else _can_ you be? And
+now I must leave you: so good-by."
+
+She disengaged her hands and laughed her angelic laugh, and then
+turned towards the park. I watched her tall straight figure and
+blowing skirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a
+thicket that I remembered well, and she was soon out of sight.
+
+I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had taken
+flight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from my
+possession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.
+
+Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she had
+disappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered this
+would not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream
+of mine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a stray
+figment of my over-tired and excited brain--a _more_ than agreeable
+figment (what else _could_ she be!)--she was also a great lady, and
+had treated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singular
+courtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep
+and strong that my very life was hers to do what she liked with, and
+always had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long as
+there was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an
+acquaintance without a proper introduction, even in France--even in a
+dream. Even in dreams one must be polite, even to stray figments of
+one's tired, sleeping brain.
+
+And then what business had _she_ in _this_, _my_ particular dream--as
+she herself had asked of me?
+
+But _was_ it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville, that I
+had left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was--why I came to
+Paris; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I was
+now fast asleep, its loudly ticking clock, and all the meagre
+furniture. And here was I, broad awake and conscious in the middle of
+an old avenue that had long ceased to exist--that had been built over
+by a huge brick edifice covered with newly painted trellis-work. I saw
+it,--this edifice,--myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was
+everything as it had been when I was a child; and all through the
+agency of this solid phantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose
+warm gloved hands I had only this minute been holding in mine! The
+scent of her gloves was still in my palm. I looked at my watch; it
+marked twenty-three minutes to twelve. All this had happened in less
+than three-quarters of an hour!
+
+Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my steps
+towards my old home, and to my surprise, was just able to look over
+the garden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high.
+
+Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning small
+socks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them)
+half concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. My
+heart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breath was
+short.
+
+At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, rather
+quaintly dressed in a bygone fashion, with a frill round his wide
+shirt collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and
+rather long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a
+very nice little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and
+a gilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it
+was 'Elegant Extracts.' The dog Medor lay asleep in the shade. The
+bees were droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.
+
+A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed the
+garden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into the
+garden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did the
+others. It was Mimsey Seraskier.
+
+I went and sat at my mother's feet, and looked long in her face.
+
+I must not speak to her nor touch her--not even touch her busy hand
+with my lips, or I should "blur the dream."
+
+I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was translating
+Gray's Elegy into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to be
+stumped by the line--
+
+  "And leaves the world to darkness and to me."
+
+Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in her
+mouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She seemed to be stumped
+also; it was an awkward line to translate.
+
+I stooped and put my hand to Medor's nose, and felt his warm breath.
+He wagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey
+said:--
+
+"Regarde Medor, comme il remue la queue! _C'est le Prince Charmant qui
+lui chatouille le bout du nez._"
+
+Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto:--
+
+"Do speak English, Mimsey, please."
+
+O my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar, so
+unutterably dear! I rushed to her and threw myself on my knees at her
+feet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"
+
+A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost.
+All became as a dream--a beautiful dream, but only a dream; and I
+woke.
+
+
+
+BARTY JOSSELIN AT SCHOOL
+
+From 'The Martian'
+
+From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers
+
+
+Indeed, even from his early boyhood, he was the most extraordinarily
+gifted creature I have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of
+spontaneous humorous Crichton to whom all things came easily--and life
+itself as an uncommonly good joke. During that summer term of 1847 I
+did not see very much of him. He was in the class below mine, and took
+up with Laferte and little Bussy-Rabutin, who were first-rate boys,
+and laughed at everything he said, and worshiped him. So did everybody
+else, sooner or later; indeed, it soon became evident that he was a
+most exceptional little person.
+
+In the first place, his beauty was absolutely angelic, as will be
+readily believed by all who have known him since. The mere sight of
+him as a boy made people pity his father and mother for being dead!
+
+Then he had a charming gift of singing little French and English
+ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe, and
+accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar without
+really knowing a note of music. Then he could draw caricatures that
+we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than Cham's or Bertall's or
+Gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. I have dozens of them
+now--they make me laugh still, and bring back memories of which the
+charm is indescribable; and their pathos to me!
+
+And then how funny he was himself, without effort, and with a fun that
+never failed! He was a born buffoon of the graceful kind,--more whelp
+or kitten than monkey--ever playing the fool, in and out of season,
+but somehow always apropos; and French boys love a boy for that more
+than anything else; or did in those days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring
+Norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well-fed,
+well-bred Yorkshire squires), was magnificent. His spirits never
+failed. He could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye;
+this was often tested by M. Dumollard, maitre de mathematiques (et de
+cosmographie), who had a telescope, which, with a little good-will on
+the gazer's part, made Jupiter look as big as the moon, and its moons
+like stars of the first magnitude.
+
+His sense of hearing was also exceptionally keen. He could hear a
+watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which
+ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we
+played blindman's buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell
+every boy he caught hold of--not by feeling him all over like the rest
+of us, but by the mere smell of his hair, or his hands, or his blouse!
+No wonder he was so much more alive than the rest of us! According to
+the amiable, modest, polite, delicately humorous, and ever tolerant
+and considerate Professor Max Nordau, this perfection of the olfactory
+sense proclaims poor Barty a degenerate! I only wish there were a few
+more like him, and that I were a little more like him myself!
+
+By the way, how proud young Germany must feel of its enlightened Max,
+and how fond of him, to be sure! _Mes compliments!_
+
+But the most astounding thing of all (it seems incredible, but all the
+world knows it by this time, and it will be accounted for later on) is
+that at certain times and seasons Barty knew by an infallible instinct
+_where the north was_, to a point. Most of my readers will remember
+his extraordinary evidence as a witness in the "Rangoon" trial, and
+how this power was tested in open court, and how important were the
+issues involved, and how he refused to give any explanation of a gift
+so extraordinary.
+
+It was often tried at school by blindfolding him, and turning him
+round and round till he was giddy, and asking him to point out where
+the North Pole was, or the North Star, and seven or eight times out of
+ten the answer was unerringly right. When he failed, he knew
+beforehand that for the time being he had lost the power, but could
+never say why. Little Doctor Larcher could never get over his surprise
+at this strange phenomenon, nor explain it; and often brought some
+scientific friend from Paris to test it, who was equally nonplussed.
+
+When cross-examined, Barty would merely say:--
+
+"Quelquefois je sais--quelquefois je ne sais pas--mais quand je sais,
+je sais, et il n'y pas a s'y tromper!"
+
+Indeed, on one occasion that I remember well a very strange thing
+happened; he not only pointed out the north with absolute accuracy, as
+he stood carefully blindfolded in the gymnastic ground, after having
+been turned and twisted again and again--but still blindfolded, he
+vaulted the wire fence and ran round to the refectory door, which
+served as the home at rounders, all of us following; and there he
+danced a surprising dance of his own invention, that he called 'La
+Paladine,' the most humorously graceful and grotesque exhibition I
+ever saw; and then, taking a ball out of his pocket, he shouted, "A
+l'amandier!" and threw the ball. Straight and swift it flew, and hit
+the almond tree, which was quite twenty yards off; and after this he
+ran round the yard from base to base, as at "la balle au camp," till
+he reached the camp again.
+
+"If ever he goes blind," said the wondering M. Merovee, "he'll never
+need a dog to lead him about."
+
+"He must have some special friend above!" said Madame Germain
+(Merovee's sister, who was looking on).
+
+_Prophetic words!_ I have never forgotten them, nor the tear that
+glistened in each of her kind eyes as she spoke. She was a deeply
+religious and very emotional person, and loved Barty almost as if he
+were a child of her own.
+
+Such women have strange intuitions.
+
+Barty was often asked to repeat this astonishing performance before
+skeptical people--parents of boys, visitors, etc.--who had been told
+of it, and who believed he could not have been properly blindfolded;
+but he could never be induced to do so.
+
+There was no mistake about the blindfolding--I helped in it myself;
+and he afterwards told me the whole thing was "aussi simple que
+bonjour" if once he felt the north--for then, with his back to the
+refectory door, he knew exactly the position and distance of every
+tree from where he was.
+
+"It's all nonsense about my going blind and being able to do without a
+dog," he added; "I should be just as helpless as any other blind man,
+unless I was in a place I knew as well as my own pocket--like this
+play-ground! Besides, _I_ shan't go blind; nothing will ever happen to
+_my_ eyes--they're the strongest and best in the whole school!"
+
+He said this exultingly, dilating his nostrils and chest; and looked
+proudly up and around, like Ajax defying the lightning.
+
+"But what _do_ you feel when you feel the north, Barty--a kind of
+tingling?" I asked.
+
+"Oh--I feel where it is--as if I'd got a mariner's compass trembling
+inside my stomach--and as if I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything in
+the world--as if I could go and have my head chopped off and not care
+a fig."
+
+"Ah, well--I can't make it out--I give it up," I exclaimed.
+
+"So do I," exclaims Barty.
+
+"But tell me, Barty," I whispered--"_have_ you--have you _really_ got
+a--a--_special friend above_?"
+
+"Ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said Barty, and winked at
+me one eye after the other--and went about his business, and I about
+mine.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM DUNBAR
+
+(1465?-1530?)
+
+
+A picturesque figure in a picturesque age is that of William Dunbar,
+court minstrel to James IV., and as Sir Walter Scott declared, "a poet
+unrivaled by any that Scotland has ever produced." Little of his
+personal history is known. Probably he was a native of East Lothian,
+a member of the family of the Earl of March, and a graduate of St.
+Andrews University about the year 1479. After his college days he
+joined the order of Franciscans and became a mendicant friar,
+preaching the queer sermons of his time, and begging his way through
+England and France. Yet in these pilgrimages the young scholar learned
+useful habits of self-denial, saw new phases of human character, and
+above all enjoyed that close communion with nature which is the need
+of the poet. Over and over there is a reflection of this life in that
+fanciful verse, which has caught the color of the morning hours when
+the hedgerows are wet and the grass dewy, when the wild roses scent
+the roadside and the lark is at matins--verse full of the joy of life
+and the hope of youth.
+
+After some years of this vagabond life, Dunbar left the Franciscans
+and attached himself to the court, where he speedily became a
+favorite. His day was one of pageant and show, of masque and
+spectacle, and into its gay assemblage of knights and courtiers,
+ladies and great nobles, Dunbar fitted perfectly. When an embassy was
+sent to England to negotiate the royal marriage with Margaret Tudor,
+Dunbar went along, being specially accredited by the king. He became a
+favorite with the young Princess, and a poem written in honor of the
+city of London, and one descriptive of the Queen's Progress, afford a
+faithful and valuable memorial of this mission. History is fortunate
+when she secures a poet as her scribe. Dunbar is principally known by
+his three poems 'The Thistle and the Rose,' 'The Golden Targe,' and
+'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins.'
+
+The first of these is an allegory celebrating the nuptials of the
+king. It suggests of course the allegories of Chaucer; but Dunbar's
+muse is his own, and the poem springs fresh and clear from native
+fonts. The poet represents himself as awakened by Aurora on a spring
+morning and told to do homage to May. Through the symbolism of the
+court of Nature, who crowns the Lion and Eagle, commissions the
+Thistle and Rose as her handmaidens, and orders their praises sung by
+the assembled birds of earth, the political significance of the
+allegory appears. But 'The Thistle and the Rose,' which is thus made
+to illustrate the union between the two great houses of Scotland and
+England, is far more than the poem of an occasion. It is full of the
+melody and fragrance of spring, saturated with that sensuous delight
+which at this bountiful season fills the veins of Nature. Here Dunbar
+is no longer the court laureate, but the begging friar, wandering
+through the green lanes and finding bed and board under the free
+skies.
+
+'The Golden Targe' is more artificial in construction. It is another
+allegory, descriptive of an encounter between Cupid and Reason, who is
+defended by a golden targe or shield from the attacks of love. Here
+again the rural landscape forms a background to his mimic action.
+Amazons dressed in green fight the battle of Cupid, and vanquish
+Reason, then magically vanish and leave the poet to awake from his
+dream. 'The Golden Targe' was a poem to be read in the royal presence,
+when the court assembled after a day's hunting or an afternoon of
+archery; but it is filled with the ethereal loveliness which only the
+true poet beholds.
+
+It is in 'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins' that Dunbar touches the
+note of seriousness, which characterizes his race and his individual
+genius. This satire is not so unsparing an indictment as the vision of
+Piers Ploughman, and yet it provokes inevitable comparison with the
+older poem. In a dream the poet sees heaven and hell opened. It is the
+eve of Ash Wednesday, and the Devil has commanded a dance to be
+performed by those spirits that had never received absolution. In
+obedience to this command the Seven Deadly Sins present a masque
+before his Satanic Majesty, and it is in the description of this
+grisly performance that Dunbar reveals a new aspect of power. The
+comedy here is not comic, but grotesque and horrid. The vision of the
+Scot is the vision that came to the poets of the 'Inferno' and
+'Paradise Lost,' and it shows that his imagination was capable of the
+loftiest flights.
+
+After the melancholy day of Flodden Field, the Scottish laureateship
+ceased to exist, but it is remarkable that so prominent a man as
+Dunbar should so completely have disappeared from contemporary view
+that his subsequent career and the time of his death are matters of
+doubt. His period is given as between the years 1465 and 1530, but
+these dates are only approximate.
+
+Had Dunbar held his genius in hand as completely as did Chaucer, his
+accomplishment would doubtless have been greater than it was. Yet his
+place in literature is that of one of the most important poets of the
+fifteenth century, the age of Caxton and bookmaking, the time of that
+first flush of radiance which ushered in the full day of Spenser and
+Shakespeare.
+
+
+
+THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE
+
+
+  Quhen Merche wes with variand windis past,
+    And Appryle had, with her silver schouris,
+  Tane leif at Nature with ane orient blast,
+    And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris,
+    Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris
+  Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt,
+  Quhois armony to heir it wes delyt:
+
+  In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay,
+    Me thocht Aurora with hir cristall ene
+  In at the window lukit by the day,
+    And halsit me, with visage paill and grene;
+    On quhois hand a lark sang fro the splene:--
+  Awalk, luvaris, out of you slomering;
+  Se hou the lusty morrow dois up spring.
+
+  Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed up stude,
+    In weid depaynt of mony diverss hew,
+  Sobir, benyng, and full of mansuetude,
+    In brycht atteir of flouris forgit new,
+    Hevinly of color, quhyt, reid, broun and blew,
+  Balmit in dew, and gilt with Phebus bemys;
+  Quhyll all the house illumynit of her lemys.
+
+  Slugird, sche said, awalk annone for schame,
+    And in my honour sum thing thou go wryt;
+  The lark hes done the mirry day proclame,
+    To raise up luvaris with confort and delyt;
+    Yit nocht incressis thy curage to indyt,
+  Quhois hairt sum tyme hes glaid and blisfull bene,
+  Sangis to mak undir the levis grene.
+
+  Than callit sche all flouris that grew on feild,
+    Discirnyng all thair fassionis and effeiris,
+  Upone the awfull Thrissil sche beheld,
+    And saw him kepit with a busche of speiris;
+    Considering him so able for the weiris,
+  A radius croun of rubeis sche him gaif,
+  And said, In feild go furth and fend the laif:
+
+  And sen thou art a King, thou be discreit;
+    Herb without vertew thow hald nocht of sic pryce
+  As herb of vertew and of odour sueit;
+    And lat no nettill vyle, and full of vyce,
+    Hir fallow to the gudly flour-de-lyce;
+  Nor latt no wyld weid, full of churlicheness,
+  Compair hir till the lilleis nobilness.
+
+  Nor hald non udir flour in sic denty
+    As the fresche Rois, of cullour reid and quhyt:
+  For gife thow dois, hurt is thyne honesty;
+    Considring that no flour is so perfyt,
+    So full of vertew, plesans, and delyt,
+  So full of blisful angeilik bewty,
+  Imperiall birth, honour and dignite.
+
+
+
+FROM 'THE GOLDEN TARGE'
+
+
+  Bryght as the stern of day begouth to schyne
+  Quhen gone to bed war Vesper and Lucyne,
+    I raise, and by a rosere did me rest:
+  Up sprang the goldyn candill matutyne,
+  With clere depurit bemes cristallyne
+    Glading the mery foulis in thair nest;
+    Or Phebus was in purpur cape revest
+  Up raise the lark, the hevyn's menstrale fyne
+    In May, in till a morrow myrthfullest.
+
+  Full angellike thir birdis sang thair houris
+  Within thair courtyns grene, in to thair bouris,
+    Apparalit quhite and red, wyth blomes suete;
+  Anamalit was the felde with all colouris,
+  The perly droppis schuke in silvir schouris;
+    Quhill all in balme did branch and levis flete,
+    To part fra Phebus did Aurora grete;
+  Hir cristall teris I saw hyng on the flouris
+    Quhilk he for lufe all drank up with his hete.
+
+  For mirth of May, wyth skippis and wyth hoppis,
+  The birdis sang upon the tender croppis,
+    With curiouse notis, as Venus chapell clerkis;
+  The rosis yong, new spreding of their knoppis,
+  War powderit brycht with hevinly beriall droppis,
+    Throu bemes rede, birnyng as ruby sperkis;
+    The skyes rang for schoutyng of the larkis.
+
+
+
+NO TREASURE AVAILS WITHOUT GLADNESS
+
+
+  Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind
+    The wavering of this wretchit warld of sorrow;
+  To God be humble, and to thy friend be kind,
+    And with thy neighbour gladly lend and borrow:
+    His chance to-nicht, it may be thine to-morrow;
+  Be blyth in heart for ony aventure;
+    For oft with wise men't has been said aforrow
+  Without Gladness availis no Treasure.
+
+  Mak thee gude cheer of it that God thee sendis,
+    For warldis wrak but weilfare nocht availis;
+  Nae gude is thine, save only that thou spendis,
+    Remenant all thou brukis but with bailis:
+    Seek to solace when sadness thee assailis;
+  In dolour lang thy life may not indure,
+    Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sailis;
+  Without Gladness availis no Treasure.
+
+  Follow on pity, flee trouble and debate,
+    With famous folkis hald thy company;
+  Be charitable and humble in thine estate,
+    For warldly honour lastis but a cry:
+    For trouble in erd tak no melancholy;
+  Be rich in patience, give thou in guids be puir;
+    Who livis merry he livis michtily;
+  Without Gladness availis no Treasure.
+
+  Thou sees thir wretches set with sorrow and care
+    To gather guids in all their livis space;
+  And when their bags are full, their selves are bare,
+    And of their riches but the keeping has:
+    While others come to spend it that has grace,
+  Whilk of thy winning no labour had nor cure.
+    Tak thou example, and spend with merriness;
+  Without Gladness availis no Treasure.
+
+  Though all the work that e'er had living wicht
+    Were only thine, no more thy part does fall
+  But meat, drink, clais, and of the lave a sicht,
+    Yet to the Judge thou sall give compt of all;
+    Ane reckoning richt comes of ane ragment small:
+  But just and joyous, do to none injure,
+    Ane Truth sail mak thee strang as ony wall;
+  Without Gladness availis no Treasure.
+
+
+
+
+JEAN VICTOR DURUY
+
+(1811-1894)
+
+[Illustration: JEAN VICTOR DURUY]
+
+
+Duruy, whose monumental works upon Grecian and Roman history have been
+worthily reproduced in England under the editorship of Professor
+Mahaffy, and in America in sumptuous illustrated editions, was a
+figure of the first importance both in the educational and in the
+distinctly literary history of France, throughout nearly half the
+present century. He became one of the "Immortals" in 1884, succeeding
+to the chair of Mignet; but his 'History of Ancient Greece,' which was
+published in 1862, had been already crowned by the Academy. His more
+extensive 'History of the Grecian People,' published in 1885-1887, won
+from the Academy the Jean Renaud prize of 10,000 francs.
+
+He was born September 11th, 1811, of a family employed in the Gobelins
+tapestry works in Paris. His predilection for study secured him an
+opportunity to enter the College of Sainte-Barbe, whence he passed to
+the Normal School.
+
+When he was twenty-two he began teaching history, first at Rheims, and
+then in the College of Henry IV. in Paris. Here he began his literary
+work, mostly upon school-books, of which he wrote many, mainly
+historical and geographical. He received the degree of Doctor of
+Letters in 1853, and became successively Inspector of the Academy of
+Paris, Master of Conferences at the Normal School, Professor of
+History at the Polytechnic School, and Inspector-General of Secondary
+Instruction. During the whole of this period he had been engaged with
+secondary classes, and had become strongly impressed by the faulty
+condition of the primary and secondary schools. In 1863 Louis Napoleon
+put him at the head of the educational system of the empire as
+Minister of Public Instruction. This appointment gave him the
+opportunity to carry out numerous and important secularizing reforms
+which brought him into sharp collision with the clerical party. He
+held his post as minister for six years--six years of struggle with
+the parsimonious disposition of the administration upon the one hand,
+and with the hostile clericals upon the other.
+
+The measures in which he was especially interested were the
+reorganization of the Museum of Natural History, the extension of
+scientific study, the introduction of the study of modern and
+contemporary history in the lyceums (a dreadful experiment, according
+to his opponents), gratuitous and compulsory primary education, the
+improvement of the night schools, and popular classes for adults. He
+was to a large extent successful in all these, except in the direction
+of compulsory education. The efforts which he made to improve the
+instruction given to young girls brought upon him the tempest. The
+bishops, with Monsignor Dupanloup of Orleans at their head, raised a
+veritable crusade, and Pope Pio Nono himself at length entered the
+hostile ranks. Probably in part because of this conflict, he was
+superseded in 1869 and was made a member of the Senate, from which he
+retired to private life, and the prosecution of his literary labors on
+the fall of the empire, in the following year. He died in 1894.
+
+As an author his style is clear and direct. Among his numerous works
+the most important are the two great histories, for which, as for
+other achievements, honors were heaped upon him. In these he laid
+particular stress upon the _milieu_--the conditions of place, time,
+and race. Consequently he has therein written the history of the Greek
+and Roman peoples, and not merely the history of Greece and Rome,--and
+has pictured them, so far as possible, as they looked and felt and
+thought and acted. He exhibits, for example, the growth of the
+magnificent power of Rome, and its decadence; and shows the
+all-conquering empire subdued to the manners, the gods, and the
+institutions of the conquered. And worse:--"They had become enamored
+of the arts, the letters, and the philosophy of Greece, and dying
+Greece had avenged itself by transmitting to them the corruption which
+had dishonored its old age."
+
+The drift of his argument appears in this paragraph, in which he sums
+up his story of the Eternal City:--"In the earlier portion of its
+history may be seen the happy effects of a progressively liberal
+policy; in the later the baneful consequences of absolute power,
+governing a servile society through a venal administration."
+
+
+
+THE NATIONAL POLICY
+
+From the 'History of Rome'
+
+
+The Roman power, till then confined to the West, was now to penetrate
+into another universe,--that of the successors of Alexander. The
+eternal glory of Rome, the immense benefaction by which she effaces
+the memory of so many unjust wars, is to have reunited those two
+worlds that in all former ages were divided in interest, and strangers
+to each other; is to have mingled and fused the brilliant but corrupt
+civilization of the East with the barbaric energy of the West. The
+Mediterranean became a Roman lake,--_mare nostrum_, they said,--and
+the same life circulated on all its shores, called for the first and
+the last time to a common existence.
+
+In this work were employed a century and a half of struggles and
+diplomacy; for Rome, working for a patient aristocracy and not for a
+man, was not compelled to attain her end at a bound. Instead of
+rearing suddenly one of those colossal monarchies formed like the
+statue of gold with feet of clay, she founded slowly an empire which
+fell only under the weight of years and of the Northern hordes. After
+Zama she could have attempted the conquest of Africa, but she left
+Carthage and the Numidians to enfeeble each other. After Cynoscephalae
+and Magnesia, Greece and Asia were all ready for the yoke, but she
+accorded them fifty years more of liberty. This was because, along
+with the pride of the Roman name and the necessity for dominion, she
+always retained some of her ancient virtues. The Popiliuses were more
+numerous than the Verreses. Now she preferred to rule the world; later
+she will put it to pillage. Thus, wherever Rome saw strength she sent
+her legions; all power was broken; the ties of States and leagues were
+shattered; and when her soldiers were recalled they left behind them
+only weakness and anarchy. But the task of the legions accomplished,
+that of the Senate began. After force came craft and diplomacy. Those
+senators, grown old amidst the terrors of the second Punic war, seemed
+now to have less pleasure in arms than in the game of politics,--the
+first, in all ages, of Italian arts.
+
+Several other causes dictated this policy of reserve. Against the
+Gauls, the Samnites, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal,--in other words, for the
+defense of Latium and of Italy,--Rome had employed all her strength;
+it was then a question of her existence: whereas, in the wars with
+Greece and with Asia, her ambition and her pride alone were
+interested; and wisdom demanded that some relaxation be given to the
+plebeians and the allies. The Senate had moreover too many affairs on
+its hands--the wars with Spain, with Corsica, with Cisalpina, and with
+Istria--to admit of its becoming deeply involved in the East.
+Therefore two legions only will fight Philip and Antiochus--that will
+suffice to conquer, but would be too little to despoil them.
+Furthermore, the Senate believed that in penetrating into this Greek
+world, where an old glory concealed so much weakness, they could not
+accord too much to prudence. These pitiless enemies of the Volscians
+and the Samnites will not proceed in their next wars by exterminating
+their adversaries and wasting their country. "It was not with such a
+purpose," said they, "that they came to pour out their blood; they
+took in hand the cause of oppressed Greece." And that language and
+that policy they will not change after victory. The first act of
+Flamininus, on the day after Cynoscephalae, was to proclaim the liberty
+of the Greeks. All who bore that respected name seemed to have the
+right to Roman protection; and the little Greek cities of Caria, and
+of the coasts of Asia and Thrace, received with astonishment their
+liberty from a people that they hardly knew. All were captivated
+by this apparent generosity. None perceived that in restoring
+independence to the cities and States, Rome wished to break up the
+confederations that sought to reorganize and would perhaps have given
+new force to Greece. In isolating them and attaching them to herself
+by grateful ties, she placed them almost insensibly under her
+influence. She made allies of them; and every one knows what the
+allies of Rome became. Thus the Senate was so well satisfied with this
+policy, which created division everywhere and awakened extinct
+rivalries, that for half a century it followed no other.
+
+
+
+RESULTS OF THE ROMAN DOMINION
+
+From the 'History of Rome'
+
+
+Although in literature Rome was but the echo of Greece, she civilized
+all the Western world, for which the Greeks had done nothing. Her
+language, out of which sprang the various languages of the Romance
+nations, is in case of need a means of communication among scholars
+of all countries, and her books will always remain--a wise selection
+being made--the best for the higher culture of the mind. They have
+merited above all others the title of _litterae humaniores_, the
+literature by which men are made. A cardinal, reading the 'Thoughts
+of Marcus Aurelius' (written in Greek, it is true, but written by a
+Roman), exclaimed, "My soul blushes redder than my scarlet at sight of
+the virtues of this Gentile."
+
+Suppose Rome destroyed by Pyrrhus or Hannibal, before Marius and Caesar
+had driven the German tribes back from Gaul: their invasion would have
+been effected five centuries sooner; and since they would have found
+opposed to them only other barbarians, what a long night would have
+settled down upon the world!
+
+It is true that when the Roman people had laid hands upon the
+treasures of Alexander's successors, the scandal of their orgies
+exceeded for a century anything that the East had ever seen; that
+their amusements were sanguinary games or licentious plays; that the
+Roman mind, after receiving a temporary benefit from Greek philosophy,
+went astray in Oriental mysticism; and that finally, after having
+loved liberty, Rome accepted despotism, as if willing to astonish the
+world as much by her great corruption as she did by the greatness of
+her empire.
+
+But can we say that no other age or nation has known servility of
+soul, licentiousness in public amusements, and the conspicuous
+depravity in morals that is always to be seen where indolence and
+wealth are united?
+
+To the legacies left by Rome which have now been enumerated, we must
+add another, which ranks among the most precious. Notwithstanding the
+poetic piety of Virgil, and Livy's official credulity, the dominant
+note of Latin literature is the indifference of Horace, when it is not
+the daring skepticism of Lucretius. To Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, and
+the great jurisconsults, the prime necessity was the free possession
+of themselves, that independence of philosophic thought which they
+owed to Greece. This spirit, begotten of pure reason, was almost
+stifled during the Middle Ages. It reappeared when antiquity was
+recovered. From that day the renascent world set forward again; and
+in the new path France, heir of Athens and of Rome, was long her
+guide--for art in its most charming form, and for thought, developed
+in the light.
+
+Upon a medal of Constantine his son presents to him a globe surmounted
+by a phoenix, symbol of immortality. For once the courtiers were not
+in the wrong. The sacred bird which springs from her own ashes is a
+fitting emblem of this old Rome, dead fifteen centuries ago, yet alive
+to-day through her genius: _Siamo Romani_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best
+literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12, by Various
+
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